The walls of the Callahan estate were too thick for sound to carry, but Savannah swore she could hear the heartbeat of the flash drive inside her purse as she made her way down the hallway.
In her room, the curtains were already drawn against the setting sun. The desert was turning to violet shadows. She sat at her desk, exhaled slowly, and slid the flash drive into her laptop's USB port.
A single file.
She clicked.
The grainy footage started with a shaky frame an office, opulent and familiar. The resolution sharpened just enough to show Rhett, standing behind a desk, fists clenched.
"You don't get to talk about him!" He shouted, his voice raw with an edge Savannah had never heard. "You don't get to say his name!"
A blurred figure off camera tried to speak, but Rhett cut him off.
"You used him. You buried him. And now you come to me with apologies?"
The rage in his voice was unlike anything Savannah had seen from him. Not even in the darkest corners of their private fights. His whole body trembled, eyes wild, chest heaving like a man cornered by ghosts.
He slammed something a glass, maybe. It shattered off-screen. The man behind the camera cursed.
"I should burn this entire empire to the ground," Rhett hissed.
Savannah's pulse quickened. Her hand hovered over the trackpad. She clicked pause.
The video froze on Rhett's face. Wild. Desperate. Not the polished mask the world knew.
She reached to close the laptop, but something stopped her.
A creak.
She turned.
Rhett was standing in the doorway.
No tie. No jacket. Just him, shadowed and silent. His eyes scanned her face, then drifted to the glow of the laptop.
"How long have you been watching?" she asked, voice low.
"Long enough," he said.
His gaze moved to the laptop.
"I didn't mean to pry," she said.
"Yes, you did."
Neither of them moved. A silence gathered in the room like fog thick, invasive.
He stepped inside, and for a moment, she thought he might close the laptop. Destroy the footage. Deny everything.
But instead, he sat across from her.
"I was nineteen," he said. "When Liam died."
Her breath hitched. She hadn't expected him to speak. Not about this.
"I was away. Working for my father. Trying to prove I could be ruthless like him."
Savannah remained still, afraid even breathing too loudly would stop him.
"He called me the night before. Liam. He said he missed me. Said the house was too quiet without me."
Rhett's voice was even now. Controlled. But his fingers clenched around the edge of the desk.
"The next morning, he was gone."
She wanted to reach for him, to place her hand over his, but her arms refused to move.
"Drugs?" she asked gently.
"No," Rhett said. "He drove his car into the lake."
A beat of silence passed between them.
"Everyone called it an accident," he said. "But I knew better."
Savannah looked at the paused video. At the pain carved into Rhett's face.
"Who was that man in the video?"
Rhett's jaw tightened. "A family friend. The man who gave him the keys that night. The man who looked away when he needed help."
And then he stood.
"I let you watch it," he said. "Because I wanted you to know what you're marrying into."
He left without another word, the door clicking shut behind him.
And Savannah sat in the dim room, blinking back the blur of emotion.
SCENE 11: The Fake Smile Game
The fundraiser was held at a private rooftop garden above one of Callahan Corp's newest buildings. It was a perfect evening cool desert breeze, low music, and too many flashing lights.
Savannah wore crimson silk. Rhett was in black. To the cameras, they were elegance personified.
She took his arm as they entered the space, his hand warm over hers. The press surged forward, questions flying like knives softened in sugar.
"Mr. Callahan, how's married life?"
"Savannah, will we see a Callahan heir soon?"
Savannah smiled. Tilted her chin. "We're taking things one step at a time. But I feel very loved."
Rhett leaned closer, just enough to let the flashbulbs catch his whisper. "You're wearing that dress just to torture me, aren't you?"
She laughed, light and false. "And you deserve it."
Their photos would be on every headline by morning. Callahan's Ice Queen and Her Mysterious Smile.
As they moved through the crowd, Rhett kept his hand on her lower back. He whispered small things sweet, banal, meaningless. Jokes about the senator's toupee and how the wine tasted like vinegar. He was charming, disarming. A performance.
And yet, something in it made her chest ache.
The smiles were for show. The laughs rehearsed. But when Rhett's hand lingered a moment too long at the small of her back, when his breath brushed the shell of her ear as he spoke a chill slid down her spine. Was it the lie that stung? Or the yearning she refused to name?
She drifted from his side momentarily to speak with a donor. As she turned back, a woman brushed past her shoulder.
"He used to bring her here too," the woman whispered.
Savannah froze.
The woman was gone before she could see her face.
SCENE 12: After the Spotlight
The ride back was silent.
The car glided down the freeway, city lights trailing behind like afterthoughts. Savannah sat with her hands in her lap, fingers curled tightly.
She stared at her reflection in the tinted window. Her makeup was perfect. Her lips still painted with crimson lies.
"Who is she?" she asked softly.
Rhett didn't respond.
"Rhett."
Still nothing.
She turned her body toward him and tried to read his profile.
"Who did you bring to the rooftop before me?"
"Driver," Rhett said abruptly. "Take the long way."
The car veered slightly onto a darker road.
Savannah felt the shift in the air. The quiet wasn't just thick it was weighted. Alive.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" Rhett asked suddenly.
She blinked. "What?"
He didn't repeat the question.
He just stared forward, eyes narrowed, jaw tense.
Savannah exhaled slowly, trying to gather the pieces she hadn't realized were scattering inside her.
"I believe in grief," she said quietly.
"Same thing," he murmured.
The car kept driving. Their bodies sat inches apart.
But the ghosts in that space made the distance feel endless.
Then, just before they reached the estate gates, Rhett added one more thing, so low she almost missed it.
"She died there. On that rooftop. Not physically, but in spirit. And some part of me never left."
Savannah didn't ask who. She didn't need to.
Because she could feel the sorrow seeping into her bones, like the night had whispered her a secret it wouldn't let her forget.