Chapter 12
Pieces of a Vanishing Puzzle
Fionas pov
The minute Killian picked up the phone, I froze at the sound of the voice on the other end.
“Boss, I have information on the thing you asked me to look into.”
–
It wasn’t what he said it was how the man said it. Tense. Urgent. And it rattled something loose in my chest.
Killian snapped and hung up the phone and faced me. Our eyes locked and before I could ask anything, he looked over my shoulder and said, “We’re heading back. We’re joining him at the office.”
I didn’t know who him was, but the way Killian moved quickly, with purpose I’d learned better than to challenge it at the moment. I took my purse and followed him outside, scrambling into the passenger seat as he barked orders into his phone.
My palms quaked a bit, and I willed them down into my lap, even clasped my fingers. I could feel it, I just didn’t know what was happening. Something had shifted. Something important.
The city lights whirled by in the darkness as we sped back toward the Sinclair tower. We didn’t speak a word all the way back. A few times, I looked at Killian. His jaw set, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Whatever it was… it mattered.
When we entered the underground parking garage, Killian didn’t wait for the car to stop before stepping out. I followed him in silence, till we reached the private elevator.
His assistant was already waiting in the hallway on the top floor. When he saw us, the man straightened with a file in his hand. His expression was inscrutable.
“Sir. Ma’am,” he greeted quickly. “We found something. It’s not a lot, but it’s… important.”
I instinctively stepped forward to grab the file, but Killian raised his arm in front of me, blocking my path.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
I swallowed, making a step back, my stomach twisting.
The assistant passed it over, and Killian opened it at once. I tried to see, but he shifted slightly, denying me a view.
I hated it this sense of helplessness. I wanted to know. I deserved to know. I wasn’t like one of these women just along for the ride in this. I was at the center of it.
Still, I said nothing.
His eyebrows scrunched up as he scanned pages. Then, slowly, he raised his eyes to the assistant. “Explain.”
The man nodded. “It’s about Edward.”
Edward. The one who had agreed to speak in my favor, then died mysteriously the following day.
I held my breath.
“After he left you guys that night,” the assistant said, “he went home directly. That aspect is consistent with what we already knew. But he walked out again about an hour later. No one saw where he went. There is no video footage of him anywhere outside of his apartment building and his phone was off for the whole time.”
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Chapter 12
My heart pounded heavy in my chest.
“He was missing for close to two hours. Then he came back. According to a neighbor a woman who lives across the hall, she heard his door shut behind him. Loud. It woke her up, and she was angry enough to shout out her window. But no one responded.”
My pulse pounded in my ears. “And then?”
The assistant paused, eyeing Killian before proceeding.
“Two hours and a half later, he’s found dead in his apartment.”
I flinched. Although I knew the ending, to hear it again laid out like that sent a cold shiver down my back.
“Do we know how?” I asked softly.
The assistant shook his head. “No forced entry. No visible injuries. Nothing stolen. Just… dead.”
I looked at Killian. He was still looking at the document, jaw clenched, lips pressed into a thin line.
“What else?” he asked.
“The neighbor said when she heard the door slam, it didn’t sound like someone trying to escape or force their way in, that it sounded like a door slammed shut, she said more like someone angry. Frustrated maybe. But not afraid.”
I scowled, struggling to connect the dots. “So, he went away, returned angry… and then died?”
The assistant nodded. “And the death doesn’t look like that he had struggled at death. So there’s something wrong.”
I squinted, the pieces slowly fitting together until a blurry picture formed in my head. I glanced between Killian and his assistant, then said, with my voice barely above a whisper, “So what you’re saying is… whatever killed him there didn’t happen in that apartment?”
The assistant nodded gravely. “Yes. It’s, most likely, happening elsewhere. Something might’ve happened to him before he got home – something subtle. And he got back just in time to … die.”
The air thickened, the room felt suddenly colder. My arms crossed grave over my breast not in modesty but to anchor myself.
“And you are certain it wasn’t suicide?”
He looked directly at me. “There were no substances, there were no notes, there were no history of suicidal behavior from the records that we could pull. And the demise was too quiet, too tidy. There was no signs of a struggle or fear.”
I bit my tongue and stared down at the floor. My teeth scratched each other trying to hold back the anger bubbling within. My fists clenched.
What had he done in the two hours that he had gone missing?
Who had he met?
And why would a man who had just agreed to help us, who had looked me in the eye and told me he was ready to speak, end up dead that same night?
And if–if–he did something to himself, what brought him to that point?
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3:02 pm
Chapter 12
The silence lingered for a bit too long. Then Killian chimed in, voice low but insistent, “What about his history?
I blinked, raising my head. “What history?”
He didn’t answer. Just looked at the assistant with his impossible to read stare.
I scowled. “Killian. If you need to say it, say it, end of story. Don’t play this quiet game with me.”
He let out a breath and without looking at me said to the assistant, “Had he a history of drugs?”
I reeled slightly. “Wait–drugs?” I turned to him, confused. “What do you mean by that? What are you trying to say?”
Killian still hadn’t answered me.
But the assistant nodded respectfully. “I’m going to check on it immediately.”
Before I could argue, the assistant had exited the office and left Killian and me alone with that heavy, quiet tension.
I folded my arms again, not to protect myself, but because my anger was brewing. “You think he was an addict? That this has anything to do with drugs?”
He didn’t answer at first. Instead, he rose from the leather chair and walked around the table slowly, like a man gearing up to deliver a truth too painful to speak. I tracked his movement with my eyes, my body still frozen in place.
When he got to where I was sitting, he put both hands on the glass conference table and put his face down, so our faces were just inches apart. I felt the heat of his breath. It stiffened my skin, awareness prickling in places I did not want it to.
The air shifted. The small space between us suddenly felt … charged.
I swallowed but did not retreat.
He met my eyes, unwavering.
“I have no idea what Edward was into,” he said slowly, the voice dipping into something softer than usual. “But if someone had gotten to him … if they’d used something … I’ll find out. With whatever it takes.”
There was a certain something different in his eyes. It wasn’t just determination – it was a vow.
I wanted to say something to ask a question, push him away, pull him closer. But I didn’t move.
He took a slo
“Fiona,” he said, “you’ve been through enough. The lies, the betrayal, the public humiliation… did not deserve any of it.”
- ed.
your name, your career, your peace.”
glanced away for one moment, but his palm found the table next to mine, proximity pulling me back to the ground.
“But I’m going to fix it,” he added. “All of it.”
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