“You knew about that?”
Her brow lifts. “Ash. Come on. You think I wouldn’t notice something like that? You’re my sister.”
And just like that, it all starts to spill.
The bonuses falling off a cliff. That awful night. The separation. How we agreed to fake it for the cruise—how I thought it would be simple, compartmentalized. But then it wasn’t. We stopped pretending. Mostly. Because even when things felt real again—soft and good and familiar—I still knew something was off. Knew he wasn’t telling me everything. Andwhatever it was… it had to be bad. Really bad. Or he would have told me.
But for a while… things were good again. Or I thought they were.
I wanted to believe they were.
Luna listens in silence. First disbelieving. Then horrified. And finally, just quiet—sympathetic, but with that tiny pinch of disappointment only a sister can get away with.
“You didn’t tell me any of this?” she says, barely above a whisper. “Ash… you should have told me.”
“I know. But I didn’t want… It wasyour wedding.”
She swallows. “Did he know? That agents would be waiting for him? That it was coming?”
“I…” I start but then pause, considering. I picture Beckett as he was this morning, on the balcony. His voice low, tense. His eyes bright with something that looked like regret—or maybe resignation.
I fucked up. Last year. I can’t tell you yet.
I nod slowly.
“I think… yeah. I think he did.”
And for the first time, truly for the first time, I understand something terrifying:
This isn’t something that’s happeningtohim, it’s happening… because of him.
HEADLINES
ASHLEY
We land at Logan late.
The boys are tired, cranky to the point where they’re bickering over nothing, and I don’t blame them. I don’t even remember walking off the plane. Don’t remember baggage claim. It’s already just a hazy memory, muted by a jumble of what-ifs and what-nows, tinted with more than a trace of terror.
Noah steers us over to the rental car he’d booked and starts loading our bags into the trunk. I barely have the energy to hug my mom goodbye, barely hear her promising me everything is gonna be just fine before joining Babs in a separate car. By the time I turn around, Luna’s already buckling the boys in, taking charge and waving me over.
And then, more waiting. The drive doesn’t take too long, especially late on a Sunday night, but it gives me enough time to sit and think.
Enough time to take out my phone.
I move to call Beckett’s number, by habit more than anything else, and then I remember that that stupid burner is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, his old phone who knows where.
So then, I look for a different source of information
I click on the browser and before I even finish typing Midtown… My phone fills in the blanks: “Midtown Investments Self-destructs.”
“Retirement Accounts Wiped Out in Alleged Ponzi Scheme.”
"Unidentified Informant Behind Multi-Agency Financial Probe"
“Feds Execute Dozens of Arrests in Weekend Sweep.”
My breath catches, but I still click on that last one.
