Chapter 31: Find Him

I let out a shaky breath and decided I'd tell my father all about Nina's intentions.

I stood outside my father’s study for a few seconds, my fingers trembling against the doorknob, my mind racing in all directions. Every voice in my head was screaming for me to go inside and tell him the truth about Nina. To make him see what kind of venom he’d let into our lives. But there was another part of me, smaller but stronger somehow, that hesitated—afraid of what might happen if I spoke too soon.

I finally took a breath and pushed the door open. "Dad..."

My voice died in my throat when the soft murmur of their voices hit me first. My father sat behind his desk, his posture relaxed, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. And across from him, with that same practiced charm that always made my skin crawl, sat Nina. When did she get into my father's study?

She turned just as I entered, smiling like she owned the air in the room. The moment our eyes met, something sharp twisted in my gut.

“Abby,” my father’s voice carried warmth, completely unaware of the monster beside him. “You’ve done a great job avoiding me this past week. Is it because of Jordan, the suitor we introduced you to?”

My lips parted but no words came out at first. The name Jordan felt like a pebble in my throat. For a moment, I forgot how to breathe. I wanted to tell him everything—the phone call, Nina’s confession, Kevin’s name tangled in that web of deceit—but the way Nina’s eyes gleamed told me she was waiting. Watching.

So I lied.

“Uhmm, no,” I said softly, forcing a small smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “It’s work. I’ve just been too busy with it.”

My father nodded, satisfied. The sound of his approval should’ve comforted me, but it didn’t. It only made my heart ache.

“I must say,” Nina began, her voice dripping in that sickly sweetness she used when she wanted to sound kind, “you’ve been doing a great job so far at the company.”

The corner of her mouth lifted just enough for me to see the truth underneath—the mockery, the hidden threat.

I couldn’t stand the sound of her voice anymore. So I asked the one question that had been eating away at me for days.

“I still haven’t seen Kevin,” I said quietly. “Do you happen to know where he is?”

The air changed instantly. It was subtle, but I caught it. The faint tightening around Nina’s jaw, the way her hand stilled over her lap for half a second before she composed herself again.

“I’m so sorry,” she said after a beat, smiling like nothing was wrong. “I forgot to actually mention that I sent him on a work trip to Mexico. He’ll return in a few days.”

Her tone was effortless, perfectly rehearsed. But something inside me screamed that she was lying.

“It’s so good to know,” she continued, “that you worry about him genuinely—as his stepsister.”

Stepsister. The word rolled off her tongue with quiet mockery, like she was testing how far she could push me before I broke.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded slightly, pretending to accept her story even though my pulse was hammering in my ears. “I’ll be in my room,” I said, my voice softer than I intended. “I have an early morning tomorrow.”

My father gave me a kind smile, the same smile he always had when he was proud of me. “Alright, darling. Sleep tight.”

That was all it took for my chest to tighten painfully. I turned and walked out of the study before the tears could make it past my lashes.

The hallway felt colder than usual, quiet in a way that made my footsteps echo louder than I wanted them to. I pressed my back against the wall once I was far enough and let out a shaky breath. My hands were trembling. My heart felt heavy with a kind of sorrow I didn’t know how to name.

It broke me a little, knowing that my father—so trusting, so blind—had no idea the woman beside him was already planning his downfall. That she laughed about it. That she used Kevin’s name like a weapon in her schemes.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear through every lie she’d built and make my father see her for who she really was. But all I could do was stand there in the dark, holding onto the wall for support, whispering to myself that I’d find a way to stop her before it was too late.

Because now I knew the truth: Nina wasn’t just dangerous—she was deliberate. And if she was willing to destroy my father for power, then I was next on her list.

When I got to the office the next day, I instructed Lori to confirm whether or not Kevin went on that trip to Mexico like Nina said he did.

My hands wouldn’t stop fidgeting with the corner of the file on my desk. The paper crinkled under my fingers like some tiny, useless confession of the mess my life had become. I felt the office closing in—glass walls and bright light, the hum of printers and distant footsteps—but none of it registered. All I could think about was Nina’s voice, smooth as poison, telling someone over the phone that Kevin would “take care of things.” The word kill kept repeating in my head like a beat I couldn’t escape.

