Chapter 4

Jocelyn returned from a week-long "getaway" with Ryan to a house that felt... wrong. The staff was on edge, the usual clockwork precision gone. She called for me, her voice echoing in the cavernous, empty space.

Then she found them. The signed divorce papers, sitting neatly on the center of her massive marble desk. The reason cited was simple: "irreconcilable differences." I wasn't asking for a cent.

Her first reaction wasn't sadness. It was wounded pride. A narcissistic rage. How dare I? She assumed it was a stunt, a desperate plea for attention. She was sure I' d come crawling back within a day, begging for the gilded cage she provided.

When I didn't, her annoyance turned to a frantic, obsessive need to find me, to reassert her control. She used her vast resources, but I had vanished. My bank accounts were closed, my old numbers disconnected. I was a ghost.

A week later, my burner phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. I almost ignored it, but something made me answer.

"Mr. Lester?" The voice was timid. It was Maria, one of the housekeepers. I had always treated her and the rest of the staff with a kindness Jocelyn reserved for her stock portfolio.

"Maria? Is everything okay?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir," she whispered. "But she... she moved him in. Mr. Hughes. He's living here now. In your room."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. Of course she did. "Thank you, Maria. Be careful."

I was about to hang up when a new voice, sharp and cold, cut in. Jocelyn had snatched the phone.

"Ethan. So you're finally answering. Where are you?"

"Does it matter?" I said, my voice calm.

"Stop this pathetic game," she hissed. "I'll give you money. Whatever you want. A million dollars. Just come back and stop embarrassing me."

Money. It was always about money. The only language she understood.

I thought about my father, about my mother's ring, about lying crushed in a car while she fretted over a scratch.

"We're from different worlds, Jocelyn," I said, throwing her own words, the ones she' d used to dismiss my background years ago, back in her face.

I hung up before she could respond. The rage I expected to feel wasn't there. There was just a quiet, clean emptiness.