Chapter Thirty
LUKE
Ipulled into the drive and noted there was nothing out of place, as if life was perfect.
The house wore its museum face—lights staged, fountain running.
You’d never know I’d spent the afternoon dragging Mila out of Elise’s firing line or that practice had felt like skating with sand under my blades.
I killed the engine and sat there long enough to watch the kitchen window go dark then flare back to life. A shadow crossed the glass, profile sharp for half a second. Not staff.
Inside, the air carried the low hum of circulation. I dropped my gear by the mudroom bench and followed the low glow down the hall. The study door stood open a few inches. Dad’s voice came through, not raised. Worse. Smooth, controlled, a temperature drop.
“Come in here, Luke.”
I pushed the door and stepped onto the rug, preferring to stand.
He didn’t look up right away. When he did, fury banked behind his eyes as he turned the monitor so I could see it.
My checking account. A debit line highlighted in the middle of the page: Marcus Vega Investigations. My hands curled into fists.
“Would you care to explain why you’ve hired a private investigator?”
I wasn’t silent because I was shocked. I was counting to three to breathe around the anger. I made it to two.
His hand came down on the desk—not a slam, just a placement with weight. “Don’t insult me. You think I can’t see where the money goes?”
“It’s my checking account.” My shoulders pulled tight. “You had no right to be inside it.”
His eyes flicked up, pale and precise. “The account might carry your name, but don’t mistake it for independence. I can lock it with one call. If you want to test me, go ahead.”
“I don’t need protection from the truth.” I stepped closer.
His gaze cut through me, and he set his tumbler of whiskey down too hard. The glass rang against the wood, a loud note in the quiet room. “Then tell me. Why the investigator? What exactly are you digging for?”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. About Darren Langley. About what Dunn started and what we may have finished. About what Elise did to Avery. About what she’s trying to do to Mila.”
The explosion came fast, hotter for being contained too long. “Stay the fuck out of it, Luke.” He growled. “You hear me? Out. That mess isn’t yours to touch.”
“What mess exactly?” I forced the words through my teeth.
His hand flattened against the desk, hard enough that the lamp rattled.
“All of it. That Mila girl is nothing but trouble. I warned you. Drew warned you. Stay away from her before she drags you under with the rest of them. You don’t need to figure out anything,” he ordered.
“You need to focus on your future. The company that will one day carry you if you don’t set it on fire first. That future is not with that girl. ”
Cold slid through me, clean and surgical. “That’s not your decision to make.”
“You’re risking everything we built—our name, our company—over a girl and your obsession with things you don’t understand.”
“Maybe I’m risking everything to stop being blind.
” My hands curled against my thighs. “Dunn deposits hit Darren’s account before he vanished.
His house sold. The proceeds landed clean.
No withdrawals. No trace. And now—today—Dunn’s daughter tried to take Mila down in front of the entire school.
You think that doesn’t touch me? Don’t preach risk to me. ”
His chest lifted, held, lowered. “She’s a problem, Luke. Her mother was inside our walls once, too close to things she had no right to touch. Now you’re walking the same path.”
“Maybe it isn’t about them.”
Dad’s head tilted.
“Maybe it’s about what you’re hiding.” I didn’t raise my voice. “About what Lorne did. About what you authorized or refused to stop.”
The silence that followed grew teeth. The house hummed around it—the discrete whir of ducts, the soft buzz of recessed lights. His gaze pressed like weight, daring me to flinch.
“You’re young,” he said finally, a verdict he’d been waiting to deliver. “You think loving a girl makes you immortal. It makes you vulnerable. It makes you stupid.”
“Loving her makes me honest.” My hand found the doorframe before I knew I was moving. “You want me to stay out of things and away from Mila because you’re realizing that I won’t pretend anymore.”
“You want to throw yourself into ruin and call it principle.” His voice leveled, flat again. “Fine. But don’t expect me—or this family—to carry the cost.”
I turned the knob. The brass felt cold under my palm. Leaving his office was the only answer he’d get tonight.
The hall stretched bright and empty. My reflection walked with me across dark glass—taller, older, more tired than I’d been this morning when I stuck myself between Mila and a room full of knives.
In the kitchen, the under-cabinet lights illuminated the granite in soft strips.
I took a glass from the cabinet intent on filling it up but just stood there doing nothing instead.
Of everyone I shouldn’t talk to tonight, she was the one I wanted to more than anything. I pulled my phone out and opened our text thread. The tightness in my chest didn’t ease as my thumb hovered over the message box.
