Chapter 3

　　"Say something."

　　Ethan didn't. He was still staring at the phone in Bianca's hand like it had personally betrayed him, jaw working, the warmth from thirty seconds ago completely gone from his face.

　　"Ethan."

　　"Give me a second." His voice came out low, tight, nothing like the man who'd made her laugh in a hallway five minutes ago. "My sister threatened a child. Your child. In writing."

　　"I know what it said. I read it forty times last night."

　　That seemed to land somewhere. He looked up at her, and whatever was behind his eyes wasn't anger at her, it was something closer to shame, raw and immediate, like he was already carrying the weight of a thing he hadn't done.

　　"I'm sorry," he said.

　　"You didn't send it."

　　"She's my family. That makes it mine to fix."

　　Bianca almost said something soft, something about how that wasn't how blame worked, but Zoe was still ten feet away pressing her nose against the fish tank and this wasn't a conversation for little ears.

　　Ethan pulled out his own phone and called someone right there in the hallway, not stepping away, not lowering his voice for privacy. Bianca understood what that meant before he even said a word. He wasn't hiding this from her.

　　"Ingrid." His voice went flat, controlled in a way that was somehow louder than shouting. "You texted a woman last night threatening her daughter's spot in my program."

　　Bianca couldn't hear every word on the other end, just the shape of it, fast and defensive, a voice that didn't sound sorry at all.

　　"I don't care what you thought you were protecting," Ethan said. "You do not touch this foundation. You do not touch a family in this program. And you do not threaten a ten-year-old girl because you don't like who her mother is talking to."

　　The voice on the other end rose, sharp enough now that Bianca caught fragments. You don't know her. You don't know what she wants from you. I'm trying to save you from a mistake.

　　"A mistake." Ethan's laugh had an edge in it Bianca hadn't heard from him yet. "I met her four hours ago, Ingrid. You've already decided she's dangerous. That's not protection. That's control."

　　Whatever Ingrid said next made him go very still.

　　"Say that again," he said, quiet now, quieter than before, which was somehow worse.

　　Bianca watched his free hand curl into a fist at his side and then deliberately, visibly, uncurl.

　　"No," he said. "This isn't a conversation. This is me telling you it stops now." A pause, listening, his knuckles whitening slightly around the phone. "Then we have a bigger problem than I thought."

　　He ended the call.

　　The hallway was quiet except for the fish tank filter humming and Zoe somewhere behind them asking if the orange fish had a name.

　　"What did she say?" Bianca asked. "At the end. Before you hung up."

　　Ethan didn't answer right away. He looked down at his phone like it might tell him something different the second time.

　　"That she was protecting me." His laugh had no humor in it at all. "From you."

　　"From me."

　　"She thinks…" He stopped, ran a hand over his jaw, and Bianca watched him choose his next words carefully, the way you choose steps on ice. "She thinks I'm getting involved with someone who isn't who she says she is. That there's history I don't know about."

　　Something cold moved through Bianca's chest.

　　"Is there?" he asked. Quiet. Not accusing. Just asking, the way he'd asked are you alright on that sidewalk, like he actually wanted the true answer and not the easy one.

　　She thought about the restaurant. About Daniel's hand on Ingrid's back at some point in some other life she hadn't lived yet but was apparently already tangled in. She thought about how small this city suddenly felt, how fast the walls were closing in around a coincidence that didn't feel like a coincidence anymore. One phone call and already the ground under her feet felt less solid than it had this morning.

　　"I don't know your sister," Bianca said carefully. "I've never met her. I don't know why she'd say that."

　　That was true. It just wasn't the whole truth, and she watched Ethan notice the gap in it, the same way she'd noticed his silence in front of the other parents an hour ago. She hated how easily he read her. She hated more how much she wanted to just tell him everything right there in the hallway and let the truth land however it landed.

　　She didn't. Not yet. Zoe was still close enough to hear, and some things a child should never have to watch her mother explain.

　　"Okay," he said, and let it go, which somehow felt worse than if he'd pushed.

　　He walked her and Zoe to the door himself, one hand resting briefly, barely, against the small of Bianca's back as they passed through the frame, gone before she could decide how she felt about it. At the entrance he crouched down to Zoe's height the way he had in the meeting room, easy and unhurried.

　　"See you next week," he told her.

　　"Promise?"

　　"Promise."

　　Zoe skipped ahead toward the car. Bianca lingered half a step behind, and Ethan straightened up, close enough now that she had to tilt her chin to hold his gaze.

　　"For what it's worth," he said, low, just for her, "whatever my sister's afraid of, it doesn't change anything on my end."

　　Her breath caught somewhere it shouldn't have. "You don't know that yet."

　　"I know enough." His eyes held hers, steady, unblinking, the same look from the sidewalk, except now it had weight behind it, now it meant something more dangerous than a stranger being kind. "I know you signed divorce papers last night and still showed up here for your daughter at nine in the morning. I know you didn't ask me to fix anything. I know you're the first person in longer than I can remember that I actually wanted to keep talking to."

　　Bianca's heart slammed once, hard, against her ribs. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, some version of the truth she wasn't ready to hand him yet.

　　"Ethan—"

　　Her phone buzzed in her hand before she could finish. She glanced down out of habit, already half expecting Kemi checking in, already composing the easy lie she'd send back. Fine. Just tired. Talk later.

　　It wasn't Kemi.

　　It was Daniel.

　　We need to talk. Ingrid told me you're spending time with her brother. Careful, Bianca. You don't know what he's capable of. I do.

　　Bianca stared at the screen, at Daniel's name, at a threat dressed up as concern from the same man who'd handed her divorce papers across a restaurant table less than twenty-four hours ago. Two people who hated each other for their own reasons, suddenly speaking the exact same warning in the exact same breath.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​