Chapter 2: The Name He Never Thought to Ask
Nathan stared at his phone screen.
His face went white.
He answered.
Said nothing.
Just listened.
Then his knees buckled.
"That's not possible," he whispered.
"That name…
that's not her family."
Madison grabbed his arm.
"Nathan.
Nathan, what is it?"
He pulled away from her like she had burned him.
"You told me she was nobody," he said, his voice cracking.
"You said you had her checked.
You said—"
"I did check her!" Madison snapped.
"She had nothing.
No connections.
No—"
"Her father owns the bank that holds every loan I have." His voice dropped to almost nothing.
"Every single one."
The folder he had thrown at my feet suddenly meant nothing.
I was still on the floor.
Still bl00ding.
But I watched Nathan Brooks — the man who had made me kneel — begin to fall apart in real time.
His second phone lit up.
Then his laptop on the side table chimed.
Then the house phone rang for the first time in three years.
Madison looked at me.
For the first time, her smile was gone.
"Sophia," she said carefully.
"Let's be reasonable—"
"You had your chance to be reasonable," I said.
"At dinner.
Remember?"
Nathan sank into the chair behind him, both phones in his hands, reading messages I couldn't see.
Whatever was on those screens was already worse than he imagined.
And my father had only just begun.
---
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What Sophia's father did in the next ten minutes dismantled everything Nathan had spent fifteen years building.
Click the link below to read the full story — and find out what Madison did when she realized she had no way out.