When Lori came back with that look—professional, efficient, like she’d swallowed the office and spat out confidence—I almost resented her for being so competent in a world that suddenly felt very incompetent around me.

“He never boarded a flight to Mexico,” she said, and the words landed like a stone. I had to steady my breath. My mouth went dry. For half a second I was convinced my stomach had dropped to my knees.

Nina had lied.

Kevin was still in the city.

I watched her go through the motions of business—clicking keys, scrolling through a list—while my brain tried to stitch that single fact into something that made sense. She lied about a trip. She lied about Kevin. She was lying about a thousand things, and I’d been walking around blind to it.

“You can go,” I told Lori before I realized how thin and brittle my voice sounded. I didn’t want her to see me fall apart at the moment she brought me truth. I needed action, not pity.

She hesitated at the door, turned back, and the look in her eyes was different now—less assistant, more ally. “Uhmm, ma’am?” she said, quiet but steady. “I can help you hack and track his current location if you want me to.”

My head snapped up so fast it hurt. For a beat I couldn’t process the sentence at all—the words hack and track hanging there like a dangerous promise. Then a strange, sharp hope slammed into me and everything narrowed to the sound of my own pulse.

“You can do that?” The question came out like I was asking if the sun would rise tomorrow.

She nodded, a tiny proud tilt to her chin. “Yes, ma’am. I majored in cybersecurity in college. I’ve done — uh — legal penetration testing for a few small firms. Not proud of the secret zipper-like things I can pull, but I can trace a phone. I can ping an IP if I can get access to an account. I can try.”

The ethics of it flickered briefly in the back of my head—illegal, messy, possibly dangerous—then shredded under the weight of everything I had to lose. Nina’s smirk, Jordan’s hand, the word kill in my ears. There was no moral high ground left when someone had whispered that Kevin, the man I loved, might be working for her. Or worse. There was only a choice: do nothing and hope, or do something and possibly pull open the lid on whatever rot had settled under our family.

“Then get on with it,” I said before I could talk myself out of it. The command felt like a lifeline thrown across a chasm. “Find him.”

Lori’s face flickered—relief, something like excitement—but she masked it with brisk professionalism. “I’ll need access to any accounts he’d use: email, maybe his social media, the company messenger logs if you can authorize it. If he uses a burner, it’ll be harder, but I’ll trace phone pings, transaction records—”

“Do whatever you need,” I interrupted, my voice low and urgent. “Talk to IT. Use whatever internal access we can legally get, and then do whatever extra you think will help. Just… get him.”

She hesitated for a beat, likely considering the legal line she might be about to toe. “I’ll start with corporate channels,” she promised. “Then, if you want, I can… escalate. But I need you to know the risks.”

I imagined the phrasing in my head—escalate—and for once I didn’t flinch from danger the way I used to. The idea of being careful felt laughable when Nina had plans to take everything from my father, and maybe to hurt me. Lori gathered a pad and pen, already listing what she’d need. The practical, ordinary motions steadied me a little.

I signed the brief authorization for IT access with a hand that shook but didn’t hesitate. My signature looked like a dare. “Do it quietly,” I said. “No one sees this. No notifications. If Nina smells anything, we’ll lose any chance.”

Lori’s eyes hardened. “Understood. I’ll be discreet.”

She left, closing the door softly behind her. The sound of it felt like a small, private hinge closing on the rest of the world. I sat back and let my head drop into my hands. For a few minutes I was just a collection of ragged breaths and jittering limbs. Then the adrenaline shifted into something colder: plans.

If Lori could find a ping, a transaction, a GPS breadcrumb, it would buy me time—evidence to show my father, perhaps, before Nina had the chance to tighten whatever noose she was threading. If there were calls between Nina and Kevin, if money moved, if his phone lit up in a place that couldn’t be explained as “work,” then I would have more than suspicion. I would have proof.

That thought steadied me. It gave my anger direction. Anger is definitely useful—it sharpens, and clarifies. For the first time since Nina’s voice, my fear had a shape: find Kevin. Find proof and stop her.