Lily’s hand covered her mouth.

She knew this story.

She had held me through anniversaries and nightmares and the strange guilt of grief that never found a target.

But Cameron looked destroyed.

Not surprised.

Destroyed.

“Emma,” he whispered, “what was your father’s name?”

“Thomas Carter.”

And that was when I understood something worse than fear.

Recognition.

He knew the name.

“Cameron,” I said slowly, “why do you know my father’s name?”

He didn’t answer.

The silence was the answer.

My skin went cold.

I stepped back from him.

“No. Tell me you don’t know.”

He opened his eyes.

They were full of something I had never seen there before.

Guilt.

Real guilt.

“I was sixteen,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“My father brought me to Reed Tower that night. He said I needed to learn what legacy required.”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t know there were workers still inside.”

“Stop.”

“I heard alarms. I heard men shouting. I tried to go back, but my father’s security—”

“Stop talking.”

He did.

The room had become too bright, too small, too impossible.

For months after my father died, I had imagined the people responsible.

Faceless executives.

Careless contractors.

Men in suits who signed papers and slept well.

I had never imagined one of them would someday sit drunk on my couch and tell me he needed me.

Lily moved beside me. “Emma.”

I couldn’t look at her.

I couldn’t look away from Cameron either.

“You knew?” I asked.

“I found the file three years ago.”

Three years.

He had known for three years.

I laughed once.

The sound was ugly.

“You hired me two years ago.”

Cameron’s face tightened with pain.

“Yes.”

The word broke something.

“You hired me because of my father?”

“At first,” he said. “Yes.”

Lily said, “Oh, I’m going to kill him.”

Not to protect him.

To keep myself from shattering.

“At first?” I repeated.

Cameron took one step toward me.

I stepped back.

He stopped.

“I wanted to know if the settlement reached your family. It hadn’t. I wanted to know if you were okay. You weren’t. You were working three jobs and drowning in debt from your mother’s care.”

“You investigated me?”

The honesty was brutal.

“And then what?” I asked. “You gave me a job to ease your guilt?”

The second yes hurt worse than any lie.

My eyes burned.

I hated myself for it.

I hated him more for seeing it.

“But then,” he said, voice rougher, “you became the only person in that building who told me the truth. You challenged me when everyone else performed loyalty. You remembered things I forgot saying. You made my life function when I didn’t deserve the kindness.”

“Don’t make this romantic.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re making my father’s death into your emotional origin story.”

He flinched again.

Let him bleed somewhere visible for once.

The phone buzzed one final time.

This message had no unknown number.

It came from Vanessa.

Eight o’clock, Cameron. Bring Meridian. Bring the girl too. After all, she is part of the file.

I stared at the screen until the words blurred.

Part of the file.

The apartment was silent except for Muffin’s tiny bell as she crept from beneath the table.

Cameron reached for the key card, but I picked it up first.

“Emma, don’t.”

I closed my fingers around the black card.

For years, I had built a life around not knowing why my father died.

For two years, I had worked for a man who knew more than he ever said.

For one night, I had almost believed his brokenness had brought him to me by accident.

Now I understood.

Nothing about Cameron Reed was accidental.

Not even me.

I looked at him, and whatever he saw in my face made him go still.

“You said you needed me,” I said.

“I do.”

“No.” My voice hardened. “You needed forgiveness.”

His jaw trembled once.

Only once.

But I saw it.

“I can’t give you that,” I said.

“But I can help destroy Vanessa.”

Lily made a strangled sound. “Emma?”

Cameron stared at me.

I lifted the Meridian card between two fingers.

“At eight o’clock,” I said, “we’re walking into that boardroom together.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You no longer get to decide what keeps me safe.”

His eyes darkened.

“She’ll use you.”

“Then we’ll use her first.”

For the first time all night, Cameron Reed looked afraid of someone other than his father.

He looked afraid of me.

That should not have satisfied me.

It did.

Then my phone rang.

Not Cameron’s.

Mine.

Unknown number.

Slowly, I answered.

A man’s voice came through.

Older.

Calm.

Dangerously familiar, though I could not place it.

“Miss Carter,” he said. “My name is Malcolm Reed.”

Cameron stopped breathing.

The voice continued.

“My son has lied to you. Vanessa has lied to you. But your father told the truth before he died.”

My grip tightened around the phone.

“What truth?”

Malcolm Reed said softly, “Thomas Carter didn’t die in that fire.”

The room disappeared beneath me.

Then he added, “He started it.”

THE END OF PART 2 – LIKE, SHARE AND COMMENT “FULL STORY” IF YOU WANT TO READ FULL STORY.