Adrian stared at Daniel's message for a long time before his thumb finally moved.
We need to talk about Ava. It's important.
His eyes kept drifting back to the old statement his investigator had sent; the words burned into his memory now. Mr. Daniel told me Adrian didn't want any further contact with Victoria.
He read Daniel's message again, jaw tightening.
Finally, he typed back: Tomorrow my office.
The reply came almost instantly. Fine.
Adrian set the phone face down on the desk and leaned back, pressing the heels of his hands against his tired eyes. He hadn't slept properly in days, his body running on the thin, ragged edge of exhaustion.
And now Daniel wanted to talk about Ava.
That worried him more than anything else he'd uncovered so far.
Ava woke up thinking about him again.
She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling, the words replaying in her head before she'd even fully opened her eyes.
You don't always have to be.
She hadn't planned to say it. It had simply come out, unguarded, before she could stop herself. She wondered, lying there in the early light, what he'd actually thought when she said it.
She groaned and pulled the blanket up over her face. "Stop thinking about him."
She got up anyway and, while she dressed, caught herself faintly smiling at nothing in particular.
Then Lily's voice surfaced, familiar and unwelcome. Don't build your entire life around one man.
Her smile faded slowly.
Maybe Lily was right.
Blackwood International hummed with its usual morning energy when Ava walked through the east doors, phones ringing at the front desk, guests moving through checkout, the warm smell of coffee drifting from the lobby café.
She felt different moving through it now. A few weeks ago, she'd walked these halls feeling like an intruder in someone else's world. Now the receptionist waved her over to ask her opinion on a guest request. A junior staff member stopped her near the elevators, asking for help with a reservation mix-up.
She belonged here. The thought settled into her with quiet, steady confidence, straightening her shoulders as she crossed the marble floor.
From the mezzanine above, Adrian watched her work.
She stood near a guest, hands moving naturally as she explained something, her head tilting slightly as she listened. She smiled at whatever the guest said in return, easy and unguarded.
She didn't look intimidated by any of it anymore.
Something warm moved through Adrian's chest, watching her. Pride, plain and simple, settling comfortably beside everything else currently weighing him down.
Then he remembered the promise he'd made himself. Stay away.
His jaw tightened. He turned from the railing and walked back toward his office without looking down again.
The crisis hit twenty minutes later: a VIP guest arriving early, the assigned suite still occupied, the front desk staff beginning to visibly panic.
Ava stepped in before anyone thought to call upstairs. She checked the reservation system, calling housekeeping directly, her eyes scanning quickly down the availability list until she found an open suite two floors up. She arranged a complimentary upgrade and had the new room ready within twenty minutes, the guest none the wiser that anything had gone wrong at all.
Her manager clapped a hand briefly against her shoulder, praising her under his breath. Ava felt a small, private glow of pride settle into her chest.
From the mezzanine, Adrian had watched the entire thing unfold. He said nothing. But the pride in his eyes, had anyone been close enough to see it, was unmistakable.
He called her into his office later that afternoon.
Ava walked in with her tablet held against her chest. "You wanted to see me?"
"Sit," Adrian said, gesturing toward the chair.
She sat. He reviewed the VIP situation with her calmly, professionally, his eyes occasionally lifting from the report to study her face.
"You handled it well," he said.
"Thank you." She smiled.
"You didn't panic."
"I wanted to," she admitted.
That pulled a genuine smile from him, small but real. Her heart gave an unexpected stumble at the sight of it.
"But panicking wouldn't have helped anyone," she added, "so I figured I'd save it for later."
He let out a quiet laugh, low and warm. "Good answer."
For a moment, the room felt easy between them, light in a way it hadn't in days.
Then his expression shifted. Victoria. Noah. Daniel's message waiting for tomorrow. The smile slid slowly off his face, replaced by something distant and closed.
Ava noticed the change immediately, her own smile faltering. "Did I do something?"
His eyes lifted to hers. "No."
"Then why do you look like you're somewhere else?"
He didn't answer right away. His fingers tapped once, slowly, against the surface of the desk, then stilled.
"I have some personal matters to deal with," he said finally.
