Chapter 22 Chapter 22: The Knife in the Family Portrait.
Chloe’s POV
The tablet screen stayed frozen at 4:12 a.m. and Brian’s face filled it again. Kim’s last sentence kept looping inside my head even though I had turned the sound off. “Accidents happen in townhouses, too.” My stomach flipped hard and I pressed both hands over my mouth so I wouldn’t throw up on the kitchen floor.
I forced my fingers to move. I copied the clip to three cloud drives, emailed it to a burner account and then stuck a copy on the tiny USB I kept taped inside my bra. After that, I wiped the tablet clean. My hands shook the whole time.
Bare feet padded behind me. “Chloe?” Liam’s voice was low and rough from sleep. He stood in the doorway in just sweatpants, hair sticking up and eyes squinting at the light from the screen. “Why are you still up?”
I flipped the tablet over fast. “Another fake ultrasound came through the burner. I had to check the metadata.”
He walked over, pulled me out of the chair and into his arms without asking anything else. “Come back to bed. We’ll deal with it in the morning.” He kissed the side of my head. “Together, okay? Always together.”
I let him guide me to the bedroom. He fell asleep the second his head hit the pillow, one arm heavy across my waist. I stared at the dark ceiling until the sky outside turned gray.
At 5:07, I slipped out from under his arm. I sent Olivia one encrypted line. Investigate Brian Luis, everything down to money, calls, whatever you can find. I need it now.
Then I walked to the windows. Brian was already on the townhouse balcony next door, wearing Liam’s old gray Harvard T-shirt, holding a coffee mug. He looked straight at me and lifted the mug in a small salute. My skin crawled. I guess he knew I had watched him.
At 6:45, Liam came out of the bathroom in a dark suit and red tie. He kissed me hard, hands on my face. “The neutral lab tech comes at noon. This time, they can’t stop it.”
He kissed me again and left for his board meeting. I drove straight to the hospital parking garage. Lucy waited by her car, with her eyes red. She shoved a thick envelope at me.
“Margaret forged Grandfather Astor’s new will two weeks before now, and I'm not sure if he's even aware of that yet. If Liam marries anyone except Kim before the Maldives gala, Brian becomes trustee of the whole trust and everything.”
She gave me the bank statements next. Eighteen months of payments from Margaret’s secret account to Brian. Then, the photos from this morning. Brian is in the townhouse bathroom using Liam’s electric razor and DNA is secured.
“Don’t tell Liam yet,” Lucy whispered. “He might do the unthinkable, or he’ll kill Brian and the board will take the company from him. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I said and hated myself for it. We concluded on that and I went home.
At 11:03, a courier delivered a black box to the townhouse kitchen. Kim opened it on camera, lifted out a new silicone bump and ran her fingers over it like it was real.
Later that morning, Marcus and the lab tech got turned away. New injunction. "Patient is too fragile. Test postponed until after the Maldives gala." Liam texted me one line. They’re boxing us in.
At 1:10, the penthouse door opened without a knock. Brian walked in holding a bottle of Macallan 25. “Liam said you were home alone,” he said and smiled like nothing was wrong.
He put two glasses on the counter and poured. “To the newest Astor.”
I stayed still. He drank anyway. His eyes dropped to the fresh hickey on my neck. Something dark crossed his face. “You look tired, Chloe. Rough night?”
My heart slammed against my ribs. He knew and he leaned closer. “Ask Liam about the redhead in Miami.” He tapped the bottle twice and walked out.
At 3:00, Liam came home furious. He slammed the door so hard that the walls shook. “They blocked us until after the gala,” he snapped. He grabbed my waist, lifted me onto the kitchen island and kissed me hard. His hands pushed my skirt up, with his fingers digging into my thighs.
“Mine,” he said against my mouth. He pulled my panties down and opened his belt.
I wrapped my legs around him as he pushed inside me fast and deep. I gasped into his neck. He kept one hand on my hip, while the other tangled in my hair, pulling just enough to make my eyes water.
He moved roughly and every thrust was angry and desperate. I bit his shoulder to stay quiet. My back hit the cabinets with every push. I came hard on his cock, clenching around him and he followed right after, groaning my name against my skin.
He carried me to the bedroom without pulling out, laid me down and kept moving slower now while kissing my throat, my collarbone and my breasts. When he finished the second time, he stayed inside me, breathing hard.
“After the Maldives, I’m putting a real ring on you,” he said quietly, tracing the hickey he’d left. “Not the fake one. The one that means you stay forever, but based on our contract.”
I went still. “That wasn’t the deal, Liam. I’m only supposed to pretend to be your fiancée, not marry you.”
He pulled out fast and stood up. “Fuck the deal!” he shouted. “You think this is just a mere talk from them?”
He stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door. I heard the shower start.
Two minutes later, his phone lit up on the nightstand and it was Seraphina. "Dinner tonight. My SoHo place, the new one. Come alone."
He came out in a towel, with his hair still wet. He went for his phone and saw the message. “Oooh!... I have to go, Chloe. Business.” He kissed my forehead quickly and started dressing. After dressing, she came to me and bid me goodbye with a kiss again.
I waited thirty seconds after the elevator closed, then took the service stairs to the garage.
I followed his car across the bridge and parked two blocks from the SoHo building I had never seen him enter before. Immediately, he disappeared inside.
Five minutes later, Brian’s black town car pulled up. Brian stepped out in a dark suit, smiling and walked into the same building.
My phone buzzed and it was an unknown number. A photo of Mia asleep in her hospital bed, where my mom was admitted, timestamped twenty minutes ago. See you soon, little bird.
Pack something red… - B Just then, rain started falling. I stood on the sidewalk getting soaked and looked up at the lit windows. Three shadows moved behind the glass.
I stood in the rain across the street, phone burning in my hand and finally understood. The knife wasn’t coming from Kim. It wasn’t even coming from Margaret anymore.
It was coming from the one person Liam would never suspect, the best friend who’d been promised an empire if he just got me out of the way.
And in five days, we were all flying to the Maldives together.