Chapter Eighteen
The Brother’s Burden
Sierra
The apartment feels unfamiliar in a way I can’t quite name.
It’s smaller than the house I shared with Jace, less polished, less curated.
Nothing echoes here. It’s a one-bedroom space downtown, there are no chores to lose myself in to avoid Jace’s gaze, and no husband to pretend for.
There is just me, the ghost of a baby I lost, and the crushing weight of a name I can’t seem to outrun.
I’m on my hands and knees in the small galley kitchen, scrubbing the baseboards.
I’ve already cleaned the windows and organized my closet as much as I can because it’s so small.
My hands are raw, the skin stinging from the bleach, but I can’t stop.
If I stop, the silence starts to sound like my father’s voice.
A Carter woman builds her own reputation, Sierra. One crack and they’ll swear the whole thing was rotten. Do not be the reason this family fails.
The doorbell echoes through the small space, and I jump, my heart hammering against my ribs. I stay on the floor for a second, catching my breath. I check my reflection in the oven door, pale, tired, but the bun is tight and my clothes are wrinkle-free. Disciplined. Always disciplined.
I open the door to find Griffin. My big brother. The only person in the Carter bloodline who doesn't look at me like a balance sheet. He looks exhausted, his shoulders slumped as he leans against the doorframe.
"Sierra," he breathes, stepping inside. He doesn't wait for me to invite him; he never has. He spots the bucket of soapy water and the scrub brush on the floor, and his face crumples. "God, Sia. You’re doing it again. You’re scrubbing the life out of the room just so you don't have to live in it."
"I just wanted it clean, Griff," I say, my voice trembling. "I thought once the paperwork was finished and weeks had passed, the... the weight would lift. But everything still feels so heavy. I just need to feel like I’m in control of something."
Griffin walks over, gently taking the brush from me and tossing it into the bucket. He doesn't snap at me. He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his eyes full of a protective warmth that makes my throat ache.
"You don't have to be 'on' for me," he whispers. "I know how they are. I grew up in that same house, remember? I know how Dad looks at you like you’re a trophy he’s worried about dropping. You’re safe with me."
"I don't feel safe," I admit, the words cracking. "I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. If I’m not the perfect daughter, if I’m not the 'brave divorcee' they can market to their friends, they’ll turn their backs. You know how they work. Everything is conditional."
Griffin sighs, pulling me into a hug. He smells like the outdoors and the shop where he works with Knox.
"They won't touch you. Not while I’m breathing.
" He pulls back, his expression turning serious. But we need to talk about why you’re really falling apart," Griffin says, his voice steady but heavy with a truth I'm not ready for. “Is it Jace? Or is it Knox being right across town, and you’re running out of places to hide from what you don’t want to feel?”
The mention of Knox’s name makes the room spin. I stumble back, hitting the counter, my heart slamming against my ribs. "What? I... I don't know what you mean, Griffin. Knox is your friend. He has nothing to do with—"
Griffin raises an eyebrow, a look of tired clarity on his face that stops the breath in my lungs. "I know, Sierra. I’ve always known you felt something for Knox. I saw it in the little things… the way you always went quiet when he walked into a room.”
I try to laugh, but it comes out as a choked, desperate sound. "It was just a crush, Griff. A childhood thing. It didn't mean—"
I shake my head, my hands trembling as I grip the edge of the counter. "It doesn't matter, Griffin. It never mattered. You know how this family works. Even if... even if there was something there, Dad would have never allowed it. I did what I was supposed to do."
"Is that what you call it?" Griffin asks softly, taking a step toward me.
"Doing what you were supposed to do? You've spent your whole life trying to be the daughter they want, Sia. But look at you. You’re exhausted. You’re terrified of your own shadow.
Was the 'Carter reputation' really worth this? "
The way he says it, like I’ve lived my life for a prize that doesn't exist, makes something snap inside me. All the years of pretending, the weight of the secret, and the sheer terror of that night in our father's study come rushing to the surface.
"They would have destroyed me, Griffin!" I shout, the sound startling both of us.
"You know what they said when they found out I was pregnant.
They didn't ask if I was okay. They asked how we were going to 'fix' the optics.
