Chapter 7
He stumbled down the stairs, fumbling for his car keys.
Just as he was about to start the engine, David came running up, completely out of breath, phone screen blazing.
“Adrian! Holy shit! You need to see what’s trending online!”
On the screen, #Adrian Cross Cover Up#Matt Thompson Case Shocking Reversal had shot straight to the top of trending topics.
The audio recording he’d buried was spreading like wildfire.
Next came the security footage from the private room-Sophie and Riley’s confrontation playing out in crystal clear detail.
His last thread of sanity snapped. He was so completely shattered that he didn’t even have the courage to click and watch.
“How… how is this possible?”
Adrian’s voice shook uncontrollably. “I locked all that evidence away. Who the hell leaked it?”
David stared at his ghostly pale face, stammering.
‘Besides you, who else had access to this stuff? You never responded after I left that night-Wait! Our conversation… Riley didn’t overhear it, did she?”
Adrian’s mind flashed back to that morning when he’d tried to kiss Riley and she’d instinctively turned away. Her eerily calm expression. That drink she’d
landed him…
No… no way…”
le shook his head frantically, gripping his hair like a madman. “She loves me so much, she would never-”
Love you?”
David’s eyes went wide with disbelief.
You killed her brother and destroyed her family! Why the fuck would she still love you? Adrian, wake up! Sophie played you like a damn fiddle!”
Maybe before, what you had with Riley was real. But after Matt died? You two could never go back to what you were!”
Sophie isn’t the innocent victim she pretends to be. I guarantee she’s been planning this whole thing!”
Adrian staggered backward, his back slamming against the car door. He pulled out his phone, fingers trembling as he searched for Riley’s number.
The call went straight to a cold automated message.
The number you have dialed is currently unavailable.”
He threw himself into the car, gunning the engine, tires screaming against the pavement as he raced to find her.
First their usual coffee shop-she always said their tiramisu tasted like high school memories. Then her favorite park, where she’d walk alone when she was ipset, claiming it made her feel like a rom com heroine.
Finally the college track where theyd first gotten together, every crack in the pavement holding pieces of their youth.
She was nowhere.
Her carefully pressed suits still hung in his closet. The little succulent she’d bought to protect his eyesight still sat on his windowsill.
The law notes she’d given him as a gift still lay open on his desk.
The inscription read: “May you fight injustice and stay righteous forever.”
Her neat handwriting felt like a red hot brand, searing straight through his chest.
Adrian collapsed to his knees, burying his face in one of her sweaters, still faintly scented with fabric softener.
He cried like a lost child completely shattered
“Riley… I’m so sorry.”
1 fucked up… God, I fucked up so badly..”
The sharp smell of hospital disinfectant hit his nostrils before Adrian had fully recovered from his breakdown.
David’s suspicions about Sophie echoed in his head-he needed answers straight from her mouth.
But just as he reached the hospital room, he spotted Sophie’s figure hurrying away down the far end of the corridor.
He remembered what the doctor had said when he’d brought her in.
Her surface wounds weren’t serious, but they couldn’t rule out brain injury-she needed to stay for three days of observation.
So why the hell was she sneaking out now?
