Kyle kept his eyes forward.
“Lower your voice,” he muttered. “Please.”
I stared at him like I was losing my mind.
I had watched paramedics carry his body away.
I had picked out his coffin.
I had touched his cold hand at the funeral home.
“You’re dead,” I whispered.
“No,” he said quietly. “But if certain people realize I’m alive, you could end up dead too.”
The bus hummed down the dark highway while my entire body trembled.
I wanted to slap him.
Kiss him.
Run away from him.
All at once.
“You let me bury you,” I said, barely able to breathe.
His jaw tightened with guilt.
“I know.”
“That’s not an explanation, Kyle.”
He finally looked at me then, and his eyes were red like he hadn’t slept in days.
“My family is involved in things I never told you about.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Clearly.”
Kyle rubbed both hands over his face.
“My father launders money through his companies. Real estate, shipping, fake charities… all of it. I found out years ago.”
I froze.
“At first I ignored it,” he continued. “Then I found evidence tying them to federal investigations. People disappeared, Emma.”
That word settled cold inside me.
Disappeared.
“I wanted out,” he whispered. “That was the mistake my cousin was talking about.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“So your family faked your death?”
He nodded once.
“My father arranged it after I agreed to disappear quietly.”
Anger exploded through me.
“You agreed?!”
People nearby glanced toward us.
Kyle lowered his voice further.
“You don’t understand. If I refused, they would’ve come after you too.”
I almost couldn’t process what he was saying.
“So all of this was planned? The ambulance? The funeral?”
“The paramedic worked for them,” he admitted quietly. “The funeral home too.”
My stomach turned.
The memory of touching his “body” suddenly felt horrifying.
“There wasn’t even a body in the casket?”
“No.”
I looked away because I suddenly felt sick.
For seven days I had mourned him.
Stopped eating.
Stopped sleeping.
Thought my future was gone.
And he had watched all of it happen.
“You should’ve trusted me,” I whispered.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“That’s what liars always say.”
That hit him hard enough to silence him.
The bus rolled through another small town before he spoke again.
“I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“I had someone watching the house.”
The fear returned instantly.
“You had me watched?”
“No — not me. My father.”
My blood ran cold.
Kyle explained quickly after that.
His family expected me to stay isolated, grieving, predictable.
Instead I suddenly bought a bus ticket and left town without warning.
That made them nervous.
“They think I contacted you already,” he said. “That’s why I had to get to you first.”
I looked around the nearly empty bus.
“Are we being followed?”
“Yes.”
The answer came too fast.
I stopped breathing for a second.
Kyle reached carefully into his jacket pocket and handed me a folded photograph.
It showed him standing beside an older man in a gray suit outside a warehouse.
The back had a date written from two years earlier.
“That’s my father,” he said quietly. “Two days after the FBI raided one of his businesses.”
Then he handed me a flash drive.
“I copied everything.”
“What is this?”
“Bank records. Bribes. Offshore accounts. Names.”
I stared at the tiny device in my hand.
“And you carried this to our wedding?”
“I was going to turn it over the next morning.”
My chest tightened.
That’s why he got “killed.”
Not because he embarrassed his family.
Because he became dangerous.
“So what now?” I whispered.
Kyle looked exhausted.
“Now I need you to decide if you hate me enough to walk away.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
Part of me did hate him.
Not for being afraid.
For making me grieve him while I was still loving him.
“You should’ve told me the truth before the wedding.”
“I know.”
“You should’ve trusted me.”
“I know.”
“You destroyed me this week.”
His eyes filled instantly.
“I know.”
For the first time since sitting beside me, he stopped sounding defensive.
He just sounded ashamed.
The bus suddenly slowed.
Kyle looked out the window sharply.
“Damn it.”
Two black SUVs sat near the next station.
Waiting.
Kyle grabbed my wrist gently.
“We have to get off now.”
“What?”
“Trust me one last time.”
Trust.
The word almost made me laugh.
But then I looked at his face and realized something terrifying:
Kyle wasn’t acting anymore.
He was genuinely scared.
We exited through the rear emergency door while passengers complained at the front. Cold night air hit my face as we ran across a dark parking lot behind the station.
“Who are those people?” I whispered breathlessly.
“My father’s security team.”
Security team.
