THE TWINS WHO CLAIMED ME

I had exactly three minutes to find the truth before the devil returned home, and I was wasting precious seconds staring at a locked drawer.

The grandfather clock in the west wing study had struck midnight two minutes ago. Its chime still echoed through the marble halls like a death knell, counting down the moments until the housekeeper's nightly security sweep. Downstairs, the party raged on clinking champagne flutes, hollow laughter, the heavy bass vibrating through the floorboards. Up here, in the shadows of the master's private sanctuary, I was invisible. Just Anne Delaware, the new maid, dusting the spines of leather-bound books that cost more than my entire life.

I wasn't supposed to be in this room. The head housekeeper had strictly forbidden the staff from entering the master's private study. But I hadn't spent three weeks memorizing the Pillar mansion's security rotations, charming the head gardener into revealing the family's darkest secrets, and stitching a hidden pocket into my uniform for nothing. My mother died a broken woman because of the Pillar family, and I knew the evidence of their betrayal was hidden somewhere in this mansion. I just hadn't expected my search to be interrupted.

The heavy oak door slammed open with enough force to rattle the crystal chandelier.

I dropped my hand from the drawer, snatching up a feather duster and spinning around, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I pressed my back against the bookshelf, willing myself to melt into the shadows. My fingers found the small tear in my apron where I'd hidden a lockpick, but I forced myself to release it. Not yet. Not unless I had no other choice.

Two men stormed in, identical in face but opposite in every other conceivable way. Jerry Pillar, captain of Chicago's most feared hockey team, wore a tailored black suit that did nothing to hide the raw, athletic power coiled in his shoulders. His tie was already loosened, his jaw tight with a familiar, simmering aggression. Behind him, Jefferson Pillar, the feared lord of the city's most dangerous motorcycle club, filled the doorway. He was clad in worn leather, smelling of asphalt, whiskey, and smoke, his dark hair a chaotic mess and a fresh cut slicing through his eyebrow.

I catalogued everything in a single breath. The window behind Jerry's desk twelve feet away, locked, alarmed. The drawer I'd been trying to open was still closed, but the lock was old, pickable. The security panel by the door Jefferson's massive frame currently blocked it. Two exits. Both compromised.

"You had no right to interfere with the Southside deal, Jerry," Jefferson growled, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that seemed to vibrate straight through my chest. He stalked toward the center of the room, his presence sucking the air right out of it. "That was my territory. My men."

"Your men are amateurs," Jerry shot back, his tone icy and precise as he poured himself a glass of amber liquid from the decanter. He didn't even look at his brother, but the tension radiating from him was a physical force. "They almost got the entire operation shut down. I stepped in to save your ass. As usual."

"I don't need saving," Jefferson sneered, stepping into Jerry's space. They were inches apart now, a mirror image of violence and wealth. "I needed you to stay out of my way."

I inched toward the door, my soft-soled shoes silent on the Persian rug. Jerry was a controlled, strategic type who calculated every move before he made it. Jefferson was impulsive, unpredictable, the type who acted first and asked questions never. If I had to manipulate one of them, it would be Jerry. He was used to people obeying him, which meant he'd underestimate anyone who didn't.

"Don't move."

Jerry's voice cut through the room like a blade. He hadn't even raised his head, but his dark eyes were suddenly fixed on me in the reflection of the antique mirror behind the bar. I froze, my blood turning to ice water.

Jefferson's head whipped around, his piercing gaze landing on me with the force of a physical blow. He didn't say anything. He simply walked to the door, his heavy boots deliberate on the hardwood, and clicked the lock into place. The sound echoed through the silent room like a gunshot.

"Well, well," Jefferson murmured, turning back to face me. A slow smirk curved his lips. "What do we have here? A little mouse, scurrying around where she doesn't belong."

"I I was just dusting, Mr. Pillar," I stammered, forcing my voice to remain steady, submissive. I clutched the feather duster to my chest like a shield. "I'm sorry to intrude. I'll leave immediately.

I took a step toward the door, knowing it was locked, knowing I was trapped. But I needed to see how they'd react. I needed to know which brother would move first.

Jefferson reached me before I could blink. He moved with a fluid grace that belied his large frame, his rough, calloused fingers catching my chin and tilting my face up to meet his. His touch was electric, a spark of danger that shot straight down my spine. I let him see the fear in my eyes. I let my lower lip tremble. Men like Jefferson fed on fear, and I needed him to think I was nothing more than a terrified servant.

