“She knew I listened to you. You made me question things I’d accepted my whole life. That loyalty enforced by fear isn’t loyalty. That protecting the family sometimes meant protecting the wrong people.

That I’d become someone I once promised myself I never would.”

I looked toward the monitors. “You stayed.”

“At first I told myself I was searching for you. Then my father became ill. My brother disappeared. Responsibilities multiplied.”

“Your brother disappeared?”

Ethan’s face closed slightly. “Julian left Chicago six years ago. No one who’s willing to tell me knows where he went.”