I was supposed to meet Rhys at the dock. He said he needed to tell me something—something big.
But I was already suspicious.
He’d been distant for weeks. Whispering on calls. Locking his phone. Canceling dinners with excuses that never made sense.
So I followed him.
From the moment he left the house, I kept my distance. He didn’t drive to work. He didn’t drive to his mom’s. He took the back road toward the river.
That’s when it happened.
The brakes squealed. The car swerved. And before I could even react—it plunged straight off the embankment and into the water.
Gone. Just like that.
I ran to the edge screaming his name, dialing 911, hands shaking.
Then the water shifted.
Someone surfaced. Not Rhys.
Her.
And I knew her face.
Sienna. His coworker. The one he said was “barely an intern.”
She was gasping, crying, but she looked right at me. She knew.
And that’s when she said it.
“He told me you’d be out of town.”
No.
I dropped to my knees.
Because it meant he brought her there… knowing.
That road wasn’t on any GPS. That dock was private. He planned it.
So why was he the one still under?
Why didn’t he get out?
And what was in the trunk that she kept looking back at before the sirens came?
By the time the firefighters pulled the car out of the river, I was shaking so hard I could barely speak. Sienna sat on the back of the ambulance, wrapped in a blanket, refusing to meet my eyes.
The divers found Rhys.
He was still strapped in.
Dead.
But it wasn’t an accident. They said the seatbelt was jammed, like someone had tampered with it. His door was locked from the inside.
And the trunk?
Empty.
But that didn’t feel right.
I saw the way Sienna kept glancing back at it, over and over. Like something was supposed to be there.
Like something—or someone—was missing.
The police asked questions, but Sienna didn’t say much. Just that Rhys had invited her for a “talk,” said he needed to “come clean.” But he got weird on the way. Started speeding. Ranting.
Then silence. Then the crash.
That was her version, anyway.
I didn’t know what to believe. Part of me was too stunned to think. The other part was already making lists.
Things Rhys had done that didn’t add up.
The time he said he was working late, but I found his car parked by the beach.
The calls he always took in the bathroom.
The sudden interest in life insurance.
And Sienna? She wasn’t just some intern. I found her Instagram the night after it all happened.
They’d taken a trip to Montreal two months ago. Same hotel I thought he’d gone to for a “conference.”
He lied about everything.
But he never lied about loving me—at least, not to my face. That was the hardest part. He still kissed me goodnight. Still brought me coffee in the mornings. Still looked at me like I was his person.
So why end up in a river with her?
Why die like that?
A week later, I got the letter.
It was in a plain white envelope, no return address, postmarked the day before the crash. Rhys’s handwriting. I opened it with shaking hands.
“If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone.
I never meant for things to spiral like this. I was trying to fix it. Trying to keep you safe.
There are things I can’t say here. But check the storage unit. The one under your name—I opened it last summer. Code is your birthday.
I’m sorry. I really did love you.”
I don’t remember standing up, or getting in the car. Just remember parking outside a rust-colored storage facility 40 minutes from our house. One I didn’t know existed.
I punched in the code with trembling fingers.
The door groaned open.
And what I saw made me stumble back.
Photos. Dozens of them. Stacks of folders. Documents.
Rhys had been investigating someone.
At first, I thought it was me. Or Sienna.
But it wasn’t.
It was her father.
Sienna’s last name wasn’t the one she used at work. But her real name, the one on some of the documents, matched the name Rhys had circled in red ink on a police report.
Marcus Holloway.
Convicted fraud. Released early. Accused—but never convicted—of pushing a whistleblower off a balcony in 2014.
And suddenly, things started to make sense.
Rhys had taken a job at the same firm where Holloway was now quietly working as a “consultant.” Sienna, conveniently, was there too. Maybe she was his daughter. Maybe more than that.
Maybe she was bait.
I drove straight to the station.
I showed them the letter. The storage unit photos. The files.
It took days, but when they looked deeper, everything unraveled.
Rhys had been working with a journalist friend, trying to gather proof that Holloway was running a new scam through the firm. Embezzlement. Shell companies. The works.
He thought Sienna was innocent.
But I didn’t.
Because the crash wasn’t random.
She knew I was supposed to be “out of town.”
She knew about the dock.
And Rhys? He’d left a voicemail on that journalist’s phone the night before the crash.
“If I don’t show up tomorrow, check the dock. I think they know I’m onto them.”
He was scared.
But he still showed up.
They brought Sienna in for questioning again.
She cracked.
Turns out, her father had found out about Rhys’s investigation. He warned her to “handle it.” She agreed.
She seduced Rhys. Fed him lies. Pretended to be the scared daughter of a dangerous man.
But Rhys started putting it all together.
So they planned the meeting at the dock. Except something changed.
Rhys wasn’t supposed to die.
They were going to scare him. Break his laptop. Destroy the evidence. Make it look like a robbery.
But Rhys fought back.
The plan went sideways.
He swerved off the road—on purpose.
He knew Sienna couldn’t swim.
He figured if he forced a rescue, someone would come. Someone would ask questions.
He sacrificed himself to save the truth.
Months passed.
Marcus Holloway was arrested. The journalist Rhys had confided in published everything—emails, documents, proof. The company’s board collapsed. A full investigation opened. Victims stepped forward.
Sienna got a deal for testifying against her father.
But she didn’t walk free.
She got five years.
I went to the trial.
She didn’t look at me.
I didn’t need her to.
I wasn’t there for revenge.
I was there to make sure Rhys’s name was cleared.
And it was.
He died a hero. Not perfect, not innocent in every way—but brave. So much braver than I ever knew.
The last twist came when I thought it was all over.
I got a call from a lawyer named Florence Patel.
Turns out, Rhys had rewritten his will a month before his death.
He left everything to me.
But it wasn’t just the money.
He’d set aside part of the insurance for something specific.
A scholarship.
For whistleblowers.
In his words: “For anyone who risks everything to tell the truth.”
I cried for an hour in my car after that meeting.
He hadn’t just tried to protect me.
He tried to protect everyone like him. People who speak up when it’s easier to stay quiet.
I still visit the dock sometimes.
The water’s calm now. Peaceful.
There’s a bench nearby, one I had installed after everything ended. It has a small plaque with Rhys’s name, and a line he once said to me during a late-night drive:
“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
I used to roll my eyes when he got all dramatic like that.
Now, it means everything.
Rhys may have lied. He may have made mistakes.
But when it mattered most, he chose to do the right thing—even when it cost him everything.
And in the end, the truth won.
That’s what I hold onto.
