Rhys calls at noon, and I let it ring four times before answering.
"How are you holding up, firefly?"
The nickname lands wrong now. Like a bruise someone keeps pressing.
"Surviving."
I wedge the phone between my shoulder and ear, reaching for a pen with fingers I refuse to let tremble.
"Milo's fussy, the reporters have turned my street into a parking lot, and I've mainlined enough coffee to vibrate through walls. So, you know. Tuesday."
"You sound tired."
"I am tired."
Silence. I can almost hear him recalibrating.
"I'm coming over. You shouldn't be alone right now, and I have wine that deserves better company than my empty apartment."
"I'm fine."
"Elara." His voice softens, concerned. Tender. The exact tone that made me trust him in the first place. "Talk to me. What's going on?"
What's going on is that I keep seeing your face in that hotel room.
"Nothing. I'm just exhausted."
"You're pulling away. I can feel it. Did someone say something to you?"
My pen stops moving.
"Like what?"
"I don't know. People talk, especially when blood's in the water. Old acquaintances crawling out of the woodwork, society types positioning themselves." A pause, careful. "I just want to make sure no one's getting in your head. Poisoning the well."
"No one's poisoning anything, Rhys. I'm just tired."
"Okay." He doesn't sound convinced. "Then let me come over. Let me take care of you. You don't have to carry this alone."
"Tomorrow. I need today to just... breathe."
"Tomorrow works. I'll clear my afternoon."
His tone lightens, but there's an edge underneath it now. Testing.
"Elara, you know you can tell me anything, right? Whatever's spinning in that head of yours, I'm here."
The words should comfort me. Instead, they feel like fingers tightening around my throat.
"I know."
"Do you? Because you're giving me one-word answers like I'm a stranger, and I'm trying really hard not to take that personally."
Good. Take it personally.
"I'm sorry. Everything just feels like too much right now."
He exhales, and when he speaks again, his voice is raw in a way that almost breaks me.
"I know this is complicated. I know you're dealing with things I can't fix. But please don't disappear on me, Elara. Not now. Not when I finally have you."
Finally have me. Like I'm something to collect.
"I'm not disappearing. I just need space."
"Space."
He repeats the word like it's a foreign language.
"Okay. I can do space. But Elara? Be careful who you talk to while you're spacing. Not everyone who shows up with sympathy has your best interests at heart. And some people will tell you stories designed to make you doubt the one person who's actually been there for you."
There it is. The warning wrapped in protection.
"What kind of stories?"
"Nothing specific. Just... you know how these circles work. The charity scene especially, all those galas where everyone pretends to care about causes while actually stockpiling ammunition."
He sighs, protective and warm.
"I don't want anyone filling your head with ancient gossip about things that may or may not have happened."
He lets the words settle like a gift-wrapped grenade on my doorstep.
"I'll be careful."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"That's my girl."
The relief in his voice sounds real. Maybe it is. Maybe monsters can feel relief too.
"Miss me a little, firefly. Tomorrow can't come fast enough."
The line goes dead, and I realize he's warning me away from something. Which means there's something to find.
I stare at my notes until Tessa's ringtone shatters the silence.
"Tell me you found something."
"I found a hell of a lot more than something."
Her voice is tight, the kind of controlled that means detonation is imminent.
"That arts fundraiser Rhys just casually mentioned? I pulled the donor list. Genevieve Ashford's gallery received a five-hundred-thousand-dollar anonymous donation six months before that event. The money came through three shell companies, all registered in the Caymans, all tracing back to a single beneficial owner."
"Rhys."
"Rhys." She exhales hard. "Elara, this isn't coincidence. He was funding her months before she ever crossed paths with Caspian publicly. Whatever happened between Genevieve and your husband, Rhys was engineering it from the beginning."
I grab my keys before she finishes talking.
***
The Ashford Gallery is all exposed brick and strategic lighting, the kind of space where people pay six figures to feel cultured.
Genevieve stands near the back, honey-blonde hair cascading over cream cashmere.
She sees me coming and goes the color of skim milk.
"We need to talk. Now. Somewhere your staff won't hear me ruin your reputation."
"My office." Barely a whisper. "This way."
The door closes and I don't bother with preamble.
"Five hundred thousand dollars. Shell companies. Your gallery's account." I watch her face cycle through confusion, then recognition, then dread. "Tell me about Rhys Voss."
"I don't understand what this has to do with—"
"Just answer the question, Genevieve. How do you know him?"
She smooths her cashmere like it might protect her.
"We had a... brief involvement. It didn't mean anything."
"Define brief involvement."
"One night. After the arts gala." Her cheeks flush. "He showed up at my apartment, said he couldn't stop thinking about me. Made me feel like the most important woman in the world."
She laughs, bitter and self-aware.
"I know how that sounds. But it felt real at the time."
Same playbook. Same seduction. Same lies in different wrapping paper.
"What else happened that night? Think carefully."
"I don't know what you're looking for. We slept together. He left before morning. I never heard from him again." She shrugs, but her eyes are wet. "Story as old as time."
"Did he give you anything? Ask you to do anything?"
"No, he just—"
She stops. Something shifts behind her eyes.
"He gave me a phone. Said some woman had been harassing Caspian, calling constantly, and he needed someone to answer and scare her off."
She wipes her eyes with trembling fingers.
"He told me exactly what to say. I thought I was helping."
The floor drops out from under me.
"And that didn't even strike you as odd?"
"I wasn't exactly thinking clearly at the time." Defensive now. "I didn't think about it again until—"
She stops, face draining of color as pieces click into place.
"Oh God. That was you calling, wasn't it?"
"That was me. Calling to tell my husband I was pregnant. And you told me 'no one, wrong number' while Rhys was inside you."
She presses a hand to her mouth. Mascara starts its slow descent down porcelain cheeks.
"I didn't know. I swear to God, I didn't know. I thought I was just answering a spam call. I didn't think—"
"No. You didn't."
I should feel rage. I should want to tear her apart for the role she played in my unraveling.
Instead, I just feel hollow.
She's not a villain. She's a prop. Another woman used in Rhys's long game, discarded the moment her usefulness expired.
"He orchestrated the whole thing." My voice sounds far away, clinical. "Stole Caspian's phone. Gave it to you. Climbed into your bed and waited for me to call. Every detail was planned down to the seven words you said to me."
"I'm so sorry." She's crying openly now. "I would take it back if I could. I had no idea I was—"
"I know. If anyone asks, we never had this conversation."
I'm halfway to the door when she speaks again.
"Elara? The whole time, I was just... useful, wasn't I?"
I don't turn around.
"Stay away from the Voss family, Genevieve. All of them. They'll chew you up and use your bones as toothpicks."
I make it to my car before the shaking starts.