Chapter 116
Chapter 116:
Ashely grabbed Elia. Cailin hauled out a protesting Aron and Davy. They didn’t wait for the check or the valet. They pushed through the back kitchen exit and burst into the cool night air, piling into a taxi Cailin had already summoned.
Two minutes later, Hilliard returned, a damp stain still prominent on his trousers.
The booth was empty.
A single hundred-dollar bill lay on the table.
A𝗰ti𝗏e c𝗈𝗺𝗺𝘂ո𝘪𝘵y 𝗈n
And on the floor, half-hidden in the shadows where his foot had been, sat one small, scuffed boy’s sneaker.
He bent down and picked it up slowly, turning it over in his hands. He stared at it as the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place with horrifying clarity.
He pulled out his phone and opened Gavin’s previous report from memory. Ashely Trevino. One child on record. Elia Trevino, female, age five. No other registered dependents. No sons.
Hilliard gripped the sneaker.
Ashely had a daughter. So who did this belong to?
Cailin stood in the lobby of her apartment building, arms crossed tight against her chest. She had sent Ashely and the kids upstairs the moment the elevator arrived. She knew he would come. He always came.
Headlights swept across the glass doors. Tires screeched.
Hilliard stormed into the lobby still wearing the wine-stained suit from dinner, looking disheveled and dangerous. In his hand, he held the small blue sneaker.
“Explain this,” he demanded, his voice ricocheting off the marble walls. He threw the shoe, and it landed at her feet.
Cailin looked down at it, then back at him. “Ashely is babysitting a neighbor’s boy,” she said. Her voice was flat. She was so tired of lying.
“Stop lying!” Hilliard roared. He closed the distance between them, invading her space. “I saw it. I know what I saw. You are hiding children, Cailin. Plural p>
“Why do you care?” Cailin snapped, her composure fracturing. “You have Charla! You have your perfect life, your fake necklace, and your fake fiancée!” She reached into her bag and pulled out a crumpled document — the Divorce Agreement she had been carrying for weeks like a flimsy shield. “Just sign it, Hilliard! Set me free! Let me go!” She shoved the papers against his chest.
Hilliard looked down at them. He didn’t take them. He stared at the bold letters: DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.
“You think this is about freedom?” he asked quietly.
He snatched the papers from her hand.
Rip.
He tore them in half.
Rip.
He tore them again. Quarters. Then he cast the pieces into the air, and they fluttered down around them like snow.
“I never filed them, Cailin,” he said, his voice a low growl. “You know this. We have been over this. It was never a real option p>
Cailin stood frozen as the world seemed to tilt on its axis. It wasn’t the legal reality that stunned her — she already knew it. It was the sight of him destroying the last symbol of her hope. That paper had been a promise she’d made to herself, and he had just turned it to ash.
“That technicality means nothing,” she whispered.