Mom finished her coffee before she finally spoke. “Mila.” Her voice was deceptively steady. “I need you to come with me downtown this morning.”
The request sat low in my stomach. “Where are we going?”
“A meeting with my FBI contact, Nick Jacobson.” She held my gaze across the table. “It involves Darren.”
The room felt smaller.
Edwardo set his mug down quietly. “I’ll drive.”
Neither of them elaborated further.
I sent Luke and Avery texts letting them know I wouldn’t be in school and that I would catch up with them later. For now, I was spending the day with Mom and Edwardo. There didn’t seem to be any reason to explain more until I understood what was happening myself.
Edwardo drove. He preferred control whenever something uncertain approached. I had learned long ago—first when we knew him years ago, and again after we fled Blackwood—that arguing with that instinct never changed the outcome.
The car moved through coastal streets before merging onto the highway that cut toward the city. Morning traffic built gradually around us, yet Edwardo navigated the lanes with the same calm precision he brought to everything else.
No one spoke for the first fifteen minutes of the drive. Finally, I broke the silence. “Is this connected to the call you got?”
Mom turned slightly in the passenger seat. “Yes.” Her answer carried none of the hesitation I expected.
“What are they investigating?” As far as I knew, Darren’s body had never been found. They must need something more.
Her gaze shifted toward the passing skyline ahead of us. “They have questions about financial activity connected to King Enterprises during the weeks before he disappeared.”
Disappeared. The word landed with quiet force, heavier than if she had simply said dead.
Edwardo kept his eyes on the road. “Questions don’t mean conclusions,” he added evenly.
The tension in my chest remained. Questions could still change everything.
The office building stood several blocks away from the financial district, tucked between two larger towers that overshadowed it from both sides.
Edwardo parked in a secured underground garage and walked us to the elevator without hesitation. The ride to the twelfth floor passed in silence.
When the doors opened, a small reception area greeted us.
A woman behind the desk looked up immediately. “Ms. Callahan?”
“Yes,” Mom answered.
“They’re expecting you.” The woman gestured toward a hallway. “Second door on the left.”
Edwardo walked beside us the entire way. The office waiting beyond the door looked intentionally plain. A conference table occupied the center of the room, surrounded by a wall of windows.
Two people already waited inside, and a man in a charcoal suit stood when we entered. Beside him sat a woman reviewing documents spread across the table.
Mom greeted them with controlled familiarity. “Nick.” She offered her hand.
He shook it. “Adriana.”
She turned slightly. “This is my daughter, Mila. And this is Edwardo Ruiz.”
Recognition flickered briefly in his expression before he masked it.
The woman at the table closed her folder and rose. “Agent Walker,” she introduced herself before we all sat in the offered seats.
Mom began speaking first when Nick prompted her. She laid out the story with the calm precision of someone who’d replayed the timeline hundreds of times in her own mind.