Daniel didn't sleep.

He lay on the floor of Ethan's room with a pillow from the hall closet, listening to both children breathe.

Sophie was in the small travel cot they kept in the corner.

Ethan had fallen asleep mid-sentence, one hand hanging off the edge of the mattress.

Daniel watched the ceiling.

By four in the morning he was downstairs with a cup of coffee he didn't drink, sitting at the kitchen table with Vanessa's phone in his mind and Marcus Hale's name on repeat.

Marcus Hale.

They'd met twice.

A company event three years ago, a chance encounter at a restaurant the following spring.

Daniel had shaken his hand both times.

Vanessa had been pleasant, composed, completely ordinary.

He had noticed nothing.

He'd noticed nothing for two years.

At six-fifteen, Vanessa came downstairs.

She stopped when she saw him at the table.

"You didn't come to bed."

"No."

She went to the coffee machine.

Poured a cup.

Stood at the counter with her back to him.

"I need you to tell me everything," Daniel said.

"Not the version you've been rehearsing.

Everything."

"I've already told you everything."

"You told me a name and a timeline.

That's not everything." He looked at her back.

"Does he want to see her?"

Vanessa's hand tightened around her mug.

"He said he has rights."

The word landed in the room like something dropped from a height.

"He said that to you directly."

"In the message.

Six months ago." She turned around.

"I didn't respond.

I blocked the number.

I thought it was over."

"And now his name is on your phone."

Her face changed.

"You looked at my phone."

"I saw the screen light up.

I didn't touch it." Daniel stood up.

"But I'm going to ask you directly: has he contacted you again?"

She set the mug down.

"Yesterday."

"Yesterday."

"While you were traveling.

He said he wants to meet her.

He said if I don't agree, he'll pursue it legally."

Daniel was quiet for a long moment.

"And you were going to tell me this when?"

"I was trying to handle it."

"By hitting Ethan and terrorizing a fifteen-month-old?"

"That has nothing to do with Marcus—"

"It has everything to do with Marcus." His voice finally cracked open.

"You've been carrying this for six months alone and it came out on our children.

That is exactly what it has to do with him."

Vanessa sat down at the table.

She pressed both hands flat in front of her, the way she did when she was trying to stay controlled.

"I didn't know what to do.

I was scared."

"Of what?"

"Of losing everything." She looked up at him.

"Of losing you."

Daniel looked at his wife.

He looked at her for a long time — at the woman he'd married nine years ago, at the stranger sitting across from him now.

"I need to see the messages," he said.

"All of them."

"Daniel—"

"All of them, Vanessa.

Or I walk out that door and call a lawyer before breakfast."

She reached into her pocket.

She unlocked the phone.

She slid it across the table.

He picked it up.

The thread with Marcus went back further than six months.

Much further.

The most recent message had been sent at 11:47 the previous night.

*I know Daniel is home.

We need to talk before this gets complicated.

Meet me tomorrow.

Usual place.*

Daniel set the phone down.

"Usual place," he said.

Vanessa said nothing.

"You told me contact ended when you found out you were pregnant." He pushed the phone back toward her.

"That was a lie too."

She didn't pick it up.

"How much of what you've told me is true?"

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

The front doorbell rang.

They both went still.

Daniel looked at the clock on the wall.

Six forty-two in the morning.

He walked to the front door and opened it.

The man on the step was tall, well-dressed, and completely calm.

He looked past Daniel for just a fraction of a second — toward the hallway, toward the stairs — before his eyes came back.

"You must be Daniel," he said.

"I'm Marcus Hale.

I think it's time we spoke."