Chapter 6 Secrets and Lies

Isla Pov

The coffee shop is tucked away in a neighborhood I've never visited—the kind of place that doesn't show up on tourist maps. Exactly the kind of place you choose when you don't want to be found.

Brandon is already there when I arrive, hunched in a corner booth with his back to the wall. He looks terrible. Dark circles shadow his eyes, his shirt is wrinkled like he slept in it, and his hands shake as he grips his coffee cup.

I slide into the seat across from him, heart pounding. After last night's cryptic warning at the gala, I barely slept. Every creak in my apartment building sounded like an intruder. Every shadow looked like a threat.

"Brandon, what's going on?"

He doesn't meet my eyes. "I need you to promise me something. Whatever I tell you, you won't hate me."

The words send ice through my veins. "I can't promise that."

He laughs, bitter and broken. "Fair enough."

He pulls out his phone with trembling fingers, taps the screen several times, then slides it across the table. I look down at an email inbox. Dozens of messages, all from the same sender: [email protected].

I scroll through them, confusion giving way to horror.

Subject: Target movement Cole reviewed permit files today. Flagged discrepancies in environmental approvals. Recommend increased surveillance.

Subject: Escalation Cole accessed city archives. Photographed Lloyd's signature on fast-track permits. She's getting too close.

Subject: Containment Cole met with Kennedy privately. Unable to determine conversation content. Relationship appears personal as well as professional.

My blood drains. Every email discusses me. My movements. My investigation. My private conversations.

"You've been reporting on me?" The words come out strangled.

Brandon finally meets my eyes. The guilt there confirms everything. "They approached me six months ago. Before Kennedy Development even acquired our firm."

"Who approached you?"

"I don't know. I've never met them face-to-face. Just emails, phone calls with distorted voices, money deposited in my account." His voice breaks. "They said if I didn't cooperate, they'd destroy my career. Blacklist me from every firm in the country. I have student loans, Isla. My mom's medical bills from her cancer treatment—I couldn't afford to lose my job."

"So you sold me out instead."

The accusation hangs between us. Brandon flinches like I've struck him.

"Who are they?" I demand. "Who's sending these emails?"

"I don't know. The emails are encrypted, routed through multiple servers. But the instructions—they come from someone high up. City government, maybe higher. Someone with reach."

My hands curl into fists on the table. "What did you tell them?"

"Everything." His voice cracks completely. "Every question you asked. Every file you accessed. Every late night you spent in the office. I'm so sorry, Isla. I'm so fucking sorry."

I stand abruptly, chair scraping loudly against the floor. Other patrons glance our way. I don't care. The betrayal cuts deeper than any knife—Brandon, my best friend, the person I trusted most, has been spying on me for months.

"My father died because someone wanted him silenced," I say, voice shaking with rage. "And you're helping them do the same to me."

"That's why I'm telling you now!" Brandon stands too, desperate. "I can't do this anymore. Whatever you're uncovering—it's bigger than I thought. And they're getting nervous."

"What do you mean?"

He glances around the coffee shop, paranoid. "Last night, after the gala, I got another email. They want me to plant false evidence in your apartment. Financial records showing you've been embezzling funds from Kennedy Development."

The implications slam into me. "They want to discredit me."

"They want to destroy you before you destroy them. Make you look like a criminal so nobody believes anything you say." Brandon reaches for my arm. I jerk away. "Isla, please. I refused. That's why I'm telling you everything. I can't be part of this anymore."

My mind races, trying to process. If they're this desperate to silence me, I must be close to something. Something worth killing for.

"Who sent the emails?" I ask again.

"I told you, I don't know. But—" He hesitates, pulling up another screen on his phone. "The payment transfers come from a shell company. Meridian Holdings LLC."

My breath catches. "The same company on my father's project."

"The same company that owns the black SUV that's been following you."

We spend the next three hours at Brandon's apartment, combing through every email, every payment record, every digital footprint we can find.

Brandon's laptop is spread across his coffee table, surrounded by printouts and my handwritten notes. The trail becomes clearer with each discovery:

Meridian Holdings LLC is registered to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. That account has received funds from multiple city construction projects over the past fifteen years—all projects that were fast-tracked through environmental reviews that should have taken months or years.

And on every approval, every permit, every regulatory waiver: Councilman Samuel Lloyd's signature.

"Lloyd," I breathe. "It all comes back to Lloyd."

"There's more." Brandon pulls up a new browser window, shows me archived news articles from seven years ago. "Ellis Kennedy's father—Richard Kennedy—he was investigating the same thing."

I lean closer, reading. The articles detail a scandal that never quite materialized. Richard Kennedy, CEO of Kennedy Development, publicly accused the city council of corruption. He claimed construction contracts were being awarded based on bribes, not competitive bids. He had evidence, was about to testify before a grand jury.

"What happened?" I already know the answer.

"He died. Heart attack. Very sudden, very convenient." Brandon pulls up the obituary. "Three weeks before his scheduled testimony."

My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat. Ellis's father was killed. Just like mine. Both men who discovered the truth. Both men who tried to expose corruption.

Both men silenced.

"Ellis knows, Isla." Brandon's voice is gentle now, sympathetic. "He has to know. That's why he put you on this project."

"To finish what his father started," I say slowly.

"Or to make sure you don't."

The question hangs between us, poisonous and inescapable: Is Ellis Kennedy my ally or my enemy?

Did he assign me to the east district project because he wants justice? Or because he wants to control what I discover?

Did he know who I was that night at the bar? Was our meeting—everything that followed—part of some elaborate manipulation?

The thought makes me physically ill.

I leave Brandon's apartment as the sun starts setting, mind reeling with information I don't know how to process. Brandon offered to drive me home. I refused. I need time alone to think.

My phone rings as I reach the sidewalk. Unknown number.

I should ignore it. But after everything I've learned today, I need to know who's calling.

I answer. "Hello?"

"You should have stayed away, Ms. Cole." The voice is distorted, mechanical—clearly using a modulator. "Now it's too late."

Ice floods my veins. "Who is this?"

"Look behind you."

The words are soft, almost conversational. But they freeze my blood.

I spin around slowly, phone pressed to my ear.

Across the street, parked under a burned-out streetlight: the black SUV. Windows tinted. Engine running. Waiting.

"We've been patient," the distorted voice continues. "We gave you chances to walk away. You didn't take them."

"What do you want?"

"To deliver a message. Some truths should stay buried. Your father learned that. Ellis's father learned that. The question is—will you learn before it's too late?"

The line goes dead.

For a heartbeat, I stand frozen. Then survival instinct kicks in.

I run.

Behind me, I hear the SUV's engine roar to life, tires squealing against pavement. I don't look back. I sprint down the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians, my heels clicking frantically against concrete.

There's a subway entrance half a block away. If I can reach it, lose myself in the crowds underground—

The SUV cuts in front of me, jumping the curb. I skid to a stop, change direction, heart hammering.

A hand grabs my arm from behind.

I scream, spinning—

"Isla, it's me!"

Ellis Kennedy stands there, breathing hard like he's been running. His car is parked haphazardly at the corner, driver's door still open.

"Get in," he says urgently. "Now."

I hesitate, Brandon's warning echoing in my mind. Can I trust him?

The SUV is reversing, coming back.

I don't have a choice.

I run with Ellis to his car, throw myself into the passenger seat. He's behind the wheel and accelerating before my door is fully closed, tires screeching as we tear away from the curb.

In the rearview mirror, the black SUV follows.