I caught her in my arms, pulling her against my chest so hard I worried about the baby. But I couldn’t let go. She was shaking, her entire body trembling as she pressed her face into my shoulder, and I wrapped myself around her like I could absorb the fear right out of her.
“I’ve got you,” I said against her hair. “I’ve got you.”
Her fingers dug into my back. She didn’t cry. She just stayed there, breathing in ragged bursts that slowly steadied.
Over her head, I watched Baron Van Orr standing on his own porch, staring at the men who had gathered in his driveway. His face had gone pale. Not with fear—Baron wasn’t capable of that—but with the dawning realization that he’d miscalculated. That his money and influence couldn’t buy his way out of what he’d done.
Tryst stepped forward, and the otherViejosmoved with him. Men who had known Baron for decades. Men whose respect he had cultivated his entire adult life.
“Baron.” Tryst’s voice carried across the space between them, calm, measured, and devastating in its quiet authority. “We need to have a conversation…”
Baron’s jaw tightened. “This is a family matter. My daughter?—”
“Your daughter is standing in the arms of a man who loves her.” Tryst spoke softly. He didn’t need to shout. “A man who came here with his brothers and his friends to bring her home. You don’t get to call this a family matter when you’re the one who made it something else entirely.”
I felt Isabel shift in my arms, turning her head to watch her father. I loosened my grip enough to let her breathe but kept my hands on her, needing the contact as much as she did.
Thomas spoke next. “I’ve known you most of my life, Baron. We built our businesses together. Raised our families in the same circles. This isn’t you. What happened to our friendship isn’t you.”
“You don’t understand what she’s done,” said Baron. “The choices she’s making. She’s throwing her life away on a?—”
“You know you’re wrong, Baron. Stop this. Now,” Tryst interrupted. “She’s an adult. She’s made her choice, and from where I’m standing, it’s a damn good one.” My uncle stepped forward and put his hand on Baron’s shoulder. The gesture was one of an old friend reaching out to another. “Let it go. Be thefathershe needs.”
Baron’s expression shifted. The hard mask slipped, and I saw the grief underneath.
Isabel lifted her head. She looked at her father, and I watched her spine straighten.
“You have one chance.” She sounded hoarse but certain. “What I told you inside, I meant it.”
Baron said nothing.
I took Isabel’s hand. “Let’s go.”
We’d taken two steps when Baron stopped us.
“Wait.”
Isabel’s grip on my fingers tightened, and she turned around.
“I want to speak with my daughter.” His eyes moved to Isabel. “Alone.”
Every instinct I had screamed no. After everything he’d done, after the way he’d treated her, leaving her alone with him felt like handing her back to the enemy.
But Isabel squeezed my hand, and when I looked at her, I saw something I hadn’t expected.Confidence.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can do this.”
“Isabel—”
“Because of you.” She turned to face me fully, her hands coming up to rest on my chest. “I’m strong enough to do this because of you. I already stood up to him before you got here. I said things I’ve been holding inside my whole life. Whatever he wants to say now, I can handle it.”
I searched her face for doubt, for fear, for any sign that she was pushing herself beyond what she could bear.
I found none.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
