“He’ll say you’re using me.”
“Of course.”
“He’ll say the ring is fake.”
Elie’s mouth tightened. “That one might irritate me.”
Ava finally smiled.
Little.
Brief.
He left before it softened him too much.
The driver turned west.
The city was a blur.
Elijah leaned forward. “Are you afraid?”
Ava considered lying.
Then he chose not to do it.
“Yes.”
“Good,” said Elijah. “Fear is useful. Panic is not.”
Ava looked at the ring.
“Why tonight?”
Elijah’s gaze sharpened.
“You know why.”
“I know why the ring had to be visible,” Ava said. “I know why you wanted to provoke Ryan in public. I know why the cameras were important.” She looked up. “I’m asking you why you gave it to me before the vote.”
Elie remained silent for a long time.
The car roared along the wet road.
Then he said, “Because Ryan Mercer isn’t the only man who stole from your family.”
Ava’s fingers tightened.
And there you have it.
The edge of the second, larger thing.
This is what Elie had been circling around for six weeks.
From the very first day, he called her from an unknown number and told her, “Miss Hart, your divorce file contains a document that should have been buried in 1998.”
Ava thought it was a scam.
Then he sent her a photo.
Her mother, Marianne Hart, standing outside a hotel construction site in Boston 28 years earlier, pregnant with Ava, smiling alongside Elijah Hartwell and three men Ava had never seen.
On the back of the photograph, in his mother’s handwriting, were four words.
They will erase us first.
Ava hadn’t slept that night.
She had spent years believing that her mother had died with debts, mistakes, and a small house in Ohio that smelled of lemon soap and rain.
Then Elijah showed him the deposited items.
His mother had not been a failed accountant.
She had developed the evaluation model that made the creation of Hartwell Hotels possible.
She held 18% of the shares of the original limited partnership.
Then, two months before Ava was born, her signature appeared on a transfer contract selling everything for a symbolic dollar.
One dollar.
Ava stared at the page until the words became blurry.
The signature was incorrect.
Not obviously.
Not enough for a lazy court.
But Ava knew the M from her mother.
Marianne Hart made the second arch higher than the first.
At the time of the transfer, it was flat.
Her mother’s future had been stolen.
Then Ryan, by accident or arrogance, had used the same old falsified agreement structure to steal from Ava.
That’s how Elijah found her.
That’s why the ring was important.
No romance.
Not exactly.
