Chapter 263

‘You found her?’ Lea asked. I nodded and sank onto the barstool beside her. ‘She all right?’ ‘She’s fine.’ Or she had been, until I turned up, wrecked her dinner and blew up her plan. ‘Told you the PI I recommended was good.’ Lea smiled. ‘I use him for business intel mostly, but he handles personal cases too. I—’ She paused, reading my face. ‘Didn’t go well, then.’ There was sympathy in her voice, but I knew her well enough to hear the schadenfreude underneath. ‘Mira just needs time.’ Lea waved the bartender over and ordered a Boulevardier for me. ‘That’s what I said. She needs time to process the news. Alone. You showing up probably made things worse. Did she lash out?’ ‘No.’ I took a long gulp. It went down smooth, but it didn’t touch the mess inside me. I couldn’t forget the look on Mira’s face when I told her about her father. Or the look that followed when I explained how he’d died. Shock. Anger. Blame. Rage. Hatred. Even disgust. ‘So I was wrong,’ Lea said. Not quite. Mira didn’t