“You were twenty-three.”
“Yes. And terrified.”
I looked again at the photograph.
“What happened after this?”
“Ryan worked with federal investigators.”
My heart pounded.
“He was a witness?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
Christopher said nothing.
“Where is my brother?”
“I don’t know.”
I leaned closer.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
He took a breath.
“In 2014, Ryan vanished from witness protection.”
My knees weakened.
“What?”
“No one knew whether he ran or was taken.”
“And the locket?”
Christopher touched it.
“He gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I helped him escape my father.”
The room became silent.
I stared at Christopher Bennett, the arrogant billionaire I had been bathing and feeding for weeks.
“You saved him?”
“He saved me first.”
Christopher looked down.
“In 2010, my father discovered I had copied financial records. He planned to send me away.”
“Send you where?”
“Somewhere I wouldn’t come back from.”
I felt cold.
“Ryan found out.”
Christopher smiled sadly.
“He put me in a truck and drove me across three states. He risked his life for me.”
I looked at the locket.
“Why give you that?”
“Ryan said if anything happened to him, I should find Rachel Morgan.”
My breath stopped.
“What?”
“He told me you were his little sister.”
I began crying.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because my father found me first.”
Christopher’s voice cracked for the first time.
“He threatened everyone I cared about. Ryan disappeared. I was forced back into the company.”
“You became part of it.”
“Yes.”
Anger burned through me.
“You became a billionaire.”
“Yes.”
“Using dirty money.”
“At first.”
I looked at him with disgust.
Christopher didn’t defend himself.
“I spent years separating the legitimate companies from my father’s criminal operations. After he died, I turned evidence over to prosecutors.”
“Why wasn’t this public?”
“Deals. Immunity agreements. Sealed investigations.”
I shook my head.
“And your accident?”
Christopher went still.
“What about it?”
“You said it was a car crash.”
“It was.”
“Was it an accident?”
Silence.
That told me enough.
“Christopher.”
“No.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying again.”
His hand tightened on the chair.
“I know who I suspect.”
“Who?”
He looked directly at me.
“My uncle, Marcus Bennett.”
I remembered the name from his nightmares.
“Why?”
“Because Marcus took control of certain company assets after my accident.”
“Assets connected to your father?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the black folder.
“And Ryan?”
Christopher hesitated.
“I think Marcus knows where he is.”
My heart slammed.
“You think Ryan is alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Christopher’s eyes held mine.
“I think there is a chance.”
Everything in me changed.
Seventeen years of grief.
Seventeen years believing my brother was ashes scattered beneath a maple tree.
And now there was a chance.
Tiny.
Impossible.
But real.
“What do we do?”
Christopher stared at me.
“We?”
“You have information.”
“You have no idea how dangerous this is.”
“I buried my brother at twenty-two.”
My voice trembled.
“I raised two children alone. I slept hungry so they could eat. I walked into this house because I was desperate enough to bathe a stranger for money.”
I leaned toward him.
“Do not mistake poverty for weakness.”
Christopher said nothing.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
“Okay.”
