CHAPTER 4 — THE WIFE’S SECOND PHONE
CHAPTER 4 — THE WIFE’S SECOND PHONE
The police arrived twelve minutes later.
Too late.
Gavin’s men had disappeared through the service road, taking Luke with them.
The officers questioned Ethan as firefighters fought the blaze beneath the mansion.
Detective Maria Cole listened while Ethan explained everything.
She looked unconvinced.
“Your dead brother returned tonight, a secret room caught fire, and your own security team kidnapped him?”
“Yes.”
“And you have no video because the surveillance system went offline eight minutes before you arrived home?”
Ethan looked toward Olivia.
She lowered her eyes.
Detective Cole noticed.
“Mrs. Calloway, is there something you’d like to add?”
“No.”
Ethan laughed without humor.
“That seems to be her favorite answer.”
Hours later, the police allowed them into a guesthouse on the property.
Noah had fallen asleep on the couch, still holding Luke’s broken watch.
Mrs. Bell sat beside him.
Ethan stood across the room from Olivia.
“Give me your phone.”
She hesitated.
“Now.”
She handed it over.
Ethan searched the messages.
Nothing.
“Your other phone.”
Her face changed.
Mrs. Bell closed her eyes.
Ethan felt his anger rise.
“You have ten seconds.”
Olivia walked to her handbag and removed a small black phone.
It contained hundreds of encrypted messages between her and Luke.
Meeting locations.
Photographs.
Financial documents.
Warnings about Richard.
But Ethan found something worse.
A message sent six months earlier.
LUKE: Ethan needs to know.
OLIVIA: Not yet. If he finds out, I lose everything.
Ethan read it twice.
Then he looked up.
“What were you afraid of losing?”
Olivia’s lips trembled.
“Our marriage.”
“You lost that the first time you chose a lie over me.”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“Then make it simple.”
She looked at Noah sleeping on the couch.
“Richard knew Luke was alive. He also knew Luke had contacted me.”
Ethan waited.
“He threatened to release documents proving Noah wasn’t legally yours.”
The room went silent.
Ethan’s voice dropped.
“What does that mean?”
Olivia began crying.
“I was pregnant before our wedding.”
“I know. We moved the ceremony forward.”
“No, Ethan. You don’t understand.”
She struggled to meet his eyes.
“There was another man.”
Ethan felt the room tilt.
Mrs. Bell stood.
“Olivia, stop.”
But Olivia continued.
“I didn’t know who Noah’s father was.”
Ethan stared at the child he had loved from the moment he first heard his heartbeat.
“You let me believe—”
“I believed it too.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I was terrified.”
Ethan opened the DNA file on the phone.
A test had been completed two years earlier.
He read the result.
Probability of paternity: 99.99 percent.
Noah was his son.
Ethan looked at Olivia.
“You had proof.”
“Yes.”
“Then what could Richard possibly use against me?”
Olivia shook her head.
“The test wasn’t comparing Noah’s DNA to yours.”
Ethan’s blood went cold.
“It was comparing Noah’s DNA…”
May you like
She looked toward Luke’s broken watch.
“…to Luke’s.”
