Beth leaned back against the couch, processing. The stories felt unreal, like a web spun out of glossy magazine profiles, scandal headlines, and the kind of family politics you'd expect in fiction—not real life.
"So… he's smart?" she asked hesitantly. "I mean, Andover's hard to get into, isn't it?"
Linda nodded. "Yeah, it is. Really hard. He didn't get in by accident, that's for sure. But it wasn't just academics. Leon was always sharp, even when he was acting like he didn't care. He played dumb the way people wear designer jackets—intentionally. If he wanted to, he could quote more books than half the teachers."
Beth looked down at the map again, overwhelmed. "So this… this whole thing, his life—it was all designed?"
Linda gave a dry, almost affectionate smile. "That's my personal suspicion. Their family basically rearranged itself to launch him and Aglaya into superstardom. They're like a dynasty, but curated."
She pulled her knees up onto the chair and sipped her tea. "His father remarried—this woman who graduated from Yale with a degree in philosophy. She apparently helped structure Leon and Aglaya's education—tutors, courses, interviews. Everything. She's the reason Aglaya can rap about Plato without blinking."
Beth blinked. "That does explain why she name-drops Nietzsche in a song about nightclub hookups."
"Exactly." Linda grinned. "You think she's just being ironic, but then you find out she probably passed her A-levels in Latin at fifteen."
Beth was quiet for a while, mind swimming. "And his mother?"
"Had an affair with some acclaimed foreign actor—Greek or Italian, I forget—just so Leon could learn acting firsthand. Later married a rich Frenchman, likely for funding. The family spends like they breathe, but they make money the same way—by being visible. Selling visibility. Fame is the income."
Beth's chest ached slightly. It made sense now—Leon's fluid charm, the way he carried himself like a myth half-aware of his own legend. How easily he vanished and reappeared. It wasn't just who he was—it was what he'd been raised to be.
"Well," she said after a moment, "I suppose there's no use expecting a boy raised like a brand to behave like a person."
Linda looked at her. "Sometimes, he did. That's what made it hard."
Beth swallowed.
"Yeah," she whispered. "I know."
Linda traced the edge of the teacup with her finger as she spoke, voice quiet but precise—like someone assembling puzzle pieces she'd already memorized.
"Leon and Aglaya are both worth tens of millions now. But I heard—pretty reliably—that it's their family who controls almost everything. Not legally, necessarily, but effectively. The way old dynasties used to do it."
Beth raised her eyebrows. "Like conservatorship?"
"Not quite that formal," Linda said, "but close in spirit. Their accounts are technically in their names, but the family has managers for everything. They get lavish allowances—travel budgets, personal stylists, whatever. But their freedom's filtered through spreadsheets and strategy meetings."
Beth sat in stunned silence as Linda continued, her tone calm, almost clinical.
"They have to report in every month. Their weight, their health, their public image. There are media consultants who vet their romantic relationships. Whether someone's good for their 'brand.' Who should be seen with whom at what kind of event. They even rotate their friend groups sometimes—make sure they don't lean too heavily on any one outsider."
Beth's stomach turned. "That's…"
"Controlled. Engineered. Dehumanizing." Linda nodded. "Yeah. I know."
There was a long pause, and then Linda added more quietly, "I didn't know this part until after we broke up, but… I've heard he has anxiety. Like, diagnosed. Panic attacks. It was kept under wraps, obviously. But I believe it. He used to disappear sometimes—just vanish. Not to party. Just to breathe."
Beth felt her throat tighten.
"I always thought it was me," Linda said. "Like I did something wrong, like he was pulling away because I wasn't interesting enough, smart enough. But no—it was just him, imploding quietly under all that pressure."
Beth stared at the floor, her voice barely above a whisper. "So the charm… the calm, the jokes, the drama… it's all a mask?"
Linda looked at her with a sad smile. "No. It's him, too. But it's the only part of him they ever let breathe."
And then, more gently:
"You're not crazy for falling for him. But you'd be crazy to think he knows how to be free."
Linda blinked, her tea halfway to her lips. She lowered it slowly as Beth stood, her eyes burning with sudden urgency.
"I still haven't quite let go, you know," Linda had said, the words meant to be quiet, wistful—an admission, not a declaration.
But Beth had seized on it like a spark to dry tinder.
"Then we must find him," Beth said, her voice urgent, frayed, alive. She was already crossing the room to the map, scanning the red circles, as if the right name, the right clinic, the right chance was hidden there waiting to be claimed.
Linda stared at her. "Beth…"
Beth turned, breath catching in her throat. "He's not just a story. He's not just press releases and premieres. He's hurting. And no one around him is going to stop smiling long enough to see it."
Linda hesitated, then stood slowly, crossing over. "You think he wants to be found?"
"I don't care," Beth said. "Not really. I just need to know he's okay. Even if I have to stand across the street and watch him walk out the door with someone else."
There was a long pause. Then Linda gave the smallest, most resigned laugh.
"You're worse than me," she said. "I just wanted closure. You want a reckoning."
Beth didn't respond. She was already grabbing her coat.
Linda reached for the map. "Fine. There's one more place we haven't tried yet—private, discreet, and expensive enough to make St. Genesius look like a corner clinic."
She looked at Beth.
"The Wellington Hospital," Beth and Linda whispered at the exact same moment—eyes locking, breath catching.
"St. John's Wood," Beth added, her voice just above a hush, like she was saying the name of a secret kept too long.
They stared at each other.
Then, almost absurdly, they both smiled. Not out of joy, but something stranger—recognition. Like two former strangers who had found the same crack in the same wall and leaned into it at the same time.
