A name recognized around the world.
And yet the thing that frightened me most was a single sheet of paper from the woman I loved.
I continued reading.
“Adrian, if you are reading this, it means Ethan has finally done what I always feared.”
My fingers tightened around the page.
“But before you judge him, you need to know the truth about June Carter.”
June.
The woman I had found on my pantry floor.
The woman I believed I was helping.
The woman I thought my company had betrayed.
My eyes moved farther down the page.
“June is not a victim of Ethan’s greed.”
I froze.
For a moment, the words blurred.
Then they came back into focus.
“She is the reason you still have a company to save.”
I stopped.
Completely still.
The room became silent.
Not normal silence.
The kind of silence that comes right before something inside you breaks.
I read the sentence again.
And again.
Then I turned the page.
There was nothing else.
Only that.
A clue.
A door left slightly open.
And Clara expecting me to walk through it.
The next morning, I found June in the kitchen.
She was standing at the counter preparing coffee.
As though nothing had happened.
As though she hadn’t been standing in the middle of a storm without even realizing it.
“June.”
She turned.
“Good morning, Mr. Blackwell.”
Her smile appeared automatically.
That bothered me.