"Jerry, look at her," Jefferson said, his voice dropping an octave, laced with dark amusement. "She's trembling. Like a little rabbit caught in a trap."

Jerry finally turned, his glass of whiskey forgotten on the bar. He walked toward us with the deliberate, measured stride of a man who was used to owning everything in his path. He stopped just behind his brother, his eyes raking over my uniform, the plain black dress, the white apron, the hair pulled back in a severe bun. But his gaze wasn't dismissive. It was hot, intense, and deeply unsettling.

"She's the new maid," Jerry stated, though it sounded more like a question. His eyes narrowed, assessing me. "The one who transferred from the agency last week."

"Yes, sir," I whispered, my throat dry. Three weeks. I'd been here three weeks, and he already knew my name. That was a problem.

"You're hiding something," Jerry said softly, taking a step closer. He was so close now I could smell his cologne clean, sharp, and expensive. "I can see it in your eyes. You're not just dusting, are you, Anne?"

My heart nearly stopped. He was too observant. Too dangerous.

"I assure you, sir, I was only"

"Don't lie to me," Jerry interrupted, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. He reached out, his fingers brushing against the collar of my uniform, sending a shiver across my skin. "I don't like liars."

Jefferson chuckled darkly, his grip on my chin tightening just enough to be a warning. He leaned in close, his breath warm against my ear. "You heard him, little mouse. My brother doesn't like liars. And neither do I. So why don't you tell us what you were really doing in our father's study?"

Think, Anne. The window was twelve feet away. The drawer was still unlocked. If I could just get them to turn around for three seconds

"I was just trying to do my job," I insisted, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to remain calm.

Jerry's eyes flickered down to my hand, which was still clutching the duster. But then his gaze shifted to the floor just behind my feet. I followed his stare, and my blood ran cold.

The small, silver locket I wore around my neck, the only thing I had left of my mother, had snapped from its chain during my panic. It lay on the Persian rug, the clasp broken, the tiny picture inside exposed.

Jerry bent down, picking up the locket with two fingers. He examined it, his expression unreadable.

Then his fingers stopped

He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking at the photograph.

The room went deathly quiet. Even Jefferson's grip on my chin loosened as he watched his brother's face transform. The cold, calculating mask Jerry wore slipped, just for a fraction of a second, and something else flickered beneath the surface. Something raw.

"Where did you get this?" Jerry's voice had changed. It was no longer the smooth, controlled tone of a man who owned the world. It was rougher. Thinner. Almost afraid.

I said nothing. I couldn't. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst from my chest.

Jerry's eyes lifted to mine, and for the first time that night, he looked at me not as a maid, not as a trespasser, but as something else entirely. Something that unsettled him.

"This is my father," he said slowly, his voice barely above a whisper. He turned the locket toward me, and there it was the photograph I'd stared at a thousand times. My mother, young and smiling, standing beside the late Mr. Pillar. Their shoulders are touching. Their hands intertwined.

"And this woman," Jerry's jaw tightened. "Who is she?"

The grandfather clock in the hall struck twelve-fifteen. The security sweep would begin in five minutes. If I didn't get out of this room, I'd lose everything.

But as I looked into Jerry Pillar's eyes, those dark, dangerous eyes that had haunted my nightmares for years, I realized I wasn't the only one who had secrets.

"My mother," I said, my voice steady for the first time since they'd walked in. "Her name was Eleanor Delaware. And your father destroyed her."

Jefferson went completely still behind me. The air in the room thickened, heavy with unspoken accusations and decades of buried lies. For a long moment, no one breathed.

Then Jerry's hand closed around the locket, his knuckles white. He didn't give it back.

"You're not leaving this house tonight," he said, his voice cold and absolute.

Jefferson stepped closer, his chest pressing against my back, trapping me between them. His voice was a low rumble against my ear.

"Not until we know why our father was standing beside your mother."

I had come to the Pillar mansion to ruin them, to avenge the woman they'd destroyed. But as the identical twins closed in on me, their dark eyes promising something far more dangerous than violence, I realized the terrifying truth.

I was no longer the hunter.

I was the prey.

And the Pillar brothers weren't going to let me go until they'd uncovered every secret I'd buried.

Jerry turned the locket over in his palm, his thumb tracing the worn silver edge. His expression was unreadable, but his voice carried a weight that made my blood run cold.

