Chapter 20 Chapter Twenty

• Jack hadn't been sleeping well, and it was starting to show. His irritation had been building up like a pressure cooker over the past few weeks. Every time Cynthia slipped out of the estate alone, his curiosity kicked into overdrive. Something felt off—her glances at the clock, her regular morning departures at the same time each day, her whispered conversations with the gardener, and her late returns to the compound made him restless and anxious. His mom had asked Ryan to figure out what was happening, but Jack was determined to solve the mystery on his own
• One early morning, before the sun even peeked over the horizon, he woke up with a sense of urgency. He parked a few meters down the road from the estate gates, leaving the windows of his dark SUV slightly cracked to let in the cool morning air. Dressed in a black hoodie with the hood pulled low over his forehead, he clutched a cup of bitter coffee that trembled in his hand.
• Then, she appeared.