Chapter 2

The private room went silent all at once, and the whoosh from the AC vent suddenly seemed very loud.

Ronnie snapped out of it and lunged for my phone.

"Are you insane?"

"Calling the cops over a family matter, you want to embarrass us even more?"

I twisted aside and lifted the phone higher.

"Officer, the suspect's name is Ronnie Whitney."

"He works for Bayview International Hotel Group."

"He's the head of the reservations department."

"He has several dozen internal guest records in his hands."

"He was reading them out loud to everyone in this room just now."

The voice on the line went serious immediately.

"Please keep the scene as it is. We're sending officers now."

"What's the exact address?"

I gave the name of the restaurant and the room number, then hung up.

"Nadia, who do you think you're scaring?"

"Since when is looking into my brother's wife-to-be against the law?"

Whether the records were real or fake, I wasn't saying a single word about that now.

I clamped down on one thing only.

He'd leaked guest information.

Aunt Felicity Lambert was so frantic she slapped her own thigh, then came around half the table to grab my phone.

"Oh, good heavens above!"

"Nadia, what on earth are you trying to do?"

"Once that patrol car pulls up, the whole neighborhood will know!"

"Nova's a young woman. Can her name survive this kind of digging?"

"Listen to me, call them back right now and drop the case."

"Return the engagement money quietly and it'll all blow over!"

I turned my head and gave her a look.

"Aunt Felicity, how big was the cash gift the Whitneys handed you?"

"Look how worked up you are, terrified they won't be able to cover the hole."

Her face froze, and the hand she'd stretched out drew back.

I didn't bother looking at her again. I just held Nova's hand tight and pressed my thumb twice against the back of hers.

Ronnie came around the crowd to stand behind me, dropping his voice low.

"Nadia, I'm giving you one last chance."

"Call now and drop the case."

"I can leave the flyers unprinted."

"But if you don't know what's good for you, the whole city will know by tomorrow morning."

"Your daughter's thirty-seven hotel check-ins, every last one of them."

"That crummy nail salon of hers shuts down tomorrow."

I didn't even turn around.

"You'd better print them."

"Print one fewer and I'll think less of you."

Ten minutes later, two officers pushed the door open, and the shouting in the room stopped at once.

They swept a look around, and their eyes settled on the printed pages on the table.

"Who called this in?"

I raised my hand.

"I did. The documents are all on the table."

One officer went over and picked up the top sheet, read a few lines, and his brow furrowed.

He turned to Ronnie.

"You printed this?"

Sweat beaded on Ronnie's forehead, and his words came out clumsy.

"Officer, it's a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding."

"We're family, we just had a little domestic squabble—"

The officer didn't let him finish.

"Guest registration is a citizen's personal information."

"No one has the right to export it privately, let alone spread it publicly."

"Family matter or not, what you did is a suspected violation of the law."

The officer took out a sealed bag and, in front of everyone, sealed the whole stack of printouts inside.

"The materials are being sealed on-site as evidence."

"The person who filed the report and the parties involved will come back to the station with us."

"Everyone gives a statement."

Panicking now, Ronnie whipped his head around to look at his mother.

Old Mrs. Whitney stood up too, chased me to the door of the room, and clung to my sleeve, refusing to let go.

"Nadia, that was all said in anger just now."

"Explain it to the officers."

"Just tell them our own family had a little misunderstanding, all right?"

I pried her hand off.

"When you were spreading lies, you called it a family matter."

"Leaking guest information, you call that a family matter too."

"Shut the door and a crime stops being a crime?"

The officers urged Ronnie toward the exit.

I took Nova's hand and followed them out of the room, without looking back at them again.

By the time we finished the statements, it was fully dark outside.

In the taxi home, Nova leaned against the window and didn't say a word the whole way.

After a long while, she finally turned and asked me.

"Mom, why did you go along with them and admit it back there?"

"The records are obviously fake."

I didn't answer right away. I took the anonymous package out of my bag, pulled out the last chat screenshot, and held it up in front of her.

The screenshot was something Ronnie had posted in the family group chat.

【Once she panics and says we're spreading lies, I'll just throw the records out there. If she goes to make a scene at the hotel, we play along and call the cops, say she scammed us out of the engagement money.】

Nova stared at those few lines, her eyes going wider and wider.

"They... had the whole script written out ahead of time?"

I stroked her head of pink hair.

"Yes, the script was written a long time ago."

"So we play it out with them to the very end."

"Just calling off the engagement lets them off far too easy."

The streetlights outside slid past the window one by one, and I slowly let out a breath.

"What I want is to blow this wide open."