"There's something else," he said quietly, almost to himself. He held the locket up to the light, and I saw a tiny inscription I'd never noticed before, carved into the back. Three letters. Three numbers.

E.D. 1999.

Jefferson leaned over his brother's shoulder, his jaw tightening. "That's the year before we were born."

The clock struck twelve-sixteen.

I had four minutes until the security sweep.

And I was running out of time.

Jerry's thumb traced the inscription again, slower this time, as if the worn silver might surrender more secrets if he applied enough pressure. The lamp on his father's desk cast a weak golden glow across the locket's surface, illuminating the tiny grooves of the engraving I'd never noticed in ten years of wearing it against my skin.

E.D. 1999.

The year before the twins were born.

"How long have you had this?" Jerry asked, his voice stripped of its earlier bite. He wasn't looking at me. He was still staring at the locket, his jaw set in a hard line that made the resemblance to his father almost unbearable.

"Since I was twelve," I said. It was the truth, or close enough to it. "My mother left it to me when she died."

"Your mother," Jefferson repeated from behind me, his voice carrying a dangerous edge. "Eleanor Delaware."

The way he said her name slowly, deliberately, like he was testing the syllables for a lie sent a fresh spike of unease through me. I turned my head just enough to catch his expression. He was watching me with the kind of intensity that made me feel stripped bare, every layer of my carefully constructed disguise peeled back for his inspection.

"You know her name," I said. It wasn't a question.

Jefferson's smirk returned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I know a lot of names, little mouse. The question is why my father's face is pressed against your mother's in a photograph taken before either of us existed."

"Let me see it again." Jerry's command cut through the room before I could answer. He held the locket up, tilting it toward the light, and I caught another glimpse of the image my mother's bright smile, Mr. Pillar's hand resting possessively at the small of her back. They looked happy. They looked like they belonged to each other.

The thought made my stomach turn. My mother had never mentioned a relationship with Alistair Pillar. Not once. She'd only ever spoken of the Pillar family with bitterness and grief, the kind of grief that came from being wronged by people who were supposed to protect you.

"I was a baby when my mother died," I said carefully, choosing each word with precision. "I never knew about this photograph until after she was gone. My grandmother gave it to me, along with the locket. She said it was the only picture my mother kept from her life before."

"Before what?" Jerry asked.

"Before she was forced to leave it behind."

The silence that followed was heavy with implication. Jefferson moved first, circling around to stand beside his brother, his arms crossed over his chest. Up close, the cut above his eyebrow looked fresh, still faintly red at the edges. He'd been in a fight recently, and from the way he carried himself the loose, coiled readiness in his shoulders he'd won.

"You're lying," he said flatly.

"No," I said, meeting his gaze. "I'm omitting. There's a difference."

Jerry's head lifted, and for the first time since the locket fell, I saw something flicker behind his dark eyes. Interest. Real, dangerous interest. He hadn't expected me to push back.

"Then start filling in the blanks," he said. "What was your mother's connection to our father?"

"I don't know."

"You expect us to believe that?"

"I expect you to believe what I can prove," I said, keeping my voice level despite the tremor building in my chest. "I have no idea what my mother was to your father. I only know what she told me before she died that the Pillar family took everything from her, and that I should never trust anyone with that name."

Jefferson laughed, low and humorless. "So you infiltrated our home, our family's private space, to what? Avenge her? Steal from us? Spy for someone else?"

"To find the truth," I said. "The same truth you're looking for right now."

Jerry set the locket down on the desk, but he didn't release it. His hand stayed curled around the chain, the silver links pooled in his palm like a leash. The gesture was deliberate, possessive. He wanted me to see that he could keep it keep the only piece of my mother I had left if he chose to.

"E.D.," he said slowly, testing the letters. "Eleanor Delaware. But that could also stand for something else."

"What else would it stand for?" I asked, though the question was a trap and we both knew it.

"I don't know yet." Jerry's gaze hadn't left my face. He was reading me the way I'd read the security rotations, picking apart every micro-expression, every hesitation. "But you know more than you're telling me. You're too calm."

I felt my pulse spike, but I forced my breathing to stay even. He was right. I was too calm. A real maid caught snooping in her employer's study would be weeping by now, begging for her job, her visa, her life. But I'd spent three years learning to bury my emotions beneath layers of composure ever since the night my grandmother died and left me with nothing but a locket, a name, and a burning need for answers.

