We all feel it—humor buzzing just under the surface, tangled with something deeper. Excitement. Nerves, sure. But the good kind—the spark-in-your-chest, stomach-flipping kind that means something real is finally happening.
The truth is, we’re ready.
Fully, completely ready.
Now we just have to show Berk she doesn’t need to run. That, whatever this becomes, whatever we become, we can make it work.
She doesn’t have to be scared.
Not of us.
Not of the way we love her.
Chapter Three
Emerson
“This weekend, you’re coming with me to entertain a few new clients.”
Bryce Blackthorne—my father—doesn’t pose questions. He issues directives as if the world exists to obey him, as if every syllable should be met with gratitude and lowered heads.
I give a tight nod. Refusal isn’t an option. Not when he holds the one thing over me I can’t afford to gamble—my sister.
It’s his favorite tactic. Dangle her future in front of me like a treat for a well-trained dog. Threaten to ship her off to some overpriced institution with uniforms and barbed wire the moment I step out of line. He delivers these threats with a smile, too. As if he’s offering a privilege, not weaponizing the only person I truly care about.
“Yes, sir.” The words leave me before I can stop them. I hate how automatic they’ve become.
He studies me for a beat too long, eyes cold and calculating, as if he’s already searching for my next weakness to exploit. Then he turns and walks away, fully expecting me to fall in behind him.
I do.
Not from loyalty.
From necessity.
The meeting takes place at a high-end steakhouse downtown, the type with white tablecloths, suit-clad waiters, and candles flickering on every surface despite the early hour. I sit tall and silent while Bryce speaks in polished circles around the two men across from us. They look manufactured in their tailored suits, perfect nails, practiced smiles that never reach their eyes.
I catch pieces of their conversation. Words like “offshore adjustments,” “quiet partnerships,” and “discreet transportation solutions.” Vague enough to sound harmless to most people. Sharp enough to raise every alarm bell inside me.
I’m seventeen.
I shouldn’t understand any of it.
But I do.
Because Bryce made sure I would.
He trained me to be his shadow, his contingency plan, his puppet waiting for its strings to be pulled.
He smiles, lifts his glass, and says something about mutual gain and long-term discretion. The clients toast. I sit still, pretending to fade into the wallpaper.
The drive home is suffocating.
I sit rigid in the passenger seat of his glossy black Mercedes, hands clenched into fists against my thighs. The silencebetween us is worse than yelling. It means he’s preparing his next blow.
“Maybe if you didn’t sit there like a mute little coward, they’d take you seriously.”
My jaw tightens. “You told me to observe.”
