Chapter 33

Reese found me on the bathroom floor at six in the morning, still wearing yesterday's clothes, the legal papers scattered around me like evidence at a crime scene.

"Jesus Christ, Sloane." She set down the coffee carrier and grocery bags, crouching beside me. "Have you slept at all?"

"No, yeah. A little." The lie tasted stale in my mouth. My eyes felt like someone had rubbed sand into them.

"That's bullshit." She picked up one of the papers, scanned it, set it down carefully. "How long have you been sitting here?"

I looked at my phone. The battery was dead. "What day is it?"

"Wednesday." Reese stood, held out her hand. "Come on. You need to eat something."

"I'm not hungry."

"I don't care." She pulled me up, and my legs protested, pins and needles shooting through my calves. "You're going to drink this coffee and eat this bagel, and then you're going to take a shower because you smell like a gym locker."

I followed her to the kitchen because it was easier than arguing. She unpacked the groceries with efficient movements—milk, eggs, bread, the expensive peanut butter I liked but never bought for myself. The kindness of it made my throat tight.

"Reese—"

"Eat first. Talk later." She pushed a coffee toward me, the cup already doctored with cream and sugar the way I took it. "I'm serious, Sloane. You look like death."

The coffee was still hot. I wrapped my hands around it, let the heat seep into my fingers. I'd been cold for three days, the kind of cold that came from the inside out.

Reese sat across from me, her own coffee untouched. "Patricia called me yesterday."

My stomach dropped. "What did she say?"

"That Iris won't eat. Won't talk. She's torn up all her drawings." Reese's voice was careful, like she was defusing a bomb. "Patricia's worried about her."

I set down the coffee. My hands were shaking. "That's not—I didn't mean for that to happen."

"I know." Reese reached across the table, covered my hand with hers. "But it did happen. And you hiding in this apartment isn't making it better."

"I'm not hiding."

"Then what are you doing?"

I pulled my hand back, picked at the chipped polish on my thumbnail. Black, three days old, half of it already gone. "I'm thinking."

"About what? Whether Dominic's a liar? Whether you can trust him?" Reese leaned forward, her elbows on the table. "Because I've got news for you—he is a liar, and you probably can't trust him completely. But that doesn't mean he doesn't love you."

"You don't know that."

"I know you're sitting here in the dark instead of fighting for what you want because you're scared." Her voice was sharp now, cutting through my defenses. "And I get it, Sloane. I do. Your dad left, your mom checked out, and every foster family you had proved that love was conditional. But Dominic isn't them."

"He lied to me for months."

"Yeah, he did. And that sucks." Reese stood, started pacing. "But he also spent four years trying to find you. He set up a fund to give you money he didn't have to give. He kept a picture of you and wrote on the back that he was in trouble. That's not nothing."

I thought about the photograph, still crumpled on the floor by the door where I'd dropped it when the federal agents had knocked. They'd questioned me for two hours, asking about patents and fraud and what I knew about Ashford Industries' intellectual property. I'd told them the truth—that I knew nothing, that I'd only just found out about my father's connection to the company. They'd left eventually, but not before making it clear they'd be back.

"The feds think I'm involved in the fraud," I said.

Reese stopped pacing. "What?"

"They showed up Monday night. Asked me about Dominic, about the patents, about what I knew." I picked up the coffee again, took a sip. It had gone lukewarm. "Someone gave them a key to my apartment."

"Who?"

"I don't know. But they walked right in." The memory of it made my skin crawl—the sound of the key in the lock, the door opening before I could decide whether to answer. "They think I'm part of whatever Marcus did."

"That's insane. You didn't even know about the patents until a few days ago."

"That tracks, though, doesn't it?" I laughed, but it came out bitter. "Of course I'd finally find something good and it would turn out to be built on stolen ground."

Reese sat back down, her expression softening. "This isn't about the patents, Sloane. This is about you being terrified that if you go back, if you let yourself love Dominic and Iris, they'll leave you too."

"They won't have to leave. The feds will probably arrest me."

"Stop deflecting." She grabbed my wrist, gentle but firm. "You're running because it's easier than staying. Because if you stay, you have to risk getting hurt again. And I get it—I really do. But running has consequences too."

