The door clicked shut with a finality that made my blood run cold.
"Isabelle, it’s me, Ryan," the man I was struggling to break free from while trying to recognize him in the dim room said.
"Ryan?" Why did his name sound familiar?
"I’m taking off my hand now; don’t scream. Nod if you understand."
I hurriedly nodded, the gears turning in my mind.
"What the hell were you thinking coming back here when we both agreed you were going to stay away until the marriage alliance was cancelled?"
I stared at Ryan, tongue-tied at the words that came out of his mouth.
My brain finally worked, and I recognized him from the album.
He was Joel’s godson. He was raised for twenty years by the Quinns after his parents died in a plane crash when he was only seven.
Joel treated him like a son, and he was currently the CEO of the New York branch of Quinn Enterprises.
According to the note written under his name, he was like a son to the Quinns and a big brother figure to Isabelle.
The question was, why on earth did he want Isabelle to stay away?
If he was in communication with the original Isabelle and is now mistaking me for Isabelle, then what happened to her?
Ryan didn’t let go of my wrist; his grip was frantic, his fingers digging into my skin as if he were trying to anchor himself to a ghost.
"What were you thinking, Isabelle?" he hissed, his voice cracking with a desperation that didn’t match his supposed ’big brother’ persona.
"Coming back here? To think you even went ahead to agree to the marriage alliance. We had a plan!"
I stood frozen, my back against the dark wood of the door. My heart pounded so hard I was certain he could hear it through the room.
I didn’t dare speak. What would I even say?
"I told you to stay at the safe house in the Manhattan," he continued, pacing the small, shadowed room.
It looked like a private study, smelling of old paper and Ryan’s scent, sandalwood mixed with leather.
"I was already moving the funds. It wasn’t the right time. When I take over the New York branch, we’ll be untouchable. Another month, and we could have been halfway to Europe. Why did you walk back into the very cage you despised?"
He wanted to take over the New York branch.
My throat felt like it was filled with sand. I stayed silent, my eyes wide, trying to process the puzzle pieces he was throwing at me.
He stopped pacing and turned to me, his eyes wild. "Is it because I was always busy? Is that why you’re acting like this?"
He dragged his hand through his hair, letting out a frustrated sigh.
"I know it was hard, Isa," he whispered, stepping closer, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly intimate whisper.
He reached out, cupping my face with trembling hands. "But the timing was wrong, and I needed a strong financial standing to prove myself to Mum and Dad. They would never understand our feelings. Joel was already pushing the Knight alliance. If he knew the ’son’ he raised is having an affair with his daughter... he would have buried us both."
A cold, visceral wave of nausea rolled through me. The real Isabelle hadn’t run away because of the marriage. She ran to stay with Ryan.
"I’m doing everything for us," Ryan urged, his thumb brushing my lower lip. I flinched, a raw, instinctive reaction that sent a jolt of electricity through the room.
This wasn’t love. This was control dressed as devotion.
"Do you know how crazy it was searching for you across all of New York while making sure our contacts don’t say a word to your dad? It was two weeks, Isa? I nearly went mad..."
My stomach turned. Isabelle disappeared from his safe house two weeks ago. I had been rescued by the Quinns then.
So where was she?
Wait, how long has he been having this secret affair with Isabelle? He even convinced her to keep it from her parents right under their noses.
He was trying to take over the New York branch while convincing both himself and Isabelle it was an act of love. He was delusional. A predator hiding in the family’s shadow.
"If I hadn’t received a call from Joel yesterday telling me I should attend the celebratory dinner. I would still be worried. Imagine my surprise when I heard everyone whispering about your return and you were already planning to get married to Cassian without informing me." He paused, his eyes searching my face as if looking for something.
"Why aren’t you saying anything?" His gaze sharpened, moving from my eyes to my lips, then down to my throat.
"You usually scream at me when you’re this angry. Or you cry. But you’re just... staring at me like I’m a stranger."
His hand dropped from my face. The air in the room suddenly felt ten degrees colder. He leaned in, his nose inches from mine, sniffing the air like a hound.
"You don’t smell like her," he whispered. "The perfume is the same, but... the look in your eyes."
I instinctively took a step back only for my back to hit the wall—trapped.
He went on his knees, his rough hands hiked up my dress, revealing my lower thigh, and I flinched, my eyes wide with horror.
"Get your hands off me!"
He didn’t listen; he grabbed my right knee, his thumb brushing just above the kneecap, searching and holding me still even when I tried to wiggle out of his grasp.
"It’s not there," he drawled, his voice tinged with desperation.
"Who the hell are you?" Ryan’s voice wasn’t desperate anymore. It was lethal. "You’re not Isabelle."
I opened my mouth to speak, to lie, to scream—but the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway silenced us both.
"Isabelle? Darling, are you in there?"
It was Estelle’s voice, accompanied by the low, authoritative rumble of Joel’s tone and the unmistakable, rhythmic click of Cassian’s leather shoes.
"The toast is about to begin," Joel’s voice boomed through the door. "Cassian is waiting."
Ryan’s eyes locked onto mine, and they were filled with a terrifying mixture of horror and realization.
It must have dawned on him that he had revealed his secret to a stranger.
The door handle turned.
"Just a minute!" I called out, my voice finally returning, though it sounded like it belonged to a different person.
"What have you done to Isabelle?" Ryan whisper-yelled. "I swear if you’re the reason she disappeared—"
I looked Ryan dead in the eye. "You should be worried about your secret. Not threatening me."
"Mum... I’m just fixing my hair. We’ll be right out."
The handle stopped.
Ryan leaned in, his breath hot against my ear. "This isn’t over," he hissed. "If you’ve done something to her, I’ll kill you myself."
"Then we have something in common," I whispered back, my voice trembling with a sudden, sharp hatred for the man in front of me.
He blanched, stepping back as if I’d struck him.
The door opened, and the light from the hallway flooded in. Joel stood there, flanked by Estelle and a very, very dangerous-looking Cassian Knight.
"There you are," Joel said, his eyes flicking between me and Ryan. He didn’t look suspicious; he looked surprised—probably because we’ve met but he quickly masked it.
"Ryan, I see you’ve already reconnected with your sister."
Beside the doorway, Cassian leaned against the frame, his blue eyes tracking the sweat on Ryan’s brow and the way I was breathing.
He didn’t say a word, but the look on his face said everything.
It was the gaze one wore when they walked into a crime scene.