Chapter 2 - THE GHOSTS OF CHESTLINEBy midnight, Daniel had the dossier. It wasn't hard to find once Ethan mobilized his corporate network, though the ease of it only made the guilt heavier. Maya hadn't fled to some obscure town; she had stayed in Washington, living in a quiet, modest neighborhood in Bellevue. She had worked remotely as a freelance architectural draftsperson, pouring every ounce of her energy into raising Noah without a single cent of Ethan’s alimony or blood money.
Ethan sat alone in his high-rise penthouse office, the city lights stretching out below him like a field of electronic stars. On his desk sat a single photograph pulled from Maya's public social media archive—a picture of Noah building a sandcastle on a gray Pacific Northwest beach.
The boy was laughing, head tilted back, showing Maya's radiant, unrestrained smile. But the dark, hooded eyes beneath the messy brown hair belonged entirely to Ethan Seo.
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He remembered the last night under their roof. The rain had beaten against the floor-to-ceiling windows of this very penthouse. Maya had looked so pale, sitting at the edge of the bed, her hand pressed against her stomach. He had accused her of faking illness to manipulate his schedule. He had called her weak. He had packed his things, handed her the divorce papers his lawyers had drafted, and told her that her emotional demands were suffocating his ambition.
He had won the company. And he had lost everything that actually mattered.
