Paris - Zion's Penthouse, Midnight
The door slammed shut behind her.
Zion looked up from his desk, startled, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, glass of whiskey in hand.
"You need to tell me who she is," Amira said, tossing a folded paper onto his desk. "Now."
Zion picked it up. Read it. His fingers went still.
"Elira," she said quietly. "Who is she, Zion?"
He looked like the wind had been knocked from his chest.
"That's not your concern," he said, voice brittle.
"It became my concern the moment someone said her name is connected to Celeste's death."
Silence.
And then he stood slowly, like a man walking toward a fire he'd lit himself.
"Elira Vale," he said. "She was my… mistake."
Flashback - Four Years Ago
Zion remembered the warmth of Venice. The scent of paint. The feel of Elira's lips on his collarbone.
She had been twenty-three. A gifted art restorer. Independent. Reckless. Too much like Amira.
They were lovers in secret because her father, Dominic Vale, was Zion's family lawyer. The same man who controlled the Carter legacy like a puppet master.
But then Elira found something. A document she wasn't supposed to read. A file that connected Carter Investments to an offshore scandal involving forged artwork and buried financial crimes.
She confronted Zion.
And everything shattered.
"I didn't kill her," Zion said now, voice hollow. "But I let her leave that night. Alone. Angry. And she vanished."
"Vanished?" Amira asked. "Or you helped her disappear?"
He didn't answer.
Present - The Office
"She sent me a message six months later," Zion said quietly. "Said she was safe, and if I ever spoke her name again, she'd bury the entire family."
"And you believed her?" Amira asked. "You, the man who digs up everyone else's secrets?"
"I believed she would destroy me," he said. "And I deserved it."
Amira crossed her arms. "Celeste mentioned her. She sketched her next to you. Why?"
"Because Elira knew about Celeste. She tried to warn me."
Amira's breath caught. "About what?"
Zion turned his eyes to hers dark, tired, and full of a truth too heavy to hold.
"She told me your sister was being watched. By Dominic. By Theo. By someone at the school."
Amira's voice cracked. "And you still left her there."
"I didn't know who to trust!" Zion snapped. "I thought I had time. I thought..."
"You thought wrong," Amira cut in.
The pain in her voice sliced deeper than the words.
Silence.
Then: "Is Elira alive?" she asked.
Zion looked away.
"I don't know," he whispered. "But if she is… she's the only one who can blow everything open."
Later That Night, Amira's sat at her desk in her apartment Celeste's journal open in front of her. Next to it: a printed photo of Elira. A younger version, from an old art gala catalog.
She and Amira looked almost related.
"Dominic's daughter," Amira whispered. "Carter's fixer. Celeste's silent witness. Zion's lost love."
She picked up her phone and called Rosalie.
"Get your contact at the embassy," she said. "I need to find someone who doesn't want to be found."
Back at his office, Zion stood alone with the lights off.
On his desk sat an envelope. Untouched. Unopened.
It had been sent anonymously two days ago. No name. No return address.
Just one line scrawled across the front:
"You let one sister die. Will you let the other burn too?"
Zion didn't move.
But his hands were shaking.