Chapter 5 - The Search for Talia
The rain had finally cleared by the following morning, leaving the sprawling lawns of the Wescott estate glistening under a pale, watery sun. The flashing red and blue lights of police cruisers had long since departed, taking Maren Ellis away in handcuffs to a holding cell downtown, where she faced multiple charges of attempted poisoning, endangerment, and the theft of personal property.
Inside the grand study, Adrian sat at his mahogany desk, though the paperwork piled before him remained untouched.
He looked exhausted. The events of the past forty-eight hours had aged him by a decade. Milo was resting safely upstairs in his crib, monitored by a certified private nurse while Dr. Thorne confirmed his full recovery. But Adrian felt no sense of victory—only a hollow, consuming guilt.
The door to the study opened softly, and Owen stepped inside, holding a thick manila folder.
"We checked her departure records," Owen said without preamble, placing the folder on the desk. "When you fired Talia yesterday afternoon, she didn't have her car. She walked out the front gates in the rain."
Adrian’s head snapped up. "Where did she go?"
"She doesn't own a vehicle. According to public transit logs and neighborhood doorbell cameras, she walked three miles to the nearest regional bus stop. But she never boarded a bus out of town. Her phone last pinged near a small, twenty-four-hour diner on the outskirts of the commercial district—The Copper Kettle."
Adrian was already standing up, pushing his chair back against the wood floor. He grabbed his car keys from the tray on the desk.
"Get the car ready, Owen," Adrian commanded.
Twenty minutes later, the black SUV pulled into the gravel parking lot of The Copper Kettle, a modest, faded diner with a neon sign that buzzed faintly in the morning light. Adrian pushed open the glass door, the familiar scent of cheap coffee and fried bacon washing over him.
He scanned the booths. Most of them were empty, save for an elderly couple near the back. But sitting at the corner counter, staring blankly into a mug of lukewarm coffee, was Talia Ramos.
She wore a simple dark jacket, her hair still pulled back into the loose knot he remembered from that fateful afternoon. Her shoulders were hunched, carrying the quiet weight of humiliation and abrupt unemployment.
Adrian walked across the linoleum floor, his footsteps echoing in the quiet room. When he reached her stool, he stopped.
Talia looked up, her dark eyes reflecting immediate apprehension. She shrank back slightly, pulling her jacket closer around herself as if bracing for another blow.
"Mr. Wescott?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "I... I haven't come near the estate. I swear I cleared out my locker before I left—"
Adrian did not sit. Instead, in front of the diner's owner and the few patrons present, the billionaire heir to Wescott Holdings lowered himself slowly onto one knee beside her stool.
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Talia stared down at him in absolute shock.
"I am not here to send you away, Talia," Adrian said, his voice thick with a raw, unfiltered emotion that he made no attempt to hide. "I am here to ask you to come home."