"I'm calm because I've been expecting this conversation since the day I walked through your door," I said, which was true. I'd rehearsed dozens of scenarios, dozens of ways this confrontation could go. The only variable I hadn't accounted for was the twins' father staring back at me from my own locket.

Jefferson moved closer, and the air around me thickened with the scent of leather and smoke. He stopped just short of touching me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body. His gaze dropped to my hands, which were still clutching the feather duster, knuckles white against the wooden handle.

"You're holding that thing like a weapon," he observed. "Planning to use it?"

"I'm planning to finish my shift and leave," I said. "Unless you're going to stop me."

The challenge hung between us, sharp-edged and reckless. Behind Jefferson, Jerry's expression didn't change, but I caught the subtle shift in his posture the way he leaned back against the desk, settling in to watch. He wanted to see what I would do. He wanted to see how far his brother would push.

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed twelve-fourteen. The security sweep would begin in one minute. If the guard found the study door locked from the inside, there would be questions. If he found two of the Pillar heirs inside with a maid, there would be a scandal.

But if I didn't use this moment to get more information, the entire night would be a waste.

I made a decision. A reckless one, but a decision nonetheless.

"I'll make you a deal," I said, squaring my shoulders. "You want the truth about your father and my mother. I want the locket back. Let me go now, before the security sweep finds us all here, and tomorrow I'll give you something better than a photograph. I'll give you a name."

Jerry's eyes narrowed. "What name?"

I hesitated for half a heartbeat, weighing the risk. I didn't have a name. Not yet. But I had a theory, a suspicion I'd been nursing for months: a theory that the blackmailer who'd driven my mother to her grave was still alive, still powerful, and still connected to the Pillar family. If I was right, the name would be worth more than gold. If I was wrong, I was about to gamble my life on a bluff.

"The name of the man who was blackmailing your father," I said. "The man who might have killed him."

The words landed like a grenade. Jefferson went rigid, every muscle in his body locking up. Jerry, by contrast, went utterly still a predator deciding whether to strike or retreat. For a long, suspended moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Jerry stood, pocketing the locket in one fluid motion. He walked toward me, and this time, there was nothing controlled about the way he looked at me. His gaze burned with something far more dangerous than suspicion.

"You have twenty-four hours," he said quietly. "If you're not back with that name by midnight tomorrow, I'll have every police officer, every private investigator, and every contact I have in this city hunting you down. And when they find you and they will I'll make sure the only thing your mother's legacy amounts to is a cautionary tale."

Jefferson stepped aside, his smirk returning. "I'll walk you out. Make sure you don't get lost on your way to the exit."

It wasn't a courtesy. It was a threat wrapped in pleasantry. But I didn't argue. I simply nodded, straightened my apron, and followed him out of the study, leaving Jerry alone with my mother's photograph and the weight of a secret that had just gotten infinitely heavier.

Jefferson didn't speak until we reached the service corridor, the narrow passage that connected the mansion's kitchens to the staff quarters. He stopped in the shadows, far from the prying eyes of the remaining party guests, and turned to face me.

"You're interesting," he said, the words almost accusatory. "Most people who lie to my brother end up in the hospital. You didn't even flinch."

"I'm not most people," I said.

"No," he agreed, his eyes trailing down the length of my uniform before snapping back to my face. "You're not. Which means I'm going to be watching you very, very closely."

He leaned in, close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his dark irises, close enough that his breath ghosted across my cheek.

"Don't disappoint me, little mouse."

Then he was gone, melting back into the shadows of the corridor like he'd never been there at all.

I exhaled slowly, pressing a hand to my chest to steady myself. The locket was gone. Jerry had it. But I still had the truth, or part of it, and I still had twenty-four hours to figure out my next move.

What I didn't know was that Jerry wasn't alone in the study when I left. Jefferson had left the door slightly ajar, and through that narrow gap, Jerry had watched me go and then he'd opened the drawer I'd failed to pick, pulled out a file, and read the name at the top.

Eleanor Delaware.

Underneath it, in his father's handwriting, were three words that made no sense:

Trust no one.

But it was the photograph clipped to the file the one that made Jerry's blood run cold that sealed my fate. Because in that photograph, taken a decade after the locket, Eleanor Delaware was holding an infant wrapped in a pale yellow blanket.

And on the back of the photograph, in his father's handwriting, was a name.

