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“And that doesn’t worry you at all?”

“It should, but it doesn’t. And that’s what worries me.”

Leigh watched me closely for a moment. “You’ve been saying that you feel safe with him. I understand wanting to feel safe, but feeling safe with somebody isn’t the same as them actually being safe for you.”

I paused before I responded, because I hated that she made so much sense. “I don’t think he’s lying to me.”

“I hope you’re right. But Sofia…you barely know this man. You can’t assume a feeling is true just because it’s a strong one.”

I looked out the window, thinking about Ronnie’s face, his easy charm and quiet confidence, his clumsy hands trying and failing to cook breakfast.

“I know,” I said quietly. “I just don’t know how to stop caring about him.”

Leigh reached out and put a hand on my arm. Her expression softened somewhat.

“You don’t have to stop caring. Just don’t stop being careful.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure whether I was telling her I understood or accepting that I’d been given something I couldn’t easily set aside.

The apartment was quiet after Leigh left. I went through the motions of cleaning the kitchen slowly, but my thoughts continued to circle back to our conversation. Leigh hadn’t told me to stop digging. She’d just reminded me there was a difference between seeking answers and recognizing the risk of finding them.

I knew she was right. I reached for my cell phone before going to bed to check the podcast stats one last time.

I instantly wished I hadn’t. The numbers had gone up again. New listeners were tuning in every minute, and the episode was spreading to an audience that was well beyond anyone I’d expected to hear from. I refreshed the page, watching the numbers jump, staring at the screen with utter disbelief.

More messages were arriving too, and many were anonymous. I almost clicked a couple and then stopped myself. There was already too much to sift through. I closed the application and put my phone down beside the bed. Leigh’s warning echoed in my head as I switched off the light.

After years of wanting someone to notice the fire, it was finally happening. Maybe that’s what I’d needed all along. Maybe this would be the start to finally learning the truth about what happened to my parents. I rolled onto my side, closing my eyes. The hunt for the truth had begun, and there was no taking it back now.

CHAPTER TEN

Ronan

I’d been in my office for nearly an hour, staring blankly at the paperwork in front of me without absorbing a thing. The world outside the windows was quiet, but my mind wasn’t. I wasn’t sure why, but I kept thinking about Sofia. And then I remembered her podcast.

Buried Saints.

I picked up my phone and typed Sofia’s show’s name into the search bar. It popped up almost immediately. I scrolled through the list of episodes, scanning the titles and dates. There were more episodes than I’d expected—some involving decades-old murders, unsolved crimes, forgotten disappearances.

Most focused on cases that had languished in obscurity for everyone except the people determined not to let them go. Then I stopped, staring at the newest episode. It had thousands more listeners than the others, and hundreds of comments. Reactions popped up in the feed beneath it while I watched.

I frowned. Sofia had mentioned that she tackled obscure cases, but she’d never mentioned she’d achieved this level of reach. I clicked on the newest episode.

Her voice filled my office. At first, I listened passively as she introduced the episode, explaining how she was looking into old fires tied to an organized crime outfit. Her voice was calm, controlled, and frankly a little bit monotonous.

Then she mentioned the money. My hands froze, stilling on the desk. She discussed missing funds, stolen from various laundering routes connected to the syndicate. She discussed where the money had been, when it had been moved. It all made a disturbing kind of sense to me.

My expression shifted. I rewound and played her comments again. She was accurate about the money—not estimated or approximated, dead-on accurate. I continued to listen, this time actively. This was no loose interpretation of events. The timeline around the fire was accurate as well.

Shockingly, some of the specific transactions she was discussing wouldn’t have appeared in public records. Not many members of the syndicate knew about that particular movement of funds. I sat back in my chair, arms resting on the open windowsill, staring out into the night sky over the quiet city.

How the hell could she know this? A cold knot formed in my stomach, tightening with every sentence Sofia spoke. This was no lucky guess; someone had fed her this information. Or she’d found it somewhere she wasn’t supposed to. Neither possibility was good. The office door opened and Trevor entered, his eyes falling first on my face, then my phone.

“What are you listening to?”

I showed him the screen. “Her podcast.”

Trevor’s gaze flickered to my screen and he listened. His mouth worked wordlessly for a second, his face hardening as he realized what he was listening to.