Chapter 2

Gwen's POV

Right as dawn broke, I bundled all the gathered files and sent them to Ethan.

I didn't say much. Just one question: Do you want to explain?

Sending that was the very last chance I offered him.

If he had replied with just one word, I could have treated this as a massive misunderstanding.

The message was marked as read. No reply ever came.

I set my phone face down on the desk, lay down for a while, but couldn't sleep.

I don't know how long passed before I heard the front door open downstairs.

I threw on a cardigan and headed down. The living room lights were blazing. My father, Marcus Vance, sat on one end of the sofa, while Ethan sat on the other. Spread across the coffee table between them was the exact stack of files I’d sent out last night.

"These files were anonymously leaked onto Mia's college forum in the middle of the night," my father said, his voice held low without looking up at me. "You're the only person who had access to this."

I froze.

I parted my lips, wanting to tell them it wasn't me, but swallowed the words down.

I swallowed them because I saw who the files were sitting between.

The two men in this room—one was my father, the other was the man I had waited for through all those years. Both of them had already made up their minds about who was to blame.

My father and Ethan stood up.

Ethan didn't yell at me. He simply gestured toward the door.

"Wake everyone in the house up. Have them line up in the courtyard."

Within fifteen minutes, every light in the estate was on.

The butler, the driver, the chef, the cleaners, the security guards, the nanny who had raised me since I was a baby—around twenty people stood in an orderly line in the courtyard, their coats wrapped tightly against the chill.

Even my father walked over and took his place at the end of the line.

Besides me, there were exactly twenty-six people. Not a single person was missing.

"If even one person in this line is willing to answer you," Ethan said, looking straight at me, "we'll consider this whole thing water under the bridge."

Looking at that row of backs, my throat tightened painfully.

I could name every single person standing in that courtyard.

I knew where their kids went to school, whose legs ached when winter came, and who had quietly saved the tin of sweets I once brought back from abroad.

These twenty-six people were the ones I had trusted the most, the ones around whom I never felt the need to keep my guard up.

I started calling out from the far end.

"Nathan," I called to the butler.

The figure standing on the very edge, facing away from me, didn't move an inch.

I called him a second time. Still no answer.

I moved down the line, calling them one by one. I called Emma, the nanny who practically raised me, Jack the driver, the chef, the guards.

With every name I called, that person simply turned further away, giving me the stark, cold visual of their back.

Emma had held me in her arms as a baby.

When I had burning fevers as a child, she was the one who paced the rooms holding me all night long.

When her name left my lips, Emma's shoulders trembled slightly. But in the end, she never turned around.

I called out all twenty-six names. Not a single back budged.

After the first round, I was still waiting for the voice at the end of the line.

I told myself that even if the staff were afraid to answer, my own father surely would.

"Call them again from the start," my father said.

So I called them again from the beginning.

Still nothing.

By the second round, my voice was already turning thin and airy.

After finishing the second round, I no longer dared to hope anyone would answer.

I lowered my expectations, just praying Emma's shoulders would twitch once more. A single twitch would count as an answer.

Her shoulders stayed completely still.

By the third round, I couldn't bear to look up at their faces anymore. I just stared at the rows of shoes on the ground, calling out to pair after pair.

Counting shoes was easier on the heart than looking at faces.

Faces carried memories; shoes belonged to anyone.

Round after round, until my throat was so raw I couldn't even form a proper sound.

Not a single person gave so much as a quiet hum.

From start to finish, I never begged.

Under the porch, Ethan stood with his arms crossed, watching with a cold, blank stare, completely devoid of emotion.

A night breeze swept through. I stood barefoot on the stone pavement, shivering from the biting cold, yet no one offered me a jacket.

Standing in the center of that courtyard, I realized I had nothing left in my hands.

I used to think this family was my safety net—that whenever I suffered outside, someone here would stand up for me.

Only tonight did I realize that this safety net was nothing but my own delusion.

Only when I couldn't make a sound anymore and clung to the doorframe, gasping for air, did my father raise his hand and dismiss everyone.

Once the courtyard emptied out, only the three of us remained.

The stone pavers still bore the footprints of the line of people, shimmering faintly under the settling night dew.

Only then did Ethan speak, his tone as flat as if he were closing a routine business deal.

"Tomorrow, you will go to the auditorium at Mia's university. In front of all her classmates and professors, you will admit your mistake. You will say those photos and that timeline were all fabricated by you to ruin her reputation."

"I didn't fabricate anything," I rasped, my voice barely audible. "She was the one who crawled into your bed."

"Where's the proof?" Ethan asked.

"The stack I sent you last night. You saw it."

"Gwen," Ethan frowned, "what's the point of bringing this up now, other than making a fool of yourself?"

"Why should I have to confess to a lie?"

"Because the files came from your hands," he said, staring at me. "The whole forum is tearing her apart right now, and the faculty has gotten involved. You go admit the blame, and this whole mess ends. I'll still treat you like the sensible person you've always been."

*Sensible.*

During those years I was overseas, he said that every time we met.

Back then, I thought it was a compliment.

I looked up at him, my eyes burning red.

Looking at the man I had waited for all these years, I didn't offer a single word of defense.

A defense only works if someone is willing to listen.

Twenty-six people had just stood in this courtyard, and not a single one was willing to hear me.

I simply nodded, accepting his terms.

The moment I nodded, I had already made up my mind: there was only one way to put an end to this, and I had to walk up to that stage myself.

As for the words "I apologize"—not a chance in hell.

Ethan seemed surprised by how easily I gave in. As he turned to leave, his footsteps hesitated for a fraction of a second.