I understand it then, sudden and unwelcome.
I didn’t escape anything. I was transferred.
He doesn’t ask where I’ve been or ask what happened. He asks if I’m hurt, as if everything else is already accounted for.
That realization settles slowly but leaves no doubt about what this is. Whatever comes next was never going to be my call.
He crosses the room in long strides, stopping directly in front of me. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m fine.”
“Did he touch you?” His jaw tightens. “Because if he?—”
“He didn’t,” I cut in. “He was good to me, Papa.”
The words sound wrong the second they leave my mouth. Too honest. Too complicated.
His expression shifts, anger giving way to confusion. “Good to you? He took you.”
“I know,” I say. “But he didn’t hurt me. He fed me. He made sure I was safe. He treated me like a person.”
“You’re crying,” he says, eyes narrowing. “Whatever you think he did, look at you.”
I scrub at my face, frustrated with myself. “I’m crying because everything happened at once. Being taken. Not knowing why. Thinking I might never come home. And now being back here and trying to make sense of it.”
He exhales sharply and moves behind the desk, pouring himself a drink. The ice clinks loud in the quiet.
“They thought I killed their father,” he says.
The words hit hard.
“What?”
“Robert Stone. Someone murdered him last week. Ridge thought it was me.”
The image of the photograph flashes in my mind. The man with the birthmark. Ridge’s voice when he told me about his father. Tight. Controlled. Holding something back.
“When?” I ask.
“Thursday or Friday.” He takes a drink. “The city’s been on edge since. The Stones wanted blood.”
“Did you do it?” I ask, hating that I have to.
“No,” he says sharply. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t bring that kind of war down on us.”
I believe him.
“Then why would Ridge think that?”
“Because someone wanted him to.” He runs a hand through his hair. “One of my men was involved. Acting alone, apparently. But optics don’t care about truth.”
My stomach turns.
“And Ridge,” I say slowly. “When he found out?”
“I tried to talk,” Laurent says. “He wouldn’t listen. So I made sure he understood the cost of keeping you.”
The memory of Ridge telling me I was going home resurfaces. The strain in his voice. The way he wouldn’t look at me.
