*CHAPTER FOUR*
*What the Silence Knew*
I didn't sleep that night.
Even after I left Leo's apartment, even after the door shut behind me with that soft final sound—like something being sealed—I couldn't sleep.
I lay on my bed, eyes fixed on the cracks in the ceiling. Each one looked like a map. A road to somewhere I couldn't reach. Somewhere Jonah might still be alive. Somewhere Mason Grieves didn't exist.
But he did.
That name—Mason—had sunk into my bones.
Leo hadn't said yes. But he didn't say no either. And that silence said more than I wanted to hear.
I stared at the photo I kept by my nightstand. Jonah, caught mid-laugh, hair pushed back, one hand lifting in the air like he was about to explain something.
He had secrets. That part I'd always known. He never let them show, but they were there, in the way his jaw tightened when the phone rang. In the way he never talked about certain places. Certain people.
Leo knew something.
And now I knew one thing for sure: Jonah didn't just die.
He was taken.
***
By morning, I felt like a ghost walking through my own body.
I opened the gallery, though it felt pointless. Colors on canvas blurred together. Clients' voices sounded underwater.
Someone asked me about a painting—a stormy seascape I made in February—and I blinked at them like I'd never seen it before.
"Sorry," I muttered. "Bad night."
The woman smiled kindly. "Artists," she said like that explained everything. Maybe it did.
When she left, I locked the front door behind her even though it was only noon. I needed to breathe without pretending.
Upstairs, I heard footsteps.
I didn't go to him. Not yet.
But part of me waited—listened for that record player again. For that ghost-song to float back through the walls.
It didn't come.
Only silence.
***
By nightfall, I couldn't take it anymore.
I climbed the stairs slowly. Every step sounded louder than it should've. I paused at his door, like I had the first time.
But this time, I didn't hesitate. I knocked.
It opened a few seconds later.
Leo stood there in a dark shirt, sleeves rolled, eyes shadowed but not surprised.
"Come in."
No questions. No pleasantries.
The apartment smelled like coffee and dust. A candle flickered low on a table, barely lighting the room.
I sat on the same chair as before. He didn't sit right away—just stood near the window, looking out into the night.
"I need answers," I said. My voice shook, but I didn't care. "I can't keep painting around the hole he left. I need to know what you're not telling me."
Leo nodded, slow. Thoughtful. Then he walked over, sat across from me, elbows on his knees.
"You really want to know?"
"Yes."
He reached into the drawer beside him and pulled out a folder—old, worn, edges frayed. He slid it across the table.
"What's this?" I asked, not touching it yet.
"Pieces," he said. "Of Jonah. Of the life he tried to leave behind."
I opened it.
Inside—notes, names, phone numbers scribbled in Jonah's handwriting. Receipts from places I'd never heard of. A photo of a man I didn't recognize. Cold eyes. Scar across his cheek.
"Mason?" I asked.
Leo nodded. "Before he changed his name. Before he disappeared."
I stared at the photo until it blurred. "Why didn't Jonah tell me?"
"Because he was protecting you," Leo said quietly. "You were the only good thing he had left."
That broke something inside me.
"You were his friend."
"I was more than that."
I looked up sharply. Leo's face was unreadable.
"You loved him."
A pause. Then—"Yes."
I felt the breath leave my lungs.
He didn't cry. Neither did I. But it felt like we were both grieving all over again.
"I should've saved him," Leo whispered. "I tried. God, I tried."
Silence filled the space between us.
Then I asked the question that had been burning in me since the start.
"Is Mason still alive?"
Leo's jaw tensed. "If he is, he knows I'm looking for him."
I swallowed. "Then I'm looking too."
Leo stared at me for a long moment. "This isn't your fight, Em."
"He made it my fight when he took Jonah from me."
He didn't argue. He just nodded.
And that's how it started—me, Leo, and the truth we both had to drag out of the shadows.
Whatever came next, I knew one thing:
This wasn't just about love or grief anymore.
It was about answers.
And I wasn't going to stop until I had them.
Even if they tore me apart.