Scott
The Bennett estate gates groan open as I pull through, the sound dragging up the long drive like the house itself is clearing its throat to remind me who used to own me.
I park directly in front of the main entrance—something that would’ve set my father off—and kill the engine. The mansion I’ve been avoiding for the four months since I’ve been back looms ahead, all columns and quiet judgment. Every window stares like an accusing eye.
I’m not here to reminisce.
Fuck no.
The final estate paperwork waits in his study. Signatures, transfer documents, legal loose ends—clean cuts through a life I never asked for. The last threads of a fortune and business I’m shocked I even inherited and certainly didn’t earn in the eyes of my father, but I’ll damn well use.
I step out of the truck. Cold air bites my lungs, sharp as a blade. The driveway crunches beneath my boots.
The house smells the same when I push inside—polish and old wood, laced with something stale, like control seeped into the walls. It’s quiet. Too quiet.
He’s been dead for months, and I still feel him here, a ghost in the bones of this place.
The hall echoes as I walk, my footsteps steady. My body knows this house. Every corner. Every blind spot. Every place a boy learned to stay silent.
When I reach the study, the room looks exactly how I remember it. Heavy desk. Leather chair. Neatly stacked files, as if he planned to come back. The portrait above the fireplace stares down, his face carved in oil—cold power, a man who believed to be loved was to be feared.
I drop the folder onto the desk and exhale through my nose.
Ten years in the Marines burned away a lot. The flinch. The doubt. But not all of it. Not the part of me that still aches for her.
Lyla.
Her name strikes me like light a bolt of lightning, sharp and immediate. I don’t say it out loud. I don’t need to.
I haven’t seen her in ten years, and I still remember everything about her—her laugh, her mouth, her long pale curls, the way she climbed into my lap like it was as natural as breathing. The heat of her skin against mine, the way she looked at me like I was her rock. Something worth fighting for.
Every deployment. Every bunker. Every night staring at a ceiling in some hellhole, telling myself I’d come back stronger. Worthy. Able to stand before my father without breaking.
And with bits of my paychecks over the years, I bought a small house when I was overseas, hoping—promising to myself—when I could return, we’d spend our lives together there.
Half a year in boot camp and SOI training, then several deployments all over the world. I did anything and everything to avoid being found by my father’s people. And I’ve carried that choice for a decade.
Then after about nine-and-a-half years, I found out the bastard croaked. I didn’t go to the asshole’s funeral. Didn’t give a shit what my parent’s “friends” thought or would gossip about. Especially when they were the ones who pretended to not have known his behavior toward me from the time I was a kid.
Fuck them.
Instead, I requested an early honorable discharge that same day. I got out two months later and immediately flew out on the red-eye to Dallas. Wanting to build a life outside of my family, I got myself a job at Knight Industries as their head of security and a small apartment for rent that’s only a few blocks from Lyla’s apartment complex.
I came back to claim what was mine—my name, my life, my future.
And still…
None of it matters. None of that compares to the one thing I truly want back.
I drag my folder closer and start sorting. Paperwork. Titles. Estates. Debts. Despite the busy work, it’s nothing more than a distraction. Because the moment I stop, the same thought crashes in, uninvited and relentless.
Where is she doing now?
Despite being overseas, I’d found ways to keep quiet tabs on her and at least know what she was up to. No way for my father to find out, in case he was still watching her, waiting to see if I’d make contact.
But I quickly discovered I could do much more for her once I was back in Dallas and my old man died. Nothing that she’d notice. Nothing that would touch her life directly.
Her apartment building’s security was shit—outdated camera, dim lighting. One anonymous call fixed that. New system. Better locks. And none of it could lead back to me.