I pulled away, stood up. My legs were steadier now, the pins and needles fading. "You think I don't know that? You think I don't know that Iris is hurting because of me?"

"Then do something about it."

"Like what? Go back and pretend everything's fine? Pretend Dominic didn't lie to me for months, that his father didn't steal from mine, that I'm not about to be dragged into a federal investigation?" My voice was rising, and I couldn't stop it. "I can't just—I can't—"

"You can't what? Be happy?" Reese stood too, matching my energy. "Because that's what this is really about, isn't it? You don't think you deserve to be happy, so you're sabotaging it before it can fall apart on its own."

The words hit like a slap. I turned away, stared at the wall. There was a crack in the paint above the stove, thin and spidery, that I'd never noticed before.

"I'm not sabotaging anything," I said, but even I could hear how weak it sounded.

"Then prove it. Read the papers. Make a decision. Stop sitting here in the dark waiting for the universe to make the choice for you." Reese picked up her coffee, drained it in three long swallows. "I have to get to work. But I'm coming back tonight, and you better have showered by then."

She left before I could respond, the door closing with a soft click that felt louder than a slam.

---

I stood in the shower until the water ran cold, scrubbing at my skin like I could wash away the last three days. When I got out, I felt marginally more human—still exhausted, still confused, but at least clean.

The legal papers were still on the bathroom floor. I gathered them up, carried them to the kitchen table, spread them out in some semblance of order. Reese was right—I needed to make a decision. I couldn't hide in this apartment forever.

The restitution fund documents were dense, full of legal language that made my head hurt. But the basic structure was clear enough: Dominic had been funneling forty percent of Ashford Industries' profits into a trust designed to compensate James Chen's heirs. If no heirs were found within five years, the money would go to foster care organizations and families.

The amount was staggering. Millions of dollars, accumulated over four years. More money than I'd ever imagined having.

But there was a catch. There was always a catch.

I found it on page seventeen, buried in a subsection about corporate restructuring. If I claimed the money as James Chen's heir, I wouldn't just be taking a payout. I'd be claiming ownership of forty percent of the company's profits going forward. Which meant Ashford Industries would have to restructure to accommodate a new major stakeholder.

I kept reading, my stomach sinking with every paragraph.

The restructuring would require liquidating certain assets. Closing some divisions. Layoffs—the document estimated between three hundred and five hundred employees would lose their jobs in the first year alone.

I set down the papers, pressed my palms against my eyes. This was the choice, then. Take the money my father was owed, get justice for what Marcus had stolen, and put hundreds of people out of work. Or walk away, let the Ashfords keep what they'd taken, and leave those families intact.

Justice or mercy. Revenge or compassion.

My phone buzzed. I'd plugged it in while I was in the shower, and now it was lighting up with notifications. Three missed calls from Patricia. Two from a number I didn't recognize. One text from Dominic, sent at four in the morning: I'm not asking you to come back. I just need to know you're okay.

I stared at the text for a long time, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. What could I say? That I was fine? That I wasn't fine? That I was sitting here trying to decide whether to destroy his company or let his father's theft stand?

Before I could type anything, my phone rang. Patricia's name flashed on the screen.

I answered. "Hey."

"Sloane." Patricia's voice was tight, controlled in a way that meant she was barely holding it together. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I thought you should know—Iris isn't doing well."

"Reese told me. She said Iris tore up her drawings."

"It's worse than that." Patricia paused, and I heard her take a trembling breath she forced out. "She's stopped speaking entirely. She won't eat unless I physically put food in her mouth. And last night, she asked me if you were dead."

The words punched the air from my lungs. "What?"

"She said—" Patricia's voice cracked. "She said that her mother went away and never came back, and now you went away, so you must be dead too. Because people who love her always die."

I sat down hard, my legs giving out. "Patricia, I—"

"I'm not calling to guilt you, Sloane. I know this situation is complicated, and I know Dominic made mistakes. But that little girl loves you, and she doesn't understand why you left." Patricia was crying now, not bothering to hide it. "She thinks she did something wrong. She thinks you stopped loving her."

"I didn't stop loving her." The words came out fierce, desperate. "I would never—"

"Then tell her that. Come back, or call her, or something. Because right now, she's breaking, and I don't know how to fix it."

