My hair was pulled back in a messy knot, and my eyes looked sunken from three days of little sleep.

“I have to go home,” I said. “If Ethan calls back, I need to be somewhere secure.”

“Don’t go straight back to your place,” Aaron warned, standing up to lock the door behind me. “Take the bypass. Check your mirrors.”

I nodded, grabbing my coat from the back of the chair.

The wet air hit my face as I stepped out onto the metal fire escape.

I drove back to my apartment in Northeast D.C. under a heavy, suffocating fog.

The city was quiet at this hour, the headlights of my sedan cutting through the mist like dull yellow blades.

My mind kept going back to Ethan’s voice.

He sounded so small, so broken by the weight of what he was discovering.

Our mother had spent years telling us that the Mercer name was all we had left after our father died.

She had pushed Ethan toward Cassandra like a woman securing an investment.