Chapter 3
Adam hurriedly grabbed Sophie, telling her not to be impulsive.
But Sophie shook him off. "What do you mean? No one even knows who was really right or wrong five years ago. What gives him the right to start bullying her the second they meet?"
Emily sneered, "Bullying her? She wishes."
Sophie shot right back, "Shut up. This has nothing to do with you."
Emily choked on her own words, her face turning green.
Alex slowly straightened and glanced at Emily, only once. That single look was so cold it made her swallow every word on her tongue. Then he withdrew his gaze and looked back at Olivia.
"Two choices," Alex said. "First, sit down and finish this meal." He paused, the faintest curve touching his lips. "Second, I take you with me right now, and we catch up somewhere else, nice and slow."
Olivia gripped her bag strap until her knuckles turned white. Catch up? His eyes were full of hatred. This wasn't catching up at all. It was a reckoning.
The room was so quiet all anyone could hear was breathing. Every eye was on Olivia.
She closed her eyes once, forced the tears back down, pushed Alex's arm aside, and walked back to the table. Pulling out her chair, she sat and said evenly, "Let's eat."
Olivia picked up her fork, speared a piece of fish, and placed it on her plate, her movements impossibly steady.
Alex watched her for a moment, then came back and sat across from her. Only a table separated them, yet it felt like an entire galaxy. Sophie glared at him, sat beside Olivia, and took her hand beneath the table, finding it ice-cold and trembling.
Emily rose with a dark face and grabbed her bag. "Alex, let's go. There's no way this meal can continue."
He didn't even look at her. "If you want to leave, leave."
Her face crumpled at once. "Alex. For that woman, you're..."
He lifted his eyes, colder than ice. "I'm only saying this one last time. We're not that close. Call me Mr. Walker."
After following him around for ten years, she looked like she'd been struck senseless.
He actually said they weren't that close?
Biting her lip as tears spilled, Emily grabbed her bag and ran out. The door slammed behind her, freezing the room all over again.
Adam weakly suggested they continue the game, but no one responded.
Olivia kept her head down and ate, her back ramrod straight.
Across the table, Alex kept watching her in silence.
Every bite felt like swallowing razor blades.
Then Olivia's phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number. [Ms. Hill, there is new evidence in your brother's case. Tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., 187 Riverside Road. Come alone.] Her hand stopped.
Three years earlier, Nathan Hill had been sentenced to seven years for assault, and though Olivia was a lawyer, she hadn't been able to save her own brother.
Olivia gripped her phone until her fingertips whitened and looked up, straight into Alex's unreadable gaze.
Then a thought struck her. The judge who had presided over Nathan's case had shared Alex's surname. It was Alex's own uncle, William Walker. A chill crawled up from the soles of her feet.
She rose so abruptly her chair screeched across the floor. Claiming she felt unwell, Olivia hurried out before anyone could react. This time, Alex didn't stop her.
But in the hallway, her phone buzzed again. Another text from the same number read: [Ms. Hill, your brother asked me to pass along a message from prison. He said someone set him up back then. That person's last name is Walker.]
Olivia stood in the hallway as the blood in her veins seemed to freeze solid.