Even from a distance, I could see him smile.
I stepped back from the window.
“Nora,” I said, my voice barely steady, “why would Ethan have a file on me before any marriage arrangement existed?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But there’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“The file wasn’t created by Jason.”
A chill moved through me.
“Who created it?”
Nora exhaled.
“Ethan did.”
For a moment, I could not speak.
The walls, the windows, the soft blue curtains—everything around me seemed suddenly staged, as though I had mistaken a room for a trap and a trap for a room.
“That’s impossible,” I said.
“I checked the metadata twice.”
I turned slowly toward the hallway, toward the direction of Ethan’s room.
My husband, the stranger in the coma.
The man who had warned me not to trust Jason.
The man whose hand had pressed mine when I promised not to leave him alone.
He had known my name before I ever stood at the altar.
Before my father told me about the debts.
Before Vivian claimed she had chosen me.
My phone felt heavy in my hand.
Nora spoke softly. “Claire, there’s a note attached to your file.”
My pulse thudded in my ears.
“What does it say?”
She hesitated.
“It says: ‘If anything happens to me, find Claire Turner. She is the key.’”
END OF PART 2 – LIKE, SHARE AND COMMENT “THE ENTIRE STORY” IF YOU WANT TO READ THE FULL STORY
