“I finished it.” My hands curled at my sides.
“If you’re suggesting I should have stood there and watched,” I continued evenly, “you don’t know me at all.”
The air turned electric. One wrong word would have detonated it.
Drew entered then, closing the door behind him with deliberate calm. “We are not turning this into a shouting match,” he said evenly. “Dunn is positioning. That is the priority.”
Lorne’s gaze hardened. “A public altercation combined with renewed attention to Ferraro is not a minor variable.”
Drew remained composed. “It becomes one if we escalate our response.”
My father’s jaw tensed. “We’re already under scrutiny.”
“Then we narrow it,” Drew replied. “Not widen it.”
“Are we done here,” I asked evenly, “or do you have more bullshit to say about my defending my girlfriend from an attack?”
Lorne’s jaw flexed.
“That’s enough,” my father cut in. The word echoed heavier than anything else in the room. He looked at Lorne first. “Dinner.” A command, not a suggestion.
Lorne exhaled through his nose and stepped back. “This isn’t over.”
“It never is,” my father replied.
Lorne left the study without another word.
My father’s attention shifted to me. “You will not create additional exposure,” he said quietly. “We handle this deliberately.”
“She was assaulted.” If protecting her created exposure, then so be it.
“And it was addressed,” he returned. “Control yourself.”
I’d heard that tone before.
He moved toward the door. “We’re done here.”
Dinner was quiet. Polite conversation layered over unfinished tension. No one referenced the attack on Mila or what I did to Logan. No one referenced Ferraro.
After dinner, Drew intercepted me in the entryway before I reached the front door.
“I looked into the number you flagged this morning,” he said. “I had it reviewed by corporate security. It was a prepaid device purchased with cash in Blackwood three days ago. It was activated once and then powered down.”
“So there’s no name attached to it?”
“No. There won’t be.”
I held his gaze. “Then what does that actually give you?”
“It gives me documentation,” he replied. “The number is logged. The purchase batch is logged. If it resurfaces or connects to anything else, it triggers a formal response.”
“What kind of response?”
“One that does not stay inside a school hallway.”
That was clear enough. “You’re building a file.”
“I’m establishing a record,” he corrected. “If this continues, it becomes actionable.”
