I picture her standing there, staring at those images. Her brain is trying to make sense of them. Her heart, scarred, trusting, stupidly brave, taking hit after hit after hit.
And I did this. Not Richard. Not Simone.
Me.
Because I left her alone long enough for my father to get his hands on her. I put distance between us. I gave her silence and froze her out.
“She was staring at them,” Rowan says quietly. “And whatever your father said… it wasn’t just the pictures. He said something that broke the last piece of her belief.”
Rowan doesn't have to clarify which belief. My actions, my inactions, paired with Richard’s attack... it broke her belief in us.
I press my palm to my forehead hard enough to hurt.
Why.
Why does he care? Why does he want to destroy it? Why does he want to take the one thing that makes me...
My mind stutters.
Happy.
The word feels unfamiliar in my head, like I’m not allowed to use it.
I swallow. “Rowan… she knows I wouldn’t.”
A beat.
Then Rowan’s voice cuts like a blade. “Does she?”
Silence.
He doesn’t have to say the rest. The rest is written in the last weeks. The way I vanished. How I let Claire become a gatekeeper to my marriage. I spoke to Lucy as if she were a scheduling conflict rather than a person. Instead of my wife.
Rowan says it anyway, because he’s never been one to let me hide behind my own bullshit.
“You’ve been a class-A dick,” he says. “And now she believes whatever your father told her.”
I breathe once. Twice.
“Okay,” I say, and my voice changes. It drops into something colder. “Okay. Then I fix it.”
Rowan’s tone shifts, too. Like he hears it. Like he understands what I’m about to do.
“I need you to do three things,” I say, pacing now, phone pressed tight to my ear. “One: find out how Richard got into my penthouse. Two: find out how he got documents out of Northwell. I want names. I want key logs. I want camera footage. I want everything.”
“I’m already on it,” Rowan says.
“Three,” I continue, voice hardening, “find Lucy.”
Rowan doesn’t hesitate. “We’re trying. Theos headed to the treatment facility now. If she went anywhere, she would go there. Or Emily would know where she is.”
Theo.
God. Theo had tried to warn me. I’d shoved him away likehewas the enemy.
I grip the phone tighter. “If Theo finds her first...”
“He won’t push,” Rowan says. “He’ll protect. He knows her. He’s not you.”
