ARIA'S POVI waited until the house fell completely silent. Every tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway seemed to echo through my ribs, each sound a reminder that I was still here, still trapped in this life I no longer understood. Tom's footsteps had faded hours ago, his car pulling away into the night with a finality that made my chest ache.
This was wrong. I knew it was wrong.
But I dressed anyway.
Jeans. A dark sweater. Flat shoes that wouldn't click against pavement. I braided my hair tight against my skull so nothing would catch, nothing would identify me in the blur of security cameras I'd have to pass. My hands trembled as I pulled on a jacket, and I had to stop, press my palms flat against the dresser, breathe.
What are you doing?
Finding the truth. Finding my mother. Finding out why fifteen million dollars had vanished along with any explanation that made sense.
I left my phone on the nightstand. Tom could track it—I didn't know if he would, but I couldn't risk it. The device sat there like an accusation as I walked out, and I felt the weight of that choice settle between my shoulder blades. If something happened to me tonight, no one would know where I'd gone.
The night air hit my face like a slap. Cold. Sharp. I walked quickly but not too quickly, keeping my head down, my hands in my pockets. Every passing car made my pulse spike. Every streetlamp felt like a spotlight. The city at night was different—louder and quieter at the same time, full of sounds I didn't recognize and shadows that moved wrong.
I kept to the darker streets, avoiding the main roads where Tom's driver might pass, where anyone who knew the Vager name might see me and wonder what Tom's new wife was doing out alone at midnight.
The hospital rose ahead of me like a massive ship, all lit windows and white walls. I stopped half a block away, my breath coming too fast, sweat cooling on the back of my neck despite the cold. The main entrance blazed with light, security guards visible even from here.
I couldn't go through the front.
I circled the building, staying in the shadows, until I found what I was looking for—a service entrance near the loading dock. A nurse in scrubs pushed through the door, cigarette already between her lips, and I caught the door before it could close. She didn't even look at me.
Inside, the smell hit me first—disinfectant and something underneath it, something organic and wrong. Sickness. Death. The fluorescent lights were too bright, making everything look washed out and surreal. My shoes squeaked on the polished floor and I froze, certain someone would turn, would see me, would ask what I was doing here.
No one did.
The hospital at night was quieter than I'd expected but not empty. Nurses moved between rooms. Someone's monitor beeped steadily down the hall. A woman sobbed behind a closed door. I walked like I belonged here, like I had every right to be wandering these corridors, but my hands were shaking so badly I had to clasp them together.
I found the main nurses' station on the fourth floor—the oncology wing, where my mother had supposedly been dying. A woman sat behind the desk, her dark hair pulled into a bun so tight it must have hurt, her eyes fixed on a computer screen. The bluish light made her face look hollow.
I approached slowly. My mouth was dry. "Excuse me?"
She looked up, and I saw her eyes register me—confusion first, then something else. Something I couldn't quite read.
"Yes?" Her voice was carefully neutral, professional.
"I'm—" My voice cracked. I cleared my throat, tried again. "I'm Aria Summer. My mother was a patient here. Jasmine Summer?"
The woman's expression shifted. Recognition, definitely, but also something that might have been pity. Or guilt.
"I remember," she said quietly.
The relief that flooded through me was so intense I had to grip the edge of the desk. "You do? Can we—I need to know what happened. She left, and no one told me, and I just—" The words tumbled out too fast, desperate and messy.
The nurse glanced around. Her jaw tightened. "I can't discuss patient information."
"Please." I leaned closer, lowering my voice. "She's my mother. She disappeared. I don't know where she is, I don't know if she's safe, I don't know anything except that something is very, very wrong."
For a long moment, she just looked at me. Then she stood. "Come with me. Quickly."
She led me through a maze of hallways to a small break room that smelled of burnt coffee and something sweet, maybe someone's forgotten lunch. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. She closed the door and leaned against it, arms crossed.
"You shouldn't be here," she said.
"I know."
"If anyone asks, I never saw you."
"I understand."
She studied me for another moment, then her shoulders dropped. "Your mother left three days ago. Early morning, before the day shift arrived."
"How?" The word came out strangled. "She could barely walk the last time I saw her."
"She walked out on her own." The nurse's voice was flat, but her eyes held something else. Confusion. Maybe anger. "No wheelchair. No assistance. She was... she seemed fine."
The room tilted. I reached for the wall, my fingers finding nothing but air before I caught myself against the counter. "That's not possible."
"The treatment," I managed. "The experimental treatment. It cost—" I stopped. Fifteen million dollars. Would this woman even believe me?
"What treatment?" the nurse asked.
The floor dropped out from under me. "The cancer treatment. The reason she was here. The reason my—" I couldn't say husband. The word felt like a betrayal. "The reason fifteen million dollars was paid to this hospital."
The nurse's cup hit the counter with a sharp crack. Coffee sloshed over the rim. "Fifteen million dollars?"
"Yes. For her care. For the experimental treatment that was supposed to save her life."
"There was no experimental treatment." The nurse's voice was hard now, angry. "Your mother received basic palliative care. Observation. Pain management. Standard protocol for stage four patients. Maybe twenty thousand dollars total over her entire stay."
The air left my lungs. I couldn't breathe. Twenty thousand. Not fifteen million. Twenty thousand.
"Where—" I couldn't finish the question.
"I don't know." The nurse pulled open a cabinet, rummaged inside, then turned back to me with a thin manila envelope. "But Dr. Jackson left this. He said if you came looking, I should give it to you."
My name was written on the front in neat, precise handwriting. Aria Summer.
"Why didn't anyone call me?" My voice sounded small, childlike.
"Your mother said you knew. She said you were traveling, that you'd arranged everything, that you knew she was leaving." The nurse's expression softened. "I'm sorry. We thought you knew."
I took the envelope. It felt too light to contain the weight of what I needed to know. "What did Dr. Jackson say?"
"Just that you'd come eventually. And that you deserved the truth." She paused. "He quit two days after your mother left. Didn't even give notice. Just walked out."
Another piece falling into place, except I still couldn't see the picture.
"Thank you," I whispered.
"Go out the same way you came in," she said. "And be careful."
The walk back through the hospital felt longer. Every face I passed seemed to know what I was carrying, what I'd learned. The envelope in my bag burned against my hip like a coal. I kept my head down, my pace steady, and when I finally pushed through the service entrance into the cold night air, I had to stop, bend over, hands on my knees, and breathe.
My mother had lied. About being sick. About needing treatment. About everything.
And fifteen million dollars had gone somewhere.
I walked until I found a cab, gave an address two blocks from the house, paid in cash. The driver didn't speak, and I was grateful. The city passed in blurs of light and shadow. My reflection in the window looked like a stranger—hollow-eyed, pale, lost.
When I finally slipped back into the house, every light was off. Tom wasn't home yet. I locked my bedroom door and sat on the bed with the envelope in my hands.
The paper was smooth, expensive. The kind of envelope that held important documents. Inside could be anything. A confession. An explanation. An apology.
Or something worse.
I pressed it against my chest and closed my eyes. In the darkness, I could almost hear my mother's voice, could almost feel her hand smoothing my hair like she did when I was small.
What did you do, Mum?
The envelope had no answers yet. But tomorrow, when I found the courage to open it, everything would change.
I just didn't know if I was ready for that change.
But ready or not, the truth was already here, waiting in my hands.