Anne.

Jerry stared at the image, his mind racing through timelines that didn't add up. Anne was twenty-four. The photograph was dated fifteen years ago. The baby in the picture couldn't be Anne.

But the infant had the same dark hair. The same stubborn set to its jaw.

And when Jerry looked closer, he saw something that made his chest tighten with a feeling he couldn't name something between dread and a terrible, aching curiosity.

The baby in the photograph had his father's eyes

Jerry didn't move for a full minute after the study door clicked shut behind his brother and the maid. He stood frozen behind his father's desk, the photograph in his hand, his pulse hammering in a rhythm that felt foreign and wrong. He was a man who prided himself on controlling reading situations, opponents, entire games before they unfolded. But this photograph had blindsided him in a way nothing had in years.

A baby. His father's eyes. The name Anne was written in the same handwriting he'd seen on a hundred business documents.

He flipped the photograph over again, searching for a date, a location, anything that might anchor the image to a timeline that made sense. Nothing. Just the name and those three damning words beneath it: Trust no one.

The drawer was still open, the file spread across the desk. Jerry had pulled it from a locked compartment hidden beneath a false bottom a compartment he hadn't known existed until tonight. Inside, there were more photographs. More documents. A birth certificate with a name he didn't recognize. A hospital record from a clinic in rural Wisconsin. And a handwritten letter, dated twenty-five years ago, from his father to a woman named Eleanor Delaware.

He didn't read the letter. Not yet. He needed to think first, to process what he was seeing before he let the words on the page poison his judgment.

Anne Delaware. The maid. The woman who had stood in this very room less than five minutes ago, lying to his face with the composure of someone who'd been trained to deceive. She claimed she didn't know about the photograph. She claimed she was only looking for the truth. But the truth, Jerry was beginning to realize, was far more complicated than a simple case of corporate betrayal.

He reached for his phone, his fingers moving on instinct, and dialed a number he knew by heart. It rang twice before a gruff voice answered.

"I need everything you can find on Eleanor Delaware," Jerry said, his voice flat and businesslike. "And her daughter, Anne. Start with Wisconsin. Late nineties. I want medical records, employment history, and any connection to my father. Call me when you have something."

He hung up before the man on the other end could ask questions. Then he turned back to the file, his eyes drawn once more to the photograph of the baby.

The infant was wrapped in a yellow blanket, its tiny fists curled against its chest. Eleanor Delaware held it with the tenderness of a new mother, her face soft with a love that seemed to radiate from the image itself. But it was the eyes that held Jerry's attention dark and knowing, framed by lashes that were too long for a newborn, too sharp for a child who hadn't yet learned to see the world for what it was.

His father's eyes.

Jerry had spent his entire life being compared to Alistair Pillar. The same calculating intelligence. The same ruthless ambition. The same ability to look at a person and see their weaknesses laid bare. But he'd never seen his father's eyes on anyone else before not Jefferson, not their mother, not any of the business associates who had passed through the mansion over the years.

Until now.

If the baby in this photograph was Anne, then Anne was his sister. Half-sister, at least. The thought made something twist in his chest, something ugly and possessive that he didn't want to examine too closely. But the timeline didn't add up. Anne was twenty-four. The photograph was dated fifteen years ago. That made the baby nine years old at most, not twenty-four.

Unless the date on the photograph was wrong. Unless his father had lied about more than just his affairs.

Jerry pressed his palms flat against the desk, his knuckles going white against the polished mahogany. He needed answers. He needed to know who Anne Delaware really was, why she'd infiltrated his home, and what her mother had meant to his father. But more than that, he needed to understand why his father had hidden this file, why he'd written Trust no one beneath the name Eleanor Delaware, and why he'd kept a photograph of a baby that shared his blood but not his name.

The door behind him creaked open, and Jerry didn't need to turn around to know who it was. Jefferson had a way of filling a room with his presence, even before he spoke.

"You let her go," Jefferson said, closing the door behind him. His voice was carefully neutral, but Jerry could hear the accusation beneath the words. "You actually let her walk out of here."

"I gave her twenty-four hours."

"And you think she'll come back?"

Jerry finally turned, sliding the photograph into the file and closing it with a deliberate snap. Jefferson was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes missing nothing. The cut above his eyebrow had started to scab over, giving him a harder, more dangerous edge than usual

"She'll come back," Jerry said. "She wants the locket."