She nodded, swallowing the urge to ask what they were. Something in his guarded expression told her clearly enough that the answer wasn't hers to have yet.
"I hope everything works out," she said instead, quiet and sincere.
He looked at her, something almost vulnerable flickering behind his eyes for a brief, unguarded second.
"So do I," he said.
Daniel walked into his office the next morning and closed the door firmly behind him.
Neither man sat. Adrian stood near the window, arms crossed, watching Daniel cross the room with careful, measured steps.
"You've been avoiding me," Daniel said.
"I've been busy."
Daniel studied him, head tilting slightly, eyes narrowing. "Adrian, I've known you too long for that excuse."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "Then you should know I don't respond well to being pressured."
Daniel exhaled slowly. "This is about Ava."
Something shifted behind Adrian's eyes.
"She's always admired you," Daniel said, watching him carefully. "Since she was a kid. She's young, Adrian. Still figuring out what she actually wants." He paused. "I trust you to make sure she doesn't confuse admiration with something else. Something that isn't real."
The words landed hard, striking somewhere deep in Adrian's chest. His hands curled slowly at his sides.
Daniel had no idea he'd just put a name to the exact thing Adrian had spent weeks trying to deny to himself.
"You don't have to worry about Ava," Adrian said finally, his voice tight.
Daniel studied him a moment longer, then smiled, easy and satisfied. "I know. That's why I trust you."
Adrian felt something twist sick and heavy in his stomach.
As Daniel turned toward the door, Adrian stopped him.
"Daniel."
Daniel turned back, eyebrows lifting slightly.
Adrian looked directly at him, holding his gaze steady. "When Victoria left."
Something flickered across Daniel's face. Only slightly. But Adrian caught it, the same small, telling shift he'd noticed once before.
"What about it?" Daniel asked.
"Did she ever contact you?"
A pause, just a beat too long. Daniel's eyes narrowed slightly. "Why are you asking?"
Adrian didn't answer, letting the silence stretch between them, watching Daniel's jaw work slightly beneath the surface of his composure.
"Not that I remember," Daniel said finally.
The answer came too careful, too measured, and Adrian heard the lie sitting plainly inside it.
"Right," Adrian said quietly.
Daniel left without another word. The moment the door closed, Adrian's expression hardened completely, all the warmth from earlier gone.
He knew, with absolute certainty now, that Daniel had lied to his face.
That evening, Ava met Lily at their usual café, sliding into the booth with her shoulders visibly tense.
"You look distracted," Lily said, studying her.
Ava stirred her coffee slowly, not looking up. "Adrian's been acting strange."
Lily's eyebrows lifted. "Of course you noticed."
"I'm serious." Ava shot her a look.
Lily's teasing expression dropped immediately, replaced by real concern. "Okay. Tell me."
Ava explained it slowly, the way he seemed warm one moment, guarded and distant the next, the strange tension she'd sensed radiating off him for days now. Lily reached across the table and rested a hand gently over Ava's, giving it a light squeeze.
"Just be careful," she said quietly.
Ava looked down at their joined hands. "I know."
But her heart, she thought, didn't feel careful at all.
Adrian received another file from his investigator late that night, opening it at his desk with the lamp casting a narrow pool of light across the surface.
A bank transaction. Made fifteen years ago. The recipient was an employee who'd worked under him at the time, someone whose name barely registered a memory now. The payment had been authorized through an account connected directly to Daniel.
Adrian's breathing slowed as he read the date.
Three days before Victoria disappeared from his life.
His eyes moved to the payment description, four words sitting plainly on the screen.
"Make sure she leaves."
His hand froze over the trackpad, every muscle in his body suddenly still. The room around him seemed to fall away entirely, leaving nothing but the glowing screen and those four words.
Suspicion had finally, unmistakably, become evidence.
He reached for his phone. Daniel's name sat there on the screen, waiting.
He didn't call.
Not yet.
Instead, staring at the name of the man he'd trusted for thirty years, Adrian whispered, quiet and broken, into the empty room:
"Why did you do this?"
Across the city, completely unaware of what Adrian had just uncovered, Ava was getting ready for bed, still believing her father and Adrian were two of the safest people in her life.