Chapter 5 Five

Noah pov

The car was uncomfortably silent, it felt like I was suffocating, like the silence was staring back at me with wide, gleaming eyes and reminding me of every single thing i had lost in the span of a single day. The day I had looked forward to for the past years.

My mind felt crowded yet empty, it confused me, I'm not used to feeling this way.

I'm sitting rigidly in the passenger seat of the sleek black Porsche, clutching Zoey's photo to my chest like a lifeline. The leather seat beneath me is softer than anything I have sat on in years, but I couldn't enjoy it. I couldn't enjoy anything.

Not when my daughter was dead. Not when the man I had loved and sacrificed everything for had looked me in the eye and called her a corpse without flinching. Without a single trace of remorse on his face.

A corpse.

My throat tightens painfully around the memory of those words. I press my lips together and fix my gaze straight ahead, watching the city blur past the window in streaks of gold and white. The lights bleed into one another, meaningless and indifferent.

I had dreamed about seeing city lights again when I was in jail. Lying on that thin prison mattress in the dark, I had imagined this exact moment so many times. Freedom. The open air. The sounds of a city move around me. I had thought it would feel like breathing again. But now, it didn't feel like anything, absolutely empty.

The man beside me hasn't spoken since we got in the car. I hadn't looked at him either. But I was impossibly, irritatingly aware of him, in a way that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with the fact that he was a stranger and I was in his car going to his house with no idea who he was or what he actually wanted.

My instincts, sharpened by the years of prison life, were firing in every direction. Trust no one. Watch everything. Never let your guard down.

And yet here I was. It's not like I have another option.

I observe the way he sits, one hand resting on the steering wheel with casual authority, his posture relaxed as if picking up broken women off the street was something he did regularly.

The faint scent of something expensive drifted toward me every time he shifted. His silver hair caught the passing streetlights, and I had to actively remind myself that I did not care about his hair.

I look back down at Zoey's photo. She was laughing in it, that big, uninhibited laugh she had as a toddler, her amber eyes squinting shut with the force of her joy.

I had taken this photo the morning of her second birthday, right before everything began to unravel. Right before the accusations. Right before the handcuffs and the courtroom and the prison cell that became my world for three years.

Right before I found out what kind of man Caleb Walker truly was.

My fingers trembled slightly against the edge of the photo, and I steadied them deliberately. I had promised myself I would not cry again tonight.

I had already spent enough tears on people who never deserved a single one. What I needed now was to think clearly. To make a plan.

Because sitting in this stranger's car, heading to his house, was not part of the plan, it was a delay. And delays had a way of becoming traps if you weren't careful. I had learned that lesson the hard way.

"You're shaking."

His voice cut through the silence without warning, low, unhurried, completely unbothered.

I stiffened. "I'm fine," I replied coldly.

"You're not."

"I didn't ask for your assessment," I said, sharper than I intended.

He didn't react. He reached forward and adjusted something on the dashboard, and warm air began to push softly through the vents, wrapping around my frozen fingers and the cold that had settled into my bones without me noticing.

I did not thank him.

The city continues to change around us. Crowded streets gave way to wider roads, then to quieter ones lined with tall trees whose branches arched overhead like cathedral ceilings.

The houses here were not houses. They were estates. Each one is set back behind iron gates and security cameras, and the kind of silence that only extreme wealth could purchase. A silence that said: nothing can touch us here.

I once lived in a mansion. It hadn't protected me either.

The Porsche slowed and turned through a gate that swung open at our approach. I sit up slightly as the estate comes into view, and despite everything, despite the grief sitting like a rock in my chest and the anger still burning beneath my skin, my breath catches.

It's enormous. A sprawling structure of glass and pale stone that rose against the dark sky with quiet, absolute authority.

Every line of it was precise and intentional. The grounds stretched out on either side, immaculate and still, lit by subtle lighting that made the whole place glow with a cold, controlled beauty.

Like its owner, something told me.

Jey brings the car to a smooth stop and appears at my door before I can register that we've stopped. He opens it with a small bow. I step out slowly and stand on the gravel, my bag over one shoulder and Zoey's photo against my chest, staring up at the building.

What are you doing, Noah? I asked myself as I walked, cursing myself under my breath.

"This way."

The man was already walking toward the entrance without waiting, his hands in his pockets, his steps certain. I hesitated for exactly three seconds, long enough to remind myself I still had a choice.

But I still followed. Because the alternative was standing in his driveway all night and eventually being found by my father's men, and I was not willing to risk it.

Inside was another world entirely.

High ceilings. Clean lines.

I could tell the place was very luxurious. Lucky that spoke and announced itself without the owners needing to.

The air itself felt different, warmer, quieter, like the outside world had been sealed away completely. What remained was only this: stillness, space, and the unsettling feeling that I had walked into something I didn't fully understand.

A woman appeared from a corridor to the left.

She was older, perhaps sixty, with silver hair drawn back neatly and eyes that were immediately, genuinely kind.

I noticed her stare at me like a wounded animal that she pitied.

Like she wanted to help but understood that moving too quickly might make things worse.

"This is Martha," the man says. "She'll take care of you."

I turn to look at him. He's already turning away.

"Wait." The word leaves my mouth before I decide to say it.

He pauses. He doesn't turn full; he angles his head slightly in my direction, the way he had done outside the bar.

"I don't know your name," I said.

The pause that followed was brief but deliberate.

"Get some rest," he says.

And then he was gone.

I stared at the empty corridor, then looked at Martha, who offered a small patient smile that suggested she was entirely used to this.

"Come, dear," she says gently. "You look like you're about to fall over."

She wasn't wrong. The exhaustion had been stalking me for hours, and now that I was inside somewhere warm and still, my body decided all at once that it was finally allowed to surrender.

My legs felt heavy as I followed Martha up a wide staircase and down a quiet corridor to a room at the far end.

The room was simple compared to the rest of the house, but it was more than I had seen in three years—a wide bed dressed in white linen.

A window overlooking the dark grounds. A wardrobe. A private bathroom. Martha showed me everything quietly, told me clothes had been provided, and asked if I needed anything.

I shook my head. My voice had stopped working on the staircase.

She squeezes my hand once, warm and brief and then leaves me alone.

I stand in the centre of the room for a long moment, doing nothing at all, just breathing.

The silence here was different from prison silence. Prison silence was hostile; it pressed in on you and reminded you of everything you had lost. This silence was simply empty. Waiting. Like the room itself hadn't decided what it was yet. I sit on the edge of the bed and look down at Zoey's photo one last time.

I'm going to fix this, I tell her silently. I don't know how yet. But I promise you, I will.

I carefully set the photo on the bedside table, lie back on the white covers, still fully dressed, and close my eyes.

Sleep came before I could stop it.

I didn't hear the door open sometime later. I didn't feel the shift in the air as a tall figure stepped quietly into the room and stood over me in the darkness, studying my face with cold, unreadable gray eyes. I didn't hear the soft click of a phone camera.

And I didn't hear the low, precise voice that spoke into the phone as the figure stepped back into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind him.

"I need everything you can find on her. I want it on my desk by morning."