Chapter 4 - The Hidden Audio File
Olivia’s eyes darted around the bustling kitchen, taking in the flour-dusted counters, the stainless steel, and the undeniable fact that Sebastian was standing mere inches away from me.
"Sebastian, what on earth are you doing?" Olivia demanded, marching across the floor with her Louboutin heels clicking sharply against the tile. She plastered on a tight, brittle smile as she stopped beside him, sliding her arm possessively through his elbow. "We have a meeting with the zoning commissioner at eleven. You can't just run off to chase ghosts."
"They aren't ghosts, Olivia," Sebastian said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, glacial tone that made Olivia visibly flinch. He didn't move away from her touch, but his muscles tightened like coiled springs. "Those children are five years old. They look like me. They act like me. And according to the timeline, they were born exactly nine months after we were married."
Olivia’s carefully applied makeup couldn't hide the sudden, sickly pallor of her skin. "People look alike all the time, Sebastian. It's a statistical coincidence. Are you seriously going to let a bitter ex-wife derail our wedding over playground gossip?"
"Playground gossip?" I stepped around the counter, wiping the flour from my hands. "Ethan, Sophie, and Lucas aren't gossip, Olivia. They are human beings. The kind you and Eleanor tried to erase from existence five years ago."
Olivia’s eyes flashed with venom. "You abandoned the estate, Hannah! You packed your bags and left in the middle of the night because you couldn't handle the pressure of high society. Don't try to rewrite history just because Little Harvest Kitchen is struggling to pay its commercial rent!"
I smiled. It was a calm, lethal smile that made Olivia step back half a step.
"Struggling?" I arched an eyebrow. "Our revenue grew by four hundred percent last year, Olivia. We just signed a contract to supply organic meals to twelve public schools across Cook County. But thank you for your concern about my financial portfolio."
Sebastian looked between us, his gaze narrowing as he sensed the subterranean fault lines shifting beneath our words. He knew Olivia well enough to recognize when she was cornered. And Olivia was currently backed against a very sharp wall.
"Olivia," Sebastian said slowly, turning his head to look down at her. "When my mother told me Hannah had lost the babies... how did you know about it before I even checked my voicemail?"
Olivia’s breath hitched. For a fraction of a second, her composure completely shattered. Her lips parted, but no words came out.
"I... I heard your mother talking on the phone in the study," Olivia stammered, her voice pitching up an octave. "Everyone in the house knew! It was common knowledge!"
"My mother told me Hannah had a miscarriage," Sebastian corrected, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying rumble. "She never mentioned multiples. She never mentioned surviving children. Yet when we were at The Grand Oak restaurant two nights ago, the moment I said they were five years old, you turned the exact same shade of white you are right now."
"Sebastian, you're being hysterical—"
"Get out," Sebastian said.
The words weren't shouted. They were spoken with absolute, terrifying finality.
Olivia stared at him, her mouth agape. "Sebastian, we're getting married in three months! My parents invited six hundred guests! You can't embarrass me like this over a kitchen worker—"
"I said, get out," Sebastian repeated, stepping away from her and turning his back.
Humiliated, furious, and shaking with rage, Olivia glared at me with pure hatred before turning on her heel and storming out of the kitchen, slamming the heavy glass door so hard the storefront windows rattled.
Silence settled over Little Harvest Kitchen once more.
Sebastian slowly turned back to face me. "You have something, don't you?" he asked quietly. "In that phone. In your cloud drive. Something my mother and Olivia spent five years burying."
May you like
I picked up my phone from the counter, unlocked it, and held it out toward him.
"I don't need to explain anything, Sebastian," I said softly. "You can listen to it yourself. But be warned: once you press play, your entire world—every illusion your mother built for you—is going to burn to the ground."
