Chapter 18
JOY
By five o’clock, the shop was spotless.
Every stem trimmed. Every ribbon cut clean. Every surface wiped until it gleamed like order itself might keep the world from tilting any further off its axis.
It didn’t.
The arrangements for the event had gone out on time. Britney had hugged me before leaving, babbling about how incredible everything looked, how I was a lifesaver, how lucky the clients were to have me.
I smiled. I nodded. I locked up.
And still, Micah hadn’t answered.
Not my call.
Not my text.
Not the second call I pretended wasn’t panic.
The street outside hummed with early evening Charleston—tourists wandering, couples lingering, the slow slide toward dinner reservations and twilight. Normally, I loved this hour. The moment when the city softened and everything felt possible again.
Tonight, it felt hollow.
Not empty—wrong. Like the city had lost its depth and I was moving through a backdrop instead of a place I belonged. The familiar rhythm of Charleston, the thing that usually grounded me, slid right past without catching.
I stood on the sidewalk with my keys clenched in my hand and did something I almost never did.
I stopped trying to reason my way out of what I felt.
I listened to my body instead of my plans.
That alone felt dangerous.
Because my plans were careful. Measured. Built from years of learning how not to tip the balance of my life too far in any one direction. Plans kept me safe. Plans kept me recognizable to myself.
But my body didn’t recognize safety the same way anymore.
It had been awake for a short time, and already it had learned something my mind was struggling to accept: I was no longer standing on the edge of change.
I was already in it.
There was no going back to the version of the day where Micah was a man I wondered about instead of a man I worried over. No returning to the woman who went home, locked her door, and trusted that waiting was the same thing as wisdom.
That world had slipped sideways without asking my permission.
And standing there, keys biting into my palm, I realized something quietly terrifying and oddly steadying at the same time—
If I was already in a strange new world, already breaking rules I used to live by, already letting attachment rewrite my instincts …
Then maybe the bravest thing wasn’t to retreat.
Maybe it was to step further in.
My body didn’t want to go home.
It didn’t want the illusion of control that came from familiar walls and familiar routines.
It didn’t want to sit on my bed and tell myself that if Micah wanted me, he’d come back on his own.
It wanted answers.
And maybe—if I was being honest—it wanted proof that I wasn’t wrong for trusting what I felt.
I curled my fingers tighter around the keys, took one last look down the street that led home, and then turned my back on it.
Because whatever waited ahead—Dominion Hall, truths I wasn’t ready for, men with histories that cut deeper than mine—I already knew this much:
Staying still wasn’t safer anymore.
And I wasn’t the kind of woman who could pretend otherwise.
When I arrived, Dominion Hall loomed the way money always did—quiet, confident, unconcerned with whether you were ready to face it or not. The gates opened after my name was called in, the gravel crunching under the tires like a warning I chose to ignore.
Inside, everything was too composed. Too still. As if chaos were something that happened elsewhere, to other people.
I was shown into a sitting room that felt curated to disarm—soft lighting, neutral tones, furniture arranged for conversation rather than confrontation.
Portia Dane was already there.
She rose when she saw me, her posture elegant, her expression unreadable in that way people cultivated when they were used to power.
“Joy,” she said. “I wondered when you’d come.”
“I didn’t know I was expected,” I replied, surprised at how calm I sounded.
She studied me for a moment. Then gestured for me to sit. “You’re braver than most.”
“I don’t feel brave,” I said honestly. “I feel … responsible.”
Her mouth curved slightly. “Okay.”
I folded my hands in my lap, mirroring her earlier posture without meaning to. “Where is Micah?”
Portia’s gaze sharpened—not hostile, but alert. “You care.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No apology.
She nodded once. “Then I’ll tell you what I can.”
She explained in fragments. Carefully. Enough to give shape without betraying whatever lines she lived by. That Micah had been summoned. That something long buried had resurfaced. That the man Micah believed had abandoned him—had been dead—was very much alive.
My chest tightened. “His father.”
“Yes.”
The word landed with weight.
Before I could ask more, the door opened.
An older man stepped in.
He stopped short when he saw me.
And I knew.
Not because I recognized his face—but because I felt it. The echo. The genetic certainty that lived in posture and presence more than features.
“I didn’t know there would be … company,” he said quietly.
