She pushed it into his palm harder. “She’ll destroy you if you hesitate.”
Adrian swallowed, squeezing Diane’s hand. “Thank you,” he said, and his voice cracked on the words.
He drove out just as distant sirens began to rise somewhere behind the walls of the neighborhood. The Plan To Prove The Truth
The next days felt like living inside someone else’s nightmare. Adrian and Hannah hid in a cheap motel on the edge of town, paying in cash.
He kept the curtains closed. He watched every parking lot like it held danger. And yet—something unexpected happened.
Hannah started to breathe again. Away from the mansion, away from Vanessa, away from the constant tension, she ate. She slept.
She drew in her sketchbook for hours, filling pages with trees, animals, and little stick-figure versions of herself holding her dad’s hand. Adrian met Evelyn in quiet places—small diners, empty parks, back tables of coffee shops where nobody looked twice. Evelyn spread documents across the table one evening, eyes sharp.
“They’ve locked you out of everything,” she said. “And Brent has been moving money through a shell company. If we prove that, the story collapses.”
“How do we prove it?”
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