"She wants more than that." Jefferson pushed off the doorframe and walked toward the desk, his boots heavy on the Persian rug. "She wants revenge. You saw the way she looked at us. She blames our family for something, and she's not going to stop until she gets what she came for."

"Which is exactly why we need to find out what she knows before she disappears."

Jefferson's smirk returned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "And what about you, brother? You looked at that photograph like it was a ghost.

Jerry didn't answer. He couldn't. Because Jefferson was right the photograph was a ghost, a fragment of the past that refused to stay buried. And for the first time in years, Jerry felt something he hadn't felt since he was a child, watching his father walk out the door and never come back.

He felt afraid.

Not Anne. Not of the secrets she carried. But of what those secrets might mean for everything he thought he knew about his family, his father, and himself.

"There's something else," Jerry said, his voice low. He opened the file and pulled out the birth certificate, sliding it across the desk toward his brother. "Look at the name."

Jefferson picked up the document, his brow furrowing as he read. Then his expression went slack, the color draining from his face.

"This is a birth certificate for a baby born in 2000," he said slowly. "The mother is listed as Eleanor Delaware. The father is listed as unknown."

"And the baby's name?"

Jefferson looked up, his eyes meeting Jerry's with a question that neither of them wanted to answer.

"Anne Delaware."

The room went silent. Jerry could hear the distant thump of music from the party downstairs, the muffled laughter of guests who had no idea what was happening in the study above them. He could hear his own heartbeat, slow and steady, counting down the seconds until everything changed.

Anne Delaware was born in 2000. The same year as Jerry and Jefferson. The same month. The same hospital.

Jerry's hands tightened around the edge of the desk. His mind raced through possibilities, discarding each one as quickly as it formed. A coincidence. A clerical error. A lie. But the document was real, the paper yellowed with age, the seal embossed in gold. This was no forgery.

"What the hell is this?" Jefferson asked, his voice rough. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," Jerry said slowly, "that our father may have been keeping a secret that's far bigger than an affair. I'm saying that Anne Delaware might not be who she claims to be. And I'm saying that we need to find her before she disappears for good."

Jefferson stared at the birth certificate for a long moment, his jaw working silently. Then he looked up, his dark eyes blazing with something that was part anger, part confusion, and part something else something that looked almost like betrayal.

"I'll find her," he said. "And when I do, she's going to tell us everything."

"No," Jerry said, his voice sharp. "We do this together. She's already proven she's smarter than she looks. She's been planning this for years, Jeff. If we go in separately, she'll play us against each other."

Jefferson's smirk returned, but there was no humor in it. "She's already playing us, brother. The question is whether we're going to let her win."

The grandfather clock in the hall struck twelve-thirty. The party downstairs was winding down, the music fading, the guests beginning to leave. Soon, the mansion would be quiet. Soon, Jerry and Jefferson would be alone with their secrets and their suspicions.

But Anne Delaware was still out there, somewhere in the city, holding the truth like a weapon.

And Jerry knew, with a certainty that settled into his bones like ice, that the next twenty-four hours would determine not just the future of the Pillar family, but the truth of who they really were.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the locket, running his thumb over the inscription one last time. E.D. 1999. The year before Anne was born. The year before everything changed.

He slipped the locket back into his pocket and looked at his brother, his expression hard and unreadable.

"Find out where she lives," he said. "And send someone to watch her apartment. If she tries to run, we'll know."

"And if she doesn't run?"

Jerry's jaw tightened. "Then we'll be waiting when she comes back. And this time, we won't let her leave until we know exactly what she's hiding."

Jefferson nodded, already pulling out his phone. But before he left, he paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder at his brother.

"You know," he said quietly, "there's a possibility we haven't considered."

"What's that?"

Jefferson's eyes flickered toward the file on the desk, toward the photograph of the baby with their father's eyes.

"What if she's telling the truth? What if she really doesn't know what our father was to her mother? What if she's just as in the dark as we are?

Jerry didn't answer. Because that was the one possibility he hadn't allowed himself to consider the one that would make everything infinitely more complicated

Because if Anne Delaware was innocent, if she was just a woman searching for answers about a mother she barely remembered, then everything they'd done tonight had been a mistake.

And if she wasn't innocent, if she was playing a game they didn't understand, then they were about to find out exactly how dangerous she could be.

Either way, the truth was coming.

And when it arrived, it would change everything.