00:00The phone rang and rang.
00:02Maya stood frozen on the airstrip tarmac.
00:05Dawnlight creeping over the coastline.
00:08Palace security swarming around Lawrence Ashworth's arrest behind her,
00:12none of it registering anymore.
00:14All she could hear was the empty ringing on the other end of the line.
00:18On the sixth ring, someone finally picked up.
00:22Not Tommy's voice.
00:24Miss Reyes, said a calm, unfamiliar man.
00:27Your brother is fine, for now.
00:30I'd suggest you get on the next flight, back to the States, if you'd like it to stay that way.
00:36Adrian, still holding Lucia, saw the color drain from Maya's face from across the tarmac
00:41and crossed to her immediately, Isabel following close behind.
00:46Maya, what happened?
00:47It's Tommy, Maya said, voice breaking.
00:50Someone has him.
00:51Someone who knew exactly which number to call and exactly what to say.
00:55Marcus.
00:56Adrian called sharply.
00:58We need everything you have on threats against Maya's family.
01:02Now.
01:03Marcus, still coordinating Lawrence's arrest nearby, jogged over, already pulling up something on his phone.
01:10I flagged unusual activity around Miss Reyes' apartment two days ago.
01:15I assumed it was press.
01:17I should have looked closer.
01:19Marcus turned his phone screen toward them,
01:21showing surveillance footage pulled from a nearby traffic camera.
01:25A black van parked outside Maya's apartment building.
01:29The previous evening, far too long to be anything innocent.
01:33This isn't Ashworth's people, Marcus said.
01:37Lawrence's entire operation was tied up here, tonight, with us.
01:42Whoever this is, it's someone separate.
01:45Then who?
01:46Maya demanded.
01:47Who else would even know to threaten Tommy specifically?
01:50Isabel, quiet until now, stepped forward with a troubled expression.
01:56Maya, before tonight, before any of this, did anyone unusual approach you?
02:01Anyone asking questions about your background, your family, anything that seemed off?
02:06Maya thought back, and her stomach dropped.
02:09The car service.
02:11The night of the crash.
02:12It was a last-minute VIP request.
02:15No name.
02:16Cash payment.
02:17No questions asked.
02:19I never thought twice about it, because it happened right before the accident.
02:23What if it wasn't random?
02:25Isabel said quietly.
02:26What if someone arranged for you specifically to be behind that wheel that night?
02:30The realization settled over the group like a physical weight.
02:34If Maya's involvement in the crash hadn't been an accident at all,
02:39if someone had orchestrated the entire chain of events that led her into Adrian's life,
02:45then Tommy's kidnapping wasn't a random act of opportunism.
02:49It was a continuation of a plan set in motion months before Maya ever climbed into that car.
02:54That's not possible, Maya said, though her voice wavered with doubt.
02:59Nobody could have predicted a car crash.
03:01Nobody plans an accident that precisely.
03:05To Lote?
03:06No.
03:06Marcus agreed slowly.
03:08But someone could plan to put you in Adrian's path and wait for an opportunity.
03:13The crash may have simply been convenient timing for whoever's behind this.
03:17Not the plan itself, but the moment they chose to act on it.
03:21Adrian's jaw tightened.
03:22Which means whoever did this has been playing a longer game than any of us realized.
03:28Longer than Lawrence Ashworth.
03:30Possibly longer than my father even knows.
03:33There was no time to process the full weight of that theory.
03:36Within the hour, Marcus had arranged a private flight back to the United States,
03:41insisting on accompanying Maya personally, given the unknown scope of the threat.
03:46Adrian moved to join them immediately, but Isabel caught his arm gently.
03:51Adrian, you have a daughter who just met you for the first time in her life,
03:55and a father who needs to be told everything that happened tonight,
03:59before the palace finds out through the press instead.
04:02You can't run from every fire at once.
04:05I can't just let Maya face this alone, Adrian said.
04:09You're not, Isabel said.
04:11Marcus is going, and so am I.
04:14Duh, Adrian blinked.
04:15You, I've spent three years hiding from danger, Isabel said.
04:20I'm done hiding.
04:21If someone is threatening an innocent family because of what's happened to ours,
04:26I want to look them in the eye when we find them.
04:29Wait.
04:30The flight landed, not in Savannah, but in Maya's home city,
04:34a modest apartment complex on the edge of downtown Chicago,
04:38worlds away from marble palace floors and private airstrips.
04:42Maya led Marcus and Isabel up three flights of stairs to her apartment,
04:47hands shaking as she unlocked the door.
04:49The apartment was empty.
04:51No sign of struggle.
04:53No broken furniture.
04:55Just an eerie, deliberate stillness.
04:58Dishes still in the sink.
05:00Tommy's favorite hoodie draped over a chair.
05:03A half-finished glass of orange juice on the counter.
05:06They didn't take him from here, Marcus said, scanning the room carefully.
05:10This wasn't a struggle.
05:12Someone convinced him to leave willingly.
05:15On the kitchen table, propped against a napkin holder where Maya would be certain to see it,
05:20sat a folded note.
05:21Maya unfolded it with trembling hands.
05:24The handwriting was neat, deliberate,
05:27nothing like the frantic urgency of Isabel's old letter.
05:30Your brother is safe and comfortable.
05:32He believes he's simply staying with a family friend for a few days.
05:36He has no idea anything is wrong,
05:39and I intend to keep it that way,
05:41provided you cooperate.
05:43You've gotten yourself tangled up in something far bigger than a royal scandal,
05:48Miss Reyes.
05:48I'll be in touch soon with exactly what I need from you.
05:52Until then, enjoy explaining to your prince
05:55why the woman he almost married three years ago
05:58is about to become very relevant to his life again.
06:01Maya read the final line twice,
06:04confusion turning to dawning horror.
06:07Isabel, she said slowly,
06:09looking up,
06:10this says almost married,
06:11not married.
06:13Brunva wrote this,
06:14doesn't think you and Adrian ever actually completed the ceremony.
06:18Isabel's face went pale.
06:20That's impossible.
06:21Everyone in the palace,
06:23everyone in my family,
06:25has always believed we were fully married before the accident.
06:28Marcus took the note carefully,
06:31reading it over twice,
06:32his expression darkening with each pass.
06:35There's only one group of people who would know a detail that specific,
06:39he said slowly.
06:40The people who were actually in that private ceremony room.
06:44Three years ago,
06:46the witnesses,
06:47the officiant,
06:48the very small handful,
06:50who signed the original marriage documents before they were sealed.
06:53Marcus,
06:54Isabel said,
06:55voice trembling,
06:57what are you saying?
06:58Bodded.
06:59I'm saying,
07:00Marcus said grimly,
07:01that whoever has Tommy,
07:02isn't some outside threat,
07:04working off rumors and headlines.
07:06Whoever wrote this note was in that room with you three years ago.
07:10Maya's phone buzzed once more in her hand,
07:13a photo message this time,
07:14from the same unknown number.
07:16She opened it slowly.
07:17It was a picture of Tommy,
07:19smiling,
07:20unaware,
07:21sitting across a dinner table from someone whose face was deliberately cropped out of the frame,
07:25except for a single detail visible in the corner of the image.
07:28A wedding ring,
07:29identical to the one Adrian had once placed on Isabel's hand three years ago,
07:34resting on the table beside an untouched glass of wine.
07:38Coming up in episode 11,
07:40The Missing Witness,
07:42Marcus tracks down the surviving officiant from Isabel,
07:45and Adrian's secret wedding,
07:47while Maya uncovers a connection between Tommy's disappearance and a ceremony that may never have been what everyone believed it
07:53was.
