The silence in the boardroom didn't feel empty; it felt heavy, like the moments before a skyscraper collapses.
Reid didn't move. He didn't shout. He didn't even look at the security guards dragging Sarah away. He just stared at the ink blot on the contract, his face a mask of such profound, crystalline shock that it was more terrifying than any outburst.
"A second son?" Thomas Thorne's voice broke the silence, sounding like gravel in a blender. He looked at Eleanor, his eyes narrowed. "Eleanor, if there is an undisclosed heir to the Sterling estate, this acquisition is dead. I will not have Aegis tied up in a decade of inheritance litigation."
"It's the ramblings of a disgruntled former employee, Thomas," Eleanor said, her voice smooth, though I saw the way her fingers gripped her silver pen until her knuckles turned white. "Sarah has been struggling with... stability... for years. This is a desperate attempt at a shake-down."
"Is it?" Reid's voice was a low, jagged rasp.
He finally turned his head. He didn't look at his mother. He looked at me. His eyes were no longer the warm, molten silver of this morning. They were cold. They were the eyes of a stranger who had just realized he was standing in a room full of enemies.
"Maya," he whispered. "You were in the coat check for ten minutes last night. You came back looking like you'd seen a ghost. You couldn't look me in the eye this morning."
"Reid, I..." My voice failed me. I looked at the Board members, at the lawyers, at the "Ice Queen" who was watching me with the predatory stillness of a hawk.
"Did you know?" Reid asked. It wasn't a question; it was an execution.
"I didn't know everything," I breathed, my heart feeling like it was being crushed by the very corset I was wearing. "Reid, I was trying to protect you. Your mother told me—"
"My mother." Reid let out a short, hysterical laugh that made the lawyers flinch. He stood up, the heavy leather chair skidding back against the hardwood. "You stayed in my bed, you wore those emeralds, and you sat at this table knowing there was a piece of my father's life—a piece of my life—that was being hidden from me? And you let her hold it over you?"
"Reid, listen to me—"
"I've spent my life being managed, Maya!" he roared, slamming his hand down on the table. The glass rattled. "I thought you were the one person who didn't have a price. I thought you were the one person who would rather burn the world down than tell a lie. But it turns out you're just a better actress than Cassandra."
He turned to the Board. "The meeting is over. Get out. All of you."
Thomas Thorne didn't argue. He gathered his papers, gave me a look of profound disappointment, and led his team out. Eleanor stood up, smoothing her skirt as if she hadn't just watched her son's soul shatter.
"Reid, don't be tedious," she said. "I did what was necessary for the brand. If your father's indiscretions had come to light—"
"Get out, Mother," Reid said, his back turned to her. "Before I have security treat you the same way they treated Sarah."
Eleanor paused, her eyes flickering to me. There was no pity there. Only a cold, satisfied confirmation of her victory. She had lost the secret, but she had won the war: she had proven that Maya Gable could be corrupted.
She glided out, the click of her heels the only sound left in the room.
Then, there was just us.
I stood up, my legs feeling like they were made of water. I walked around the table toward him, but he stepped back, as if my very presence was a contagion.
"Reid, please. Sarah gave me those papers in the coat check. I was going to tell you, but your mother... she showed me the medical records. My mother was in Switzerland, Reid. Your family paid for her life. For twenty years. I was terrified that if I told you, you'd think I was part of the scheme. I was terrified I'd lose the only person who ever made me feel like I wasn't just a waitress from Queens."
"You lost that person the moment you chose the secret over me," Reid said, finally looking at me. His face was gray, the lines of exhaustion deep around his mouth. "You didn't keep the secret to protect me, Maya. You kept it because you wanted the firm. You wanted to be the Principal Architect. You wanted the dream more than you wanted the man."
"That's not true!" I shouted, tears finally spilling over. "I don't care about the firm! I don't care about the money! I did it because I didn't want to be the one to tell you your father was a liar!"
"My father was always a liar," Reid whispered. "I just didn't think you were."
He walked to the door, his hand on the handle.
"Where are you going?"
"To find Sarah," he said. "And then I'm going to find my brother. Because apparently, he's the only Sterling left who hasn't tried to buy my silence."
"Reid, wait!"
The door slammed shut.
I stood alone in the boardroom, the ink blot on the contract still wet. I looked at the emeralds on the table—the "Sterling Tears." They looked like glass. They looked like nothing.
I reached out and grabbed the contract, ripping it in half. Then in quarters. Then into a hundred tiny pieces of white paper that looked like snow on the mahogany table.
I didn't have the firm. I didn't have the man. And for the first time in my life, I didn't even have the diner.
But as I walked toward the elevator, a thought hit me through the haze of my grief.
Sarah said the money came from a blind trust. But she didn't say who managed the trust.
If Eleanor was the one who paid for my mother's care, why was she so afraid of the truth? Unless... the "Second Son" wasn't a secret heir to the Sterling fortune.
What if the secret wasn't about Reid's father? What if it was about mine?
I pressed the button for the lobby. I wasn't going back to Queens, and I wasn't staying here. I was going to the one place where the records couldn't be burned.
I was going to the hospice. And I was going to wake my mother up, even if I had to scream her name until the walls came down.