Portia’s voice cooled. “This is Joy. Micah’s—” she paused, then chose carefully, “—someone important.”
His gaze softened with something like regret. “I see.”
I stood before I realized I was moving. “Where is he?”
The man hesitated.
That was answer enough.
“He ran,” the man said finally. “And I don’t blame him.”
Anger flared sharp and fast. “You don’t get to explain him.”
His shoulders sagged slightly. “No. I don’t.”
He told me some of it then—not excuses, not redemption. Just truth stripped down to bones. Threats. Choices made in fear and arrogance. A decision to disappear rather than endanger the family he loved.
“You don’t vanish from seven children and call it protection,” I said quietly.
“I know,” he said. And the pain in his voice was real.
“Where would Micah go?” I asked.
The man hesitated.
Not the thoughtful pause of a man searching his memory—but the kind that came when there was no memory to search. When you were standing in front of the consequences of having never truly known someone.
“I don’t know him,” he said finally, and the admission cost him. “Not anymore. Maybe, I never did.”
That rang truer than anything else he’d said.
“But,” he continued, “I know the kind of man he became. I know what happens when men like Micah lose their footing.”
My pulse picked up. “What happens?”
“They go somewhere they can think,” Byron said. “Somewhere quiet. Somewhere open. Somewhere they don’t have to perform.”
He glanced toward the tall windows, beyond the manicured grounds, toward the water stretching unseen but implied.
“When I disappeared,” he added quietly, “I ran to the edge of things. Places where you can stare at something bigger than yourself and let it swallow the noise.”
The words settled heavy in my chest.
“You think he’d do the same,” I said.
The man nodded once. “If he’s hurting, yes. If he’s trying not to break in front of people, especially.”
Portia shifted beside him. “There are a handful of places like that around here.”
The man didn’t argue.
He named one—not as certainty, but as a possibility. A place where the land fell away and the water took over. A place a man could sit without being watched and let the world go quiet enough to survive his own thoughts.
Hope flared sharp and sudden.
I didn’t explain myself. I just turned and left—before doubt could catch up, before anyone could ask if I was sure.
Because I didn’t need certainty.
I just needed direction.
The drive felt unreal—my heart pounding so hard it made my hands shake on the steering wheel. I didn’t think about danger. Or propriety. Or what any of this meant for my carefully built life.
I thought about Micah.
Alone. Broken open. Running the way wounded men did when staying hurt too much.
I found him where his father said I might. A small miracle, really. Or proof of our synchronicity.
He was at the end of a narrow road that gave way to marsh and sky, far from the lit charm of downtown and the curated beauty tourists came for. The kind of place locals passed without noticing—a forgotten stretch of planks and pilings where the land simply stopped and the water took over.
The pier jutted out into the Ashley River, weathered and narrow, its boards silvered with age and salt. No boats tied up. No lights strung overhead. Just water and wind and the soft slap of the tide against the posts below.
He was sitting alone on the edge, shoulders hunched, elbows braced on his knees, staring out at the water stretching in front of him.
There wasn’t another soul in sight.
No cars. No voices. No glow from nearby houses. Just the marsh breathing around us and the distant hum of the city, muted enough to feel like another world.
I didn’t call his name.
I just walked out onto the pier, each step deliberate, letting the boards creak softly under my weight.
Because this felt like a place you entered carefully.
And he felt like a man who needed to know he wasn’t being chased—only found.
He flinched, anyway.
“Go away,” he said hoarsely.
“No.”
Silence stretched between us, thick with unsaid things.
“I know,” I said softly. “About your father.”
His breath hitched.
“I know some of it,” I continued. “Enough.”
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know,” I said again. “But I am.”
He finally turned toward me. His face was drawn, raw in a way that stripped away all the armor I’d sensed from the beginning.
“I’m not safe,” he said.
I reached for his hand before fear could stop me. “You are with me.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not saying you’re fixed,” I interrupted gently. “I’m saying you don’t have to run from me.”
Something broke then. Not loudly. Quietly. Like a seam giving way.
“I don’t know how to be the man you need,” he whispered.
“I’m not asking you to,” I said. “Just this one. Right now.”
I leaned in, resting my forehead against his. Grounding. Present.
“You’re allowed to hurt,” I murmured. “You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to want and still feel unworthy.”
His breath shuddered.