"What about Dominic? How is he—" I stopped, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

"He's barely holding himself together," Patricia said quietly, and something in her tone made me think she wasn't just talking about Iris. "He's working eighteen-hour days, sleeping in his office when he sleeps at all. He won't talk about you. Won't talk about anything except work and Iris."

That tracked. Dominic shut down when he was overwhelmed, went silent instead of falling apart. I'd seen it before, in small moments—when I'd asked about his wife, when Marcus had pushed too hard at dinner. He just stopped talking, like someone had flipped a switch.

"I don't know what to do," I said, and it was the most honest thing I'd said in three days.

"Figure it out," Patricia said, not unkindly. "But figure it out soon, because that little girl can't take much more of this."

She hung up before I could respond.

I sat there with the phone in my hand, staring at the legal papers spread across my kitchen table. Three hundred to five hundred jobs. Iris asking if I was dead. Dominic working himself into the ground. My father's stolen patents, Marcus's theft, four years of Dominic trying to make it right.

There was no good choice here. No clean answer.

I picked up my phone, pulled up Dominic's contact. My finger hovered over the call button.

If I called him, what would I say? That I forgave him? That I didn't? That I was still angry but I missed him anyway? That I wanted to come back but I didn't know if I could trust him not to lie to me again?

That I loved him, even though I'd never said it out loud, even though the thought of saying it made me want to run in the opposite direction?

I pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.

It rang once. Twice. Three times.

"Sloane." His voice was rough, like he'd been sleeping. Or crying. Or both.

"Hey." My throat was tight. "I'm sorry, I know it's late—"

"It's two in the afternoon."

"Oh." I looked at the clock. He was right. Time had stopped meaning anything in the last three days. "I thought—Patricia said you were working a lot, so I figured—"

"I'm at home today." A pause. "With Iris."

The mention of her name made my chest ache. "How is she?"

"Not good." He didn't elaborate, and I didn't push. "Patricia called you."

"Yeah."

"I didn't ask her to."

"I know." I stood up, started pacing. My apartment was small—twelve steps from the kitchen to the living room, twelve steps back. "Dominic, I—I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything." His voice was careful, measured. The way he always sounded when he was trying not to fall apart. "I'm not calling to pressure you. I just—I needed to hear your voice."

Something in my chest cracked. "I read the papers. The restitution fund, the will, all of it."

"And?"

"And I don't know what to do with it." I stopped pacing, leaned against the wall. "If I claim the money, the company has to restructure. People lose their jobs. But if I don't claim it, your father gets away with stealing from mine."

"I know." A long pause. "I'm sorry. I should have found a better way to handle this."

"You've been handling it for four years."

"Not well enough." His voice dropped lower. "Not well enough to keep you."

The words hung between us, heavy and true. I closed my eyes, pressed my forehead against the wall. The paint was cool against my skin.

"I'm not asking you to come back," Dominic said, and I could hear the effort it took him to say it. "I'm not asking you to forgive me, or to trust me, or to—to love me. I just need you to know that Iris asked me today if you stopped loving us, and I didn't know how to answer her."

My eyes burned. "What did you tell her?"

"I told her—" His voice broke, just slightly, just enough for me to hear the fracture in it. "I told her that sometimes people need time to think, and that doesn't mean they don't love you. But I don't think she believed me."

"Dominic—"

"She asked if you were dead like her mother." The words came out flat, emotionless, like he'd used up all his feeling and had nothing left. "She said that people who love her always leave, so you must be dead too, because you wouldn't leave her on purpose."

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything except stand there with the phone pressed to my ear and my heart breaking into smaller and smaller pieces.

"I'm not dead," I managed.

"I know. But she doesn't." A sound in the background, soft and small. "I have to go. She's—"

"Wait." I pushed off the wall, my hand tightening on the phone. "Dominic, I need—I need more time to figure this out. The money, the company, all of it. But I want you to know that I—"

"Daddy?" Iris's voice, thin and broken, barely audible through the phone. "Daddy, is Sloane dead like Mommy?"

The line went silent except for the sound of Dominic's breathing, harsh and uneven, and I heard him say something I couldn't make out, his voice too low, too careful, and then—