A soft knock pulled me back to the present. "Ava?" My mother's voice, muffled through the heavy wood. "Dinner's ready, sweetheart."
I didn't answer. A moment later, her footsteps retreated down the hallway.
This had been the pattern since I arrived at my parents' house. My mother knocking gently, offering food, not pushing when I stayed silent. My father appearing briefly in doorways, nodding once before disappearing back to his study. Both of them giving me space in a way they never had when I was younger.
I didn't know what to do with their restraint. I'd spent so many years resenting them—my father's control, my mother's complicity, the golden cage they'd tried to keep me in. Now they were offering something that looked almost like respect, and I couldn't tell if it was real or just another version of the same old manipulation.
I got up anyway. I moved Watson to the pillow, where he curled into the warm spot I'd left behind. Smoothed the clothes I'd been wearing to appear presentable enough to satisfy my mother's unspoken standards.
The dining room looked the same as it had when I was eighteen. The same crystal chandelier scattered light across the ceiling like frozen stars. Same mahogany table that seated twelve but only ever held three. Same view of the Upper East Side through floor-to-ceiling windows, all that wealth glittering beyond the glass.
My mother had prepared a formal setting. Cloth napkins. Three forks per plate. The careful rituals of a life I'd spent thirteen years escaping.
I sat. Picked up my fork. Pushed food around my plate.
"Brian called the office." My father's voice was matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing the weather. "My secretary told him you weren't accepting calls from that number."
I nodded.
"She said he asked her to tell you he's not giving up."
The words landed like stones in still water. Ripples spreading outward, disturbing the careful blankness I'd cultivated since arriving.
He's not giving up.
Of course, he wasn't. That was Brian. Steady. Stubborn. The kind of man who ran into burning buildings because giving up wasn't in his vocabulary.
The kind of man who would keep putting himself in danger for me until the Langs destroyed him.
"You did the right thing." My father set down his fork. "Coming here. Removing yourself from the situation until the threat is resolved."
"Did I?"
"The Langs are under investigation. Sloane Harper's articles have the DA moving faster than I've ever seen." He met my eyes. "The pressure is building. It's only a matter of time."
Time.I thought about Brian waking up alone in that hospital bed. About the crew watching their backs every time they left the station. About the slashed tires and the threats that came with them.
"How much time?" My voice came out hollow. "Because they're still out there. Brian was beaten because of me. The crew is being targeted because of me. And I'm—" I gestured at the formal table, the crystal chandelier, the silk napkins folded into perfect fans. "I'm hiding in my parents' house while people I love pay the price."
"You're being smart," my father said. "Not a coward."
"I'm being useless."
Silence settled over the table. My mother's hand drifted toward her wine glass—her third of the evening. My father watched me with that sharp gaze that had made opposing counsel underestimate him for thirty years.
"I've had cases against men like Richard Lang before." His jaw tightened. "They think money makes them untouchable. It doesn't. It just takes longer to reach them."
I wanted to believe him. I'd spent years watching my father win—in courtrooms, in boardrooms, in every arena where power and strategy mattered. He didn't make promises he couldn't keep.
But I'd also seen Richard Lang's press conference that morning. The practiced smile. The concerned father routine. The way he'd deflected every question about Kevin's whereabouts with the ease of a man who'd been playing this game for decades.
Dr. Rothwell is clearly under tremendous stress, he’d said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. We hope she gets the help she needs.
He wasn't scared. He wasn't even nervous.
And Kevin—Kevin was still out there. Desperate. Unraveling. The police hadn't been able to locate him for days.
"Give it two weeks," my father continued. "The Langs' empire will be crumbling around them, and Kevin will be in custody where he belongs."
