“I don’t know.”
“Maya, listen to me. If Vale thinks the notebooks are still in your family’s possession, he won’t stop with your job.”
Fear moved through me, clean and sharp.
“My mother lives alone.”
Nathan was already reaching for his phone. “I’ll send security.”
“No.” I grabbed his wrist. “Not your security. Not your people. I don’t know who I can trust.”
He froze beneath my touch.
Then slowly, he nodded.
“Then we go ourselves.”
I should have said no.
I should have taken a cab, gone to Harper, called my mother, called the police, done anything except step into Nathan Carter’s car again.
But fear has its own logic.
And whatever he had hidden, whatever he had ruined, Nathan knew the shape of the danger better than I did.
We drove through the city in silence.
I called my mother five times.
No answer.
By the sixth, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone.
Nathan drove himself, knuckles white against the steering wheel. The billionaire’s sleek black car cut through traffic, past glass towers and late-night diners, past people who had no idea that somewhere in a quiet neighborhood west of the city, my mother might be in trouble because of a past she had never confessed.
When we reached the small house where I grew up, the porch light was off.
It was never off.
I was out of the car before Nathan killed the engine.
“Maya, wait.”
I didn’t.
The front door was unlocked.
That alone nearly broke me.
“Mom?” I called.
No answer.
The living room looked normal at first glance. The crocheted blanket still folded over the couch. Her reading glasses on the side table. A half-empty mug of tea beside a book.
Then I saw the hallway rug twisted sideways.
A drawer open.
A thin smear of dirt on the floorboards.
Nathan moved in front of me before I could step farther.
