The question reached exactly where it should have.
“Are we talking about the same Edwina?”
My jaw tightened.
“Yes,” I snapped. “Fuck, Elias. Yes.”
Another long pause followed.
“You’re telling me,” Elias said carefully, “that after five years of acting like a ghost you suddenly call me because you found Edwina Carter living under a different surname?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
A laugh escaped him. “Jesus.”
“I need you to look into her.”
“Of course you do.”
“Everything,” I continued. “Where she’s been since she left Washington. Whether she married someone named Rhodes, then divorced him.”
Elias sighed.
“You spent five years trying to find her. Maybe you should ask yourself why the first thing you want now is a background investigation.”
I let out a humorless breath.
“Fuck off, Elias.”
“And now that you finally found her, the first thing you want is a file on her life?”
“I want to know what kind of life she built,” I bit out. “I want to know the person she goes home to, the one she calls baby, and which fucker thinks he belongs where I used to be.”
Elias didn’t answer immediately. When he spoke again his tone had shifted slightly.
“Your father asked about you this morning.”
I leaned back in the chair again. “Yeah?”
“He’s not doing great, Hayden.”
The words carried a weight I recognized even through the distance.
“His health hasn’t been stable since the engagement with Alessia collapsed.”
The mention of her name irritated me. A life I had stepped away from years ago.
“I know,” I said.
“The company still expects you to return eventually.”
“They’ve been expecting that for eight years.”
“And?”
“And I told them eight years ago that I wasn’t interested.”
Elias sighed.