I had seen him once before.
At Asterion.
He told me he had never heard of the company.
I convinced myself I must have been mistaken.
I wanted to be mistaken.
For your sake, I still do.
Love,
Dad
My vision blurred.
I lowered the page.
Vega said nothing.
“What does this mean?”
She knew what I was asking.
Not about evidence.
Not legally.
I was asking whether my life had been real.
She answered carefully.
“It means Ryan knew who your family was before he told you he did.”
I stared at the old photograph again.
Me in the red dress.
Sixteen years younger.
Laughing at something outside the frame.
And across the ballroom, Ryan watching.
I had thought betrayal began the night he walked into my mother’s kitchen carrying a pie.
Then I thought it began when he forged her signature.
Then with the shell companies.
But betrayal has a strange relationship with time.
