“Because you asked, and you deserve honesty about what happened, even if it doesn’t change anything.”
“It doesn’t bring him back.”
“No.”
She picks up the notebook again, opening it to a random page and running her finger down the margin where Ethanhad scribbled notes in shorthand only she would probably understand.
“He was good at his work. Careful, thorough, didn’t take unnecessary risks. If he’d known how dangerous this was—really known—he might have stopped.”
I doubt that, but I don’t say so. Men like Ethan Clarke don’t stop when threats escalate. They dig harder, convinced that exposure will protect them through public visibility.
They’re usually wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and mean it more than I’ve meant most apologies in my life.
Diana’s jaw tightens. She closes the notebook again and stands, clutching it against her chest like armor. “I don’t want your apology. I want my brother back. Since that’s impossible, I want to go home.”
“You know I can’t allow that.”
“Then what do you want from me, Felix?” Her voice breaks slightly on my name. “You won’t let me leave, won’t explain what happens next, won’t give me anything except containment and surveillance and…” She stops, breathing hard. “What’s the endgame here?”
I don’t have an answer that doesn’t expose too much. The truth is I don’t know what comes next, only that the thought of her leaving—returning to Brooklyn and her transparency audits and her life that doesn’t include me—creates resistance I can’t rationalize strategically.
“The endgame is keeping you alive,” I say instead.
“For how long?”
“As long as necessary.”
She laughs bitterly. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have right now.”
Diana studies me for a long moment, her expression shifting through emotions I can’t track. Eventually she moves toward the door, still holding Ethan’s notebook.
“Can I keep this?” she asks without turning around.
“Yes.”
She leaves without another word, her footsteps fading down the hallway toward the stairs.
I remain in the sitting room long after she’s gone, staring at the empty chair where she sat reading her brother’s unfinished work.
The guilt doesn’t fade. If anything, it settles deeper, a constant weight I’ll carry every time I see the way her eyes harden when she speaks Ethan’s name.
Chapter Twelve - Diana
The shift change happens at 10:00 p.m., guards rotating from interior posts to exterior perimeter with a precision I’ve mapped down to the second. The window lasts exactly four minutes—enough time for the outgoing team to brief replacements, for attention to splinter into individual conversations, for someone small and determined to slip through unnoticed.
I’ve been planning this for three days, ever since Felix told me the endgame is keeping me alive “as long as necessary.”
I can’t live with indefinite.
The hallway camera outside my room has a blind spot I discovered by accident—a narrow angle near the stairwell where the lens doesn’t quite reach. I’ve been testing it incrementally, stepping into the gap for longer stretches each night until I’m certain the monitoring room won’t flag the movement as suspicious.
Tonight, I move into the blind spot and stay there. I count to sixty, waiting for alarms or footsteps that don’t come. Then I slip down the back staircase toward the service level where household staff enter through a side door that’s supposed to remain locked but sometimes doesn’t latch properly when the night cleaning crew finishes.
The mudroom smells like detergent and damp coats. I grab the darkest jacket I can find—too large, hanging past my hips, but warm enough for November cold. My hands shake as I test the service door handle.
