⋅•⋅⊰∙∘⭒❊✿❊⭒∘∙⊱⋅•

The living room seemed even smaller in the dark, lit only by a single lamp on the side table that cast long, weary shadows on the worn hardwood floor. Snow still clung to the window edges from the last storm, glowing a faint blue under the streetlight outside, while inside, everything felt heavy and still.

I perched on the edge of the couch, elbows resting on my knees, my hands clasped so tightly that my knuckles were starting to ache. Ethan stood by the window, facing away from me, arms crossed over his chest as if he was trying to hold himself together.

The silence between us wasn’t empty; it was thick and oppressive, echoing with every word I had just forced out of my mouth.

He hadn’t said a thing for almost two full minutes after I finished telling him about the conversation in the study. Not a single question. No denial. Just that quiet, watchful stillness that made my skin crawl because I knew he was turning every syllable over in his mind, searching for cracks.

Finally, he spoke, his voice low and rough, still not turning around.

"Say it again."

I didn’t blame him, if I was in his shoes...I’d try my best to make sense of everything as well.

I swallowed hard. My throat felt raw from both the cold air and the lingering panic.

"Keith said the motel was handled," I repeated, taking care to match the exact rhythm of his words. "Mr. Carlby was nervous, said people might start asking questions, especially you. Keith told him that a grieving boy going through paperwork wasn’t a threat. Then he added... if Logan had just kept quiet, none of this would’ve happened."

Ethan’s shoulders rose and fell with a slow, controlled breath.

"And what about forcing his hand?"

"He said Logan forced his hand." The words tasted metallic. "And then he added that one mistake was enough. He wasn’t going to let him make a second."

Finally, Ethan turned around. The lamplight caught the sharp line of his jaw, his eyes had gone distant and glassy, as if he was looking through me instead of at me. I’d seen him angry before, furious, even—but this felt different. This was the slow seep of something breaking inside him.

"This is insane...Keith Fell, he killed my uncle."

I nodded once. "Or ordered it. Or covered it up. Something. The way he said it... it felt calm, like he’d already decided it was necessary."

Ethan let out a bitter laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. "Necessary. Right. Because Logan was such a loose end." He dragged his hands down his face, fingers pressing hard against his temples. "Keith. Damn Keith."

I watched him struggle with it, the same way I had when the realization first hit me. Keith wasn’t some shadowy criminal mastermind from a bad movie. He was the man who’d taught Adrien how to tie a tie before his first formal dance. The man who’d once driven me to school when my mom was stuck at a meeting and told me he was proud of me when I made the starting lineup.

The man who’d married my mother and promised her a family that actually showed up. The thought that the same hands that had clapped me on the back could orchestrate a murder felt like a betrayal I couldn’t even find words for.

Ethan started pacing across the room, then stopped in front of the fireplace mantel where a single framed photo still sat—him and Logan at some dealership event years ago, both of them smiling as if they really meant it. He stared at it for a long while.

"I keep thinking about how clean the suicide note looked," he said quietly. "How the handwriting was close but not quite right. I convinced myself I was imagining things because the alternative was too insane. But if Keith..."

He trailed off, his voice cracking on the name. "If Keith did this, then Logan didn’t just die. He was executed. Silenced, because he knew something Keith couldn’t let get out...that much is obvious."

The word executed landed like a punch to the gut. I felt queasy all over again.

Ethan turned back to me, his eyes bright with a dangerous mix of grief and rage, along with that familiar focus that had pulled us into this mess in the first place.

"If Keith panicked enough to kill him, then Logan had something real. Something dangerous enough to make a man like that risk everything. Documents, recordings, proof of whatever deal they were caught up in with Joanne and the money." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

He paused, swallowing hard. "Logan didn’t just stumble into that motel room and put a gun in his mouth. He died there for a reason. Which means he might have hidden something before it happened."

I nodded slowly, the pieces beginning to snap into place in my own mind, even as dread tightened in my stomach. "He was meeting someone that night. The note we found, the date, the time, the diner. Whoever it was, maybe Logan gave them whatever he had. Or maybe he stashed it somewhere safe first."

Ethan’s gaze locked onto mine, and for the first time since that night in the courtyard, the anger between us wasn’t the loudest thing in the room. Fear was. And underneath it, something else, something that felt almost like trust, fragile and battered but still present.

"I can’t tell Adrien," I admitted, guilt creeping in. "I can’t. Not yet, I mean...he thinks the world of Keith. If I’m wrong, if we’re wrong—it’ll crush him. And if I’m right..."

My voice cracked. "If I’m right, telling him means asking him to choose between his father and the truth. Between family and justice. I don’t know if he can handle that."

Ethan let out a slow breath, rubbing the back of his neck. "You’re right to keep this from him for now. Without proof, Adrien would defend Keith. He’d have to. And if Keith finds out we’re onto him before we have something solid..."

He didn’t need to finish that thought. We both knew too well what happened to people who became problems Keith couldn’t ignore.

Ethan walked over and sank onto the couch beside me, not too close to touch, but close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him, his leg trembling slightly even though he was trying to keep it still.

"It hurt, you know," he said quietly, staring at the floor. "After the Snow Ball. It hurt so much I couldn’t breathe sometimes. But hearing this... knowing you came straight here even after everything..."

He looked at me then, his eyes raw. "Thank you. For telling me. For not keeping it to yourself."

"I know, and I’m sorry...more than I can apologize." His words hit harder than I expected. My throat tightened. "I couldn’t not tell you. Not about this."

He nodded slowly, deliberately.

Then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

"We need proof," he said. "Real proof. Something Keith can’t weasel out of. Something that ties him directly to Logan’s death, or to whatever Logan was planning to expose."

I nodded, though every instinct told me to run the other way. "We need to start with what Logan left behind. The things the police returned. The phone records, the laptop...anything they didn’t think was important."

Ethan’s mouth curved into the faintest, most bitter smile I’d ever seen from him.

"Back to square one," he murmured. "Except now we know who we’re really after."

Outside, snow began falling again, soft, relentless, covering the world in a quiet white. Inside, the silence between us wasn’t empty anymore. It was filled with everything we hadn’t said, everything we still had to confront, and the haunting realization that the man who had built so much goodwill in the town might have constructed his empire on someone else’s grave.

And he was still out there, free.

While we sat here in the dark, trying to figure out just how much more we were willing to risk to make sure he didn’t stay that way.