Chapter 19-Cutting Ties
Itested the lock three times before I caught myself.
Check.
Check.
Check.
An old reflex. One I thought I'd left behind.
9:47 AM, I was standing in my apartment entryway with my hand still on the deadbolt. My other hand clutched my phone.
The screen showed two new texts from Charlotte, both marked urgent.
Richard was behind me. I could feel him there—three feet back, giving me space. He had driven us here from Morrison Plaza in silence. Parked in my building's garage. Followed me up the elevator.
"Come sit down," he said quietly.
I didn't move. Couldn't seem to get my body past that entryway.
"Blaire." His hand settled on my shoulder. Gentle. "Let me help you with your jacket."
I let him slide it off my shoulders. Watched him drape it over the coat rack with precise care.
He guided me to the couch. I sat because my legs were shaking, and standing felt impossible.
Richard disappeared into the kitchen. Returned with a glass of water. Set it on the coffee table in front of me. Sat on the opposite end of the couch. Close enough to reach. Far enough to give me space.
The apartment looked exactly the same as it had that morning. French press on the counter. Richard's messenger bag by the couch. His laptop still open on the coffee table from where he'd been working at 7:30 AM when everything was manageable.
When I still believed choosing vulnerability meant I could have something good.
"Blaire." Richard's voice was low beside me.
I didn't turn toward him. "I need to be alone," I said.
The words came out flat. Empty.
"Blaire—"
"I just need space. I need to think. I need—" I couldn't finish. Didn't know how to explain that his presence right then felt like another person deciding what I could handle.
Richard studied my face. Whatever he saw there made him nod.
"I'll be downstairs," he said. "In the lobby. Close enough if you need me."
"You don't have to?—"
"I'm not leaving you alone in this building when Crowe just filed a Bar complaint an hour ago." His voice was firm but not unkind. "But I can give you space to process."
He picked up his laptop. His keys. Stopped at the door. "Text me if you need anything."
Then he was gone.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I got up. Crossed to the door. Turned the deadbolt.
And I was alone.
Three weeks. My father had known for three weeks.
The words kept circling in my head like a mantra I couldn't stop repeating.
Professional courtesy between old colleagues.
Charlotte's voice on the phone. Careful.
Measured. The same tone she used when delivering verdicts to clients who had already lost.
He thought he was protecting you. Protecting me. While someone rearranged my files. While I questioned my own sanity. While I checked these same locks, obsessively trying to feel safe.
While I was alone.
Additional security monitoring. Handled it quietly.
My hand found the deadbolt again. Still locked.
Still useless. Because the threat was never outside.
The threat was the people who claimed to love me deciding what I got to know.
What I got to handle. What I got to feel.
The cage was never just mine. They built it around me and called it protection.
My phone buzzed.
Charlotte: Morrison meeting moved to 1 PM. His office. I'm coming with you.
Four hours. I had four hours to figure out how to be the person who walked into that meeting and pretended everything was fine when my career was burning, and my father had spent three weeks lying to me, and now I didn't know who to trust anymore.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
I walked to the kitchen. Put the phone down on the counter. Stared at the French press Richard used to make coffee every morning. That morning, when he had kissed me goodbye and said he'd wait in the lobby during my Morrison meeting.
That morning, when I believed that choosing him meant choosing safety.
Before I knew my father had been playing chess with my life for three weeks.
Before I knew that handling it quietly meant hiring security to watch me without telling me they were watching.
Before I knew that everyone—everyone—decided what I could handle.
Did Richard know? The question sat heavily in my chest. He said he didn't. Said he was tracking Crowe independently through Declan. Said if he'd known about my father's involvement, he would have told me.
I believed him.
In that conference room with Crowe's photos still burning behind my eyes, with my father's betrayal fresh and raw, I looked at Richard and believed him.
But now?—
Now I was alone in that apartment that smelled like his cologne and his reassurances, and I didn't know anything anymore.
He had been investigating for weeks. Tracking the surveillance. Monitoring the threats.
How could he not know my father was running a parallel operation? How could he not know Whit had hired security three weeks ago?
Unless he did know. Unless that was what protection looked like.
