She raised a hand and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face.
“I need you to look into it more aggressively. Use every resource you have.”
Her hand lowered to her lap, fingers curling slightly.
“If that wasn’t a simple accident… I need to know.”
A brief pause.
“I’m not with Elias anymore. If someone targeted me once… I’m not going to wait for it to happen again.”
Her gaze sharpened even further, voice lowering with certainty.
“If that accident wasn’t an accident… I need to know who did it.”
Juliet nodded slowly in agreement, her expression tightening as she leaned back into the couch. Her fingers drummed once against the armrest before she spoke again.
“Yeah…” she said carefully, eyes flicking toward Amara. “There’s a chance they come back to finish what they couldn’t two years ago.”
A heavy silence settled in the room for a moment.
Then, suddenly, a sharp ringtone broke through it.
Amara’s phone lit up on the table. She paused mid-breath, her eyes dropping toward the screen.
Elias’s name flashed across the screen.
For a second, she didn’t move. Her thumb hovered over it, hesitation barely visible—just a small pause in her breathing.
Then she exhaled once, controlled, and picked it up.
She brought the phone to her ear, leaning back slightly into the couch as she spoke evenly.
“Yes, Mr. Creed?”
There was a brief silence on the other end.
Then Elias’s voice came through—cold, sharp, immediately displeased.
“Don’t call me that.”
Amara’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t respond. She simply leaned back further into the couch, her eyes half-lowered as she waited.
A faint rustle came through the line—like he was moving.
“Why haven’t you come home yet?” he demanded. “It’s late. Where are you?”
Amara’s brows creased. She slowly pulled the phone away from her ear and switched it to speaker. Then she tossed it casually onto the table.
She tilted her head slightly, then answered casually,
“Mr. Creed, have you forgotten something? We’ve already decided to divorce. You and I are no longer husband and wife. Where I am is no longer any of your business.”
Elias’s voice cut through immediately.
“We haven’t gone through the legal process. I haven’t signed anything yet. We are still married.”
His tone hardened further.
