“She was in deep.”
I nodded, but the anger that rose in me was not clean.
It carried guilt.
I had sent the money without question.
I had kept quiet because it was easier.
On the laptop, a draft email blinked unsent.
It was addressed to someone named Tyler.
“If this blows up, I will say it was Lucas’s investment. He has the records. No one will suspect me.”
My stomach turned.
Ethan scrolled further and froze.
“You should see this.”
He pointed to a credit card statement.
Khloe had opened a secondary card under Michael’s name, purchased hotel rooms in Minneapolis, restaurant bills, and a car payment for the same black sedan registered to Tyler Morgan.
I sat down on the cold concrete floor.
“She stole from us to fund him.”
Ethan’s voice was quiet.
“If you go to the cops now, your parents get dragged into it. The money trail leads to their account.”
I rubbed my face.
The wind outside howled through the crack in the door.
“Then I will find another way. I just need proof.”
We copied everything onto a flash drive.
As I shut the laptop, the power cord sparked faintly, throwing a blue reflection on my hands.
When we stepped out, the snow had thickened.
The night was silent, except for the distant hum of the highway.
Then I saw a black sedan parked near the gate, engine idling, a man inside watching us through the windshield.
He took a slow drag of his cigarette, the ember flaring in the dark.
Ethan followed my gaze.
“You think that’s him?”
I did not answer.
The license plate caught the light, a number I recognized from the registration sent to our house.
I shoved the suitcase back inside the unit and locked it.
“Let’s go.”
As we drove off, headlights followed us for a mile before turning away.
My pulse did not slow until we hit the main road.
Back home, I sat at my desk, staring at the flash drive, the evidence glowing like a threat.
“I thought I was finding the truth to save her,” I whispered. “But maybe the truth is what is going to bury all of us.”
Outside, snow kept falling, soft and relentless.
The suitcase I had left behind sat under a thin white layer, the laptop screen still glowing faintly through the crack.
Half the light caught on the cold metal walls, half swallowed by darkness.
3 days later, the house still felt like a wound that had not clotted.
The air smelled faintly of coffee and cold dust.
Karen moved in slow silence around the kitchen, filling the pot, pretending she did not notice how Michael’s newspaper had not turned a single page in an hour.
I was sitting by the window, scrolling through the files from Khloe’s storage locker for the hundredth time, when the doorbell rang.
The sound cut through the stillness like a blade.
I opened the door to find a man standing there, tall, maybe mid-30s, wearing a gray hoodie and a grin that did not reach his eyes.
“Morning,” he said easily. “You must be Lucas. I am Tyler Morgan.”
The name hit harder when spoken aloud.
He lifted a manila folder and waved it casually.
“Khloe had asked me to drop these off. Proof of our investment. She thought it would clear up the misunderstanding.”
I studied him for a beat before stepping aside.
“Come in.”
He walked into the living room like he had been there before.
The confidence was rehearsed, smooth.
He laid out glossy printouts across the table.
Fake charts, photos of smiling artisans, words like “community” and “growth” printed in cheerful fonts.
“We are connecting local creators with clients,” he said. “It is going to be huge once we hit our next funding round.”
I flipped through the pages.
The numbers were nonsense, columns that did not add up, projections that meant nothing.
“$72,000,” I said quietly. “That is what she gave you.”
He smiled, eyes glinting.