I was twenty-seven, a grown woman, and I was still shaking in my boots because Dad threatened to cut me out of the family entirely if the father wasn't someone 'respectable. '"
I slide down the cabinets until I’m sitting on the floor again, burying my face in my hands.
"I didn't tell them it was Knox," I whisper into my palms. "I couldn't. I saw the way they looked at him when we were kids, the 'troubled' boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Your best friend. They hated that you brought him around. When they cornered me in that study, demanding a name… I panicked. And Jace’s name came out of my mouth because I knew what they’d do with it. I knew it would stop them.”
Griffin freezes. He drops to his knees in front of me, his hands gripping my shoulders. "Sierra. Look at me."
I lift my head, my eyes swimming with tears.
"The baby," Griffin rasps, his face pale. "The one you lost right after the wedding. You’re telling me that baby wasn't Jace’s? That it was Knox’s?"
I nod my head and a sob escapes me, the truth finally breaking through.
"I let Jace believe the baby was his because I was too much of a coward to be shunned by our parents. I watched him step up, watched him take on the role of becoming a father with so much pride, all while I was hiding the truth about who really belonged in that role. I let him carry grief that shouldn’t have been tangled up in a lie.
I let him mourn a baby believing one version of the truth, while I was drowning in another. "
The silence that follows is deafening. Griffin looks like I’ve punched him in the gut. He’s the bridge between these worlds, he loves me, but Knox is the brother of his soul.
Griffin’s eyes close, and he leans his forehead against the cool surface of the kitchen cabinet.
"God, Sierra. Do you have any idea how many times Knox has talked about wanting a family? About how he wanted to be the kind of father he never had? He’s been looking forward to that his whole life.
To having someone of his own to protect.
And you let him believe he was just the guy who wasn't 'good enough' to stay in your circle while another man was grieving his child. "
Griffin drops down in front of me, one knee hitting the floor. His hands come to my face, firm but not rough, forcing me to look at him. "You let him walk around with that hole in his chest, Sia. You let him believe something that wasn’t real."
The weight of his stare is too much. I can’t breathe, let alone answer.
After a long, tense moment, Griffin’s hands drop from my shoulders.
He paces the small length of my kitchen, his jaw tight, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
I stay frozen by the counter, the silence of the apartment feeling like it’s suffocating me.
I expect him to yell, to tell me he's going straight to Knox.
But when he finally turns back, the slight anger in his eyes has been replaced by that familiar, weary sorrow. He looks at me and sees the same girl who used to hide in his room when the shouting started downstairs. He sees the raw skin on my fingers and the way I’m trembling, and his posture sags.
Griffin doesn't pull away instead he pulls me closer, rocking me like he did when we were children and I’d scraped my knees. "It’s a mess, Sia. A beautiful, tragic mess."
"Don't tell him," I beg, clutching at his shirt. "Please, Griffin. If Knox finds out, he’ll hate me forever. If Jace finds out... I’ve already taken enough from him. Just let me keep this one thing."
Griffin stays quiet for a long time. I can feel the war raging inside him.
He hates to lie, but he loves his sister.
Finally, he exhales a shaky breath. "I won't tell anyone.
Not yet. But you can't keep living like this, scrubbing floors until your fingers bleed to hide the guilt.
Our parents aren't here, Sierra. You don't have to be their pawn anymore. "
He stays with me until the sun starts to set, but even his presence can't wash away the images in my mind.
I think about the time I found him down by the ravine, huddled against an oak tree, with a black eye and his face already swelling, his eyes fixed on the ground like if he didn’t look up, the world might leave him alone.
I didn’t ask what happened. I just sat beside him and pressed a small silver locket into his palm. Something I’d stolen from my mother’s vanity because it looked strong, because it felt like a shield.
“It’s a protection charm,” I told him.
He believed me. He wore it under his shirt for years. I wonder if he still has it, or if he tucked it away in a box of things he wants to forget.
That was the first time I understood that I wanted to be the thing that kept the world from breaking him.
I just didn’t know yet that the world he’d need protecting from would eventually include my father.
Or me.
I gave him a piece of my heart as a kid, and then I stole a piece of his life when we were adults. I let him believe his legacy ended before it even began.