When Luke arrives, he knows immediately something has shifted. I tell him everything, without drama. I don’t cry. I don’t soften it. He listens in complete silence, pacing once, twice, then stopping directly in front of me.
“He walked into your house,” he says slowly, as if testing the weight of the fact.
“Yes.” I’m still as shocked as he is.
“And you were alone.”
“Yes.” The very thought of being alone with him makes my skin crawl.
His jaw tightens, but the explosion I expect never comes. Instead, something colder settles in.
“He’s escalating again. This, today, is another level entirely, Andi,” Luke says.
“You’re right.”
“And he thinks you’ll fold because the collateral damage is too high.”
“Yes.”
Luke runs a hand over his face and exhales. “Then we stop reacting,” he says finally. “We move first. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the ring, it’s fights are won by noticing what other people ignore—tiny shifts in posture, hesitation in the eyes. Patterns matter. His pattern is emerging, so let’s get ahead of him.”
“You’re right, Luke.” That’s when I pull the notebook toward me. Because if Jackson’s pattern is part of a larger machine, then it has pressure points.
And I intend to find them.
CHAPTER THIRTY
ANDI
Ihave signed contracts before.
Property acquisitions. Trust transfers. Vendor agreements. Documents that moved money and reshaped buildings.
None of them made my hands shake like this one.
The talk show agreement sits open on my laptop, the final page glowing on the screen. I’ve read every clause three times. I insisted on final approval over edits involving my answers. The producer resisted at first, explaining that editorial control is standard practice, that rearranging for flow is routine, and that I should trust theirintegrity.
Trust.
I added the clause anyway.
If they rearrange my words, soften the timeline, imply instability, or cut context from my answers, I can pull the segment. That safeguard almost cost me the appearance. Which tells me how easily a story can be reshaped once it leaves your mouth.
The promotional teaser they sent this morning reads:Heiress Speaks Out.
Not survivor.
Not advocate.
Not witness.
Heiress.
The framing is already tilted toward spectacle.
I close the laptop and press my palms flat against the table, trying to steady the restless current running through me. The youth center received another notice this afternoon requesting clarification about my disclosure history as director. It was phrased politely. Routine review. Governance alignment. But the timing is surgical.
Jackson isn’t reacting—he’s arranging. Every detail has been considered, every variable accounted for. The groundwork is done; now he’s ready to pull the trigger.