Linda exhaled. "Of course. That's where his aunt had her vocal cord surgery. Aglaya mentioned it in some interview like it was the Ritz."
Beth nodded quickly, already shrugging into her coat. "It's private, low-profile, full concierge floor. And—"
"—they're used to handling patients with fame," Linda finished, already pulling on her boots.
There was no hesitation between them now. They didn't say what if he's not there, or what if this is another dead end, or what if he doesn't want us to find him. They both knew all of those things were true.
But none of it mattered.
It wasn't about second chances anymore.
It was about answers.
They were out the door in seconds.
Beth's brows were still faintly furrowed as she fastened her seatbelt, the engine purring to life beneath them. The grey London light cast soft shadows across the dashboard, but her thoughts were far from the road.
"You said they rotate friend groups," Beth murmured, "but what about Aglaya and Sanlu? Rene, Kevin, Gabe, and Leon? They seem… permanent."
Linda glanced over as she pulled onto the street, her grip steady on the wheel. "They are," she said. "But that's the trick."
Beth turned toward her, silent.
"Aglaya and Sanlu," Linda went on, "they're a packaged myth now—inseparable, iconic. There's more market value in keeping them together than apart. Their bond is practically scripted. But… it's also real. Like two kids who grew up being filmed for the same documentary and learned to speak in sync."
"And the boys?" Beth pressed. "Gabe, Kevin, Rene?"
"They're trying to recreate something," Linda said dryly. "You know—DiCaprio's 'Pussy Posse' from the nineties. That whole brand of exclusive male camaraderie. Carefree, aesthetic, desirable… but untouchable."
Beth winced at the word brand again.
Linda softened. "But it's not all fake. Gabe and Rene practically grew up with Leon. Kevin came in later, but they stuck. They weren't assigned. That part was organic."
"So the parents control the narrative," Beth said slowly, "but those friendships… those ones are real?"
Linda nodded. "Real enough that they'd cover for each other. Real enough that if Leon's in a hospital somewhere, one of them's sitting beside his bed cracking jokes. Maybe Kevin's arguing with a nurse. Maybe Rene's trying to smuggle in espresso. Maybe Gabe's reading the reviews of Leon's movie out loud just to annoy him."
Beth smiled faintly.
"And Aglaya?"
Linda's mouth twitched. "If she's there, she's probably sitting on the windowsill in six-inch heels, quoting Camus and flirting with the night shift."
They both laughed—quiet, worn, a little sad.
Then Beth looked ahead again, her expression sharpening. "We'll see for ourselves soon."
Linda nodded. "Wellington Hospital's just fifteen minutes away."
And they drove into the December light, chasing something they both knew they might not be ready to find—but couldn't bear not to.
The rain began suddenly—thick, urgent, like someone had tipped the sky forward without warning. It beat against the windshield in steady, furious rhythm, turning the world into a blur of reflected lights and fast-fading outlines. Street lamps gleamed like lonely stars as the car cut through the dusk, and the tires hissed softly against the wet road.
Beth leaned her forehead lightly against the window, the cool glass prickling her skin. The city outside was all shadow and motion now, but inside the car, it was warm, closed in, and quiet. And then—
A memory struck her. Vivid. Too vivid.
It had been a few months ago—just after midsummer. Leon had taken her out to a hill above Hampstead Heath, where the skyline stretched like the edge of a dream. Fireworks had lit the city in flashes of white and gold, every burst brighter than the last, loud enough to feel in the chest. He had stood behind her, his chin brushing her hair as they looked up.
Then, in the swell of a rising cheer, he'd turned her face gently toward him.
That kiss—
It hadn't been like their first kiss on the Serpentine, or the playful stolen ones between alley cafés in Notting Hill. This one had been different. Longer. Devouring. Like he needed something only her mouth could give, something unnameable. The air smelled of smoke and heat and rain-on-grass, and her knees had nearly buckled with how tightly he held her, how fiercely he pulled her in.
She remembered the taste of champagne on his lips. The fireworks painting his face in bursts of holy brightness. The breathless silence between them after it ended, when he'd pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, "I want to remember this."
Now, staring at the rain racing down the window, she realized—she had.
Every detail.
Beth's chest ached.
She wasn't sure if it was longing, or grief, or the unbearable weight of memory—but it sat there, lodged behind her ribs like something unfinished.
"Hey," Linda said softly, glancing at her. "You alright?"
Beth straightened, wiped at her cheek. She hadn't even realized a tear had fallen.
"I'm fine," she lied. "It's just the rain."
Linda didn't press. The car kept moving, the road stretching out ahead of them.
They were almost at Wellington.
This kind of love happens only in a few lifetimes, Beth thought, watching raindrops streak across the window like soft meteor trails.
It wasn't ordinary. It never had been. Not even from the start—when he first appeared on that cold morning in Reine, cloaked in white ermine like some half-remembered ghost out of a forgotten novel. It had hit her then, quietly, like the tug of a thread. And later—louder. Like thunder cracking open the sky.
It wasn't reasonable, what she felt. It had never made sense. But love, the kind that burns through blood and rewires bone, never did.
The chemicals had hit like wildfire—fast, total, unrelenting. One moment, she'd been herself, a girl on holiday. The next, she was his, even before either of them had known what that meant.
Even now, even after everything—even after silence and betrayal, after that image of him kissing Aglaya—she felt it. Still. The ache didn't go away. It just learned how to live with her.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, as if steadying herself for a wave.
Some love ruins you.
Some love makes you.
And some… does both.
The hospital was five minutes away.
And she still wasn't sure which one he was.