Everyone was deciding what information I was strong enough to handle. Everyone was managing me like a crisis they needed to contain.
I checked the lock again. 10:13 AM. My phone buzzed.
Charlotte: Bar complaint officially filed. The ethics board received it at 9:02 AM. We have 14 days to respond.
Fourteen days. I had fourteen days to prove that months of fabricated surveillance photos didn't mean what they appeared to mean.
Fourteen days before every client I had ever worked with started questioning my integrity.
I should have been preparing. Should have been calling Charlotte back. Should have been building my defense strategy for the Bar complaint. Should have been doing something other than standing in my kitchen staring at my phone like it could change what had already happened.
Another buzz.
Richard: Are you okay?
The question felt impossible to answer.
I didn't respond.
10:41 AM.
There was a knock on the door. I knew it was Richard before I checked the peephole.
Of course, it was Richard.
I opened the door.
He looked at me with those careful eyes that saw everything I was trying to hide.
"You weren't answering your phone," he said. Not a question. Just a fact.
I stepped back. Let him in. Watched him lock the deadbolt behind him.
"My father knew," I said. The words came out flat. Empty.
Richard's jaw tightened. "Blaire?—"
"How could you not know?"
The question hung between us. He didn't flinch. Didn't look away.
"I've been tracking Crowe's surveillance pattern," he said. "Following the shell company. Monitoring the silver sedan. Your father was working through different channels. Private security firms. The kind that don't leave digital trails."
"But you've been investigating for weeks."
"Yes."
"You knew about the surveillance. You knew about Mercer. You knew about the shell company."
"Yes."
"So how—" My voice cracked. "How could you not know my father was running the same operation from a different angle?"
Richard took one step closer. I didn't move back.
"Because I was following Crowe," he said. "Not your father. If I'd known Whit had information, if I'd known he was investigating this separately?—"
"You would have told me."
"Yes."
The same answer he had given me in the conference room. The same unhurried certainty.
But I had heard that certainty from Rowan, too. Heard it from my father every time he promised he was protecting me. Heard it from everyone who decided what I was strong enough to handle.
"Everyone protects me," I said. "Everyone handles it quietly. Everyone decides what information I get and when I get it and whether I can be trusted with the truth."
"That's not what I'm doing."
"Isn't it?" I gestured to the apartment. "You moved in to keep me safe. You track my security. You investigate threats without telling me what you find until you're ready."
"I tell you everything I know."
"Do you?"
The question landed hard. Something shifted in his eyes. Something that looked almost like pain.
"Yes," he said. "Everything that matters. Everything that affects your safety."
"And who decides what matters? Who decides what affects my safety?"
"Blaire—"
"My father decided Crowe's threats didn't matter enough to mention. He decided I didn't need to know I was being stalked. He decided.” My voice broke completely. "He decided to protect me the same way he protected me from Rowan. By letting me walk into a nightmare alone."
Richard crossed the remaining distance between us.
"I'm not your father," he said. "I'm not trying to control what you know. I'm trying to keep you safe."
"Everyone says that."
"I know."
"Everyone promises they're different."
"I know."
"And then they lie anyway."
He held my gaze. Nothing in his expression wavered.
"I've never lied to you," he said. "Not once. Not in the Hendricks trial. Not when I left the firm. Not when I showed up in your office with those surveillance photos."
"Your father made choices for you. I'm trying to make them with you." He didn't move closer. "There's a difference."
I knew he was right. I knew it the way I knew my own heartbeat—steady, undeniable. Richard left when I asked him to. Richard told me everything. Richard was not my father, and he was not Rowan, and I knew the difference.
That wasn't the problem.
The problem was that knowing he was different didn't make me less terrified of what happened when I let myself believe it. When I stopped waiting for the moment he decided I was too much, or not enough, or simply not worth staying for.
"The threats are still active," he said. "Crowe filed the complaint. Morrison's meeting is in less than three hours. You don't go anywhere alone." He said it the same way he had said it since he moved in. Like a fact. Like something we had established together.
"I can handle Morrison alone."
"I know you can."
"Then why?—"