“It matters to me.”
Her mouth pressed thin. “It’s someone you don’t want attention from.”
Silence settled between us. She didn’t explain. I didn’t push. I wasn’t sure if she was protecting me—or herself. The night pressed in, thick with questions I wasn’t sure I wanted answered.
CHAPTER TEN
LUKE
Mila’s words from the roof still scraped raw—Langley bleeding out, her mom panicking, and then them ran because they thought they were next.
I waited until after dinner to approach my dad. Timing mattered with him. Push too early and he would swat me away with,“I have calls.”Push too late and he would already be wound tight from the day, more difficult to read under the weight of it.
He’d retreated to his office as usual, phone in one hand and the glow of three monitors painting the mahogany desk blue. The whole room was slick, expensive, and cold.
The boardwalk studio kept circling my thoughts. First Langley disappears. Now the one space Mila ever claimed gets flipped overnight. Different moves, same pattern—erase the past, rewrite the future. My dad was good at that.
Drew had let it slip that morning—casual, as if it was nothing.Leased.A restaurant group out of L.A. Better profit margins than the studio had ever pulled. And for Dad, it was about the bottom line.
But it wasn’t just numbers. It was Mila’s sanctuary.
I leaned into the doorway, my shoulder hitting the wood. “You said the boardwalk studio wasn’t being touched.”
He didn’t look up. “And?”
“It was just leased. Lorne told me recently it was coming, but you swore it wasn’t.”
A microscopic pause. Then he turned his head, phone still in his hand. “And?”
“Now it’s official. Signed off. A restaurant group out of L.A.” I crossed my arms. “Better margins than a studio. That’s the line, right?”
His jaw ticked. Almost a smile. Almost not. “You’ve been busy.”
“You said we were keeping it.”
He set his phone down harder than necessary, the plastic knock abrupt against the desk. “And then I changed my mind.” No apology. No reason.
“Why now?” I kept my voice even. “That building wasn’t just another property. You told me it was good for the community. We were keeping it.”
“Plans change.”
“Not without a reason. You went back on your word—what happens to everything inside? The artwork, the history—you just erase it?”
His gaze sharpened, expression flat. “It doesn’t matter. End of story.” He stood. Slow. Deliberate. His shoulders settled into the posture that killed dissent in boardrooms, radiatingdon’t push mewithout raising his voice. “Back off, Luke. You’re playing with fire you don’t understand.”
The mask slipped for half a second. It wasn’t rage or fear—it was colder, control stretched thin. And beneath it all, the edge of guilt. Except my father didn’t do guilt. He did pressure points.
“Your fixation,” he went on, eyes cutting, “on Mila. On her family. It’s clouding your judgment.” A beat. “She’s not your future.”
The worst part was—he wasn’t wrong. In my father’s world, Mila could never be my future. She was a risk, a liability, a flaw in the dynasty he was so desperate to cement. But she was also the only thing I wanted that wasn’t carved from his blueprint. And if that meant rebellion, I would lead the fucking charge.
Heat flared through my chest. I locked it down. He wanted me to snap. To prove his point. I didn’t give him that. I kept my jaw tight. Eyes steady.
When the lack of reaction bored him, he picked up his phone again, dismissing me without saying the word. Conversation over.
I found Drew out back twenty minutes later, leaning on the low stone wall by the pool. His tie was half-loosened, the phone in his hand glowing like he needed a pulse under his thumb.
I didn’t sit. “You told me this morning the lease went through.”