Loving her was the only thing that made me see straight. It was honesty, and I’d burn down every polished lie in this house before I gave it up.
Footsteps came behind me. I gripped the phone too tight and shoved it behind my back. But it wasn’t my father. The steps were lighter.
Drew leaned a shoulder into the door jamb, watching me finish the glass.
“So that mess happened,” he said. “I overheard some of it.”
“Walked right into it.” I set the glass down. “He checked my accounts while he was at it.”
Drew didn’t flinch. “And you’re surprised?”
“No.”
He stepped closer, voice low. “Protect yourself. Don’t let Mila be the reason you go down.”
The instinct to bristle hit, but I swallowed it. “She’s not dragging me anywhere.”
“Doesn’t matter how it starts,” he said. “If you’re standing too close when it blows, you’ll take the hit too.” He held my stare. “If you need to worry about someone, don’t start with Dad.”
A beat. “Who then?”
“Lorne.” The name landed hard. “He fixes problems. He doesn’t hesitate. And he thinks protecting us means cutting out anyone who dents the family.”
Mila’s mother with a hammer in her kitchen. Darren’s clean ledger. Elise smiling onstage, carving with a phone. My father forbidding me to have anything to do with Mila.
“Did Lorne do something to Darren Langley?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t get the answer.
Drew’s mouth thinned. “If he did, you’ll only hear about it when it serves someone else. Don’t be the last to know.”
“I hired the PI to make sure I’m not.”
“That’ll get you facts.” Drew pushed off the counter. “Don’t confuse them for the whole truth.”
My jaw ached. “Truth is the only thing I’m after.”
“Good.” His eyes flicked toward the study. “I’m on your side. Just…don’t burn yourself down chasing the truth.”
We stood in the kitchen. Drew looked older, not in his face but in the way his shoulders carried weight. He tried to be the polish to Dad’s force. Tonight, the polish had worn thin.
“I’m not leaving her,” I said.
His eyes sharpened. “Then don’t give Lorne a reason to make her a problem.”
“Meaning.”
“Don’t keep evidence on you. Don’t let the wrong people hear what you’re digging for. Don’t give Elise fuel she can spin. Keep yourself clean enough they can’t move against you.” He paused. “And the best thing you could do for her—the only thing? Stay away. At least for now.”
Anger hit hot, sharp. “That’s not happening.”
“I’m telling you the truth, not what you want to hear.” His voice stayed level. “You’re tying yourself to her at the worst possible moment. If she goes down, you go with her. You want to protect her? Don’t hand them an easy way to use you both.”
“Maybe you’re right, but she’s not the problem.”
“I didn’t say she was.” His gaze cut to the dark window, our reflections layered in the glass. “But her family, our family, Dunn’s—those lines are crossing in ways that don’t end clean. You’re worth more than getting caught in the grind.”
“You talk like you’re not part of it.”
“I am. But I also know what to watch out for.” His tone stayed even. “So hear me—keep your head. Don’t throw away leverage because your heart is involved. And don’t give Lorne a reason to go after her.”
“I won’t.” The weight of it settled, heavy.
“Make sure of it.”
He clapped my shoulder once—firm enough to anchor, soft enough to pass as brotherly—and walked out, leaving the hum of the appliances and Dad’s words still clinging to the walls.
I leaned back against the counter and swiped out of Mila’s contact information to Marcus’s then sent my PI a message. Keep digging into Darren’s house sale. Follow the notary. I want the escrow officer, the recorder’s timestamp, everything that touched the wire.
Three dots. Then: Copy. Already on escrow. Notary looks dirty. Will confirm.
If the notary was dirty, the rest of the trail wouldn’t stay clean for long.
I pocketed the phone and went to the window.
My reflection wavered over the glass, pale and doubled.
Somewhere between the study and the kitchen, the part of me that wanted to be the son my father recognized had left the room.
I heard Drew’s warning, but I couldn’t make myself heed it. I wasn’t stepping back from Mila. And I wasn’t giving Lorne a reason to make her his target.
“Protect yourself. Don’t let Mila be the reason you go down.”
I understood the love under Drew’s words. I did. I just didn’t agree with it. You could run from a fire or learn where the accelerant was stored.
I killed the kitchen lights and left. Upstairs, the house stretched silent around me, all polished surface and hollow space. I didn’t look at the ocean strip beyond the windows.
I lay back in the dark, every nerve wired. If fire was coming, I wasn’t running. The flames were already encircling me.