Chapter 2: The Man at the End of the Hall
I told Sophie to stay behind me and not move.
She pressed herself against the wall, still holding that phone with both hands.
The hallway was quiet.
Too quiet for a wedding venue with sixty guests one floor below.
Then a door at the far end opened.
A man in a suit stepped out.
He looked at me.
Then at Amanda.
His expression didn't change.
Amanda whispered, "Marcus, I told you to wait—"
"You were supposed to call me when it was done," he said.
"What happened?"
I didn't recognize him.
But Sophie did.
She pointed at him and said, "That's the man who came to our house.
When you were at work, Daddy."
My chest went cold.
Amanda turned to me fast.
"She's four.
She doesn't know what she's saying."
But Marcus had already looked at Sophie, and something shifted in his face.
Not guilt.
Something worse.
Calculation.
He reached into his jacket pocket.
I thought it was a phone.
It wasn't.
It was a folded document.
He held it out toward me like it was nothing.
"You should read page three," he said quietly.
"Before you do anything you regret."
I took it.
My hands weren't steady.
Page three had my signature on it.
A signature I had never written.
---
What was on that document — and who forged his name?
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The full truth is darker than anything in Part 1.
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