40. Julian
Julian
The house is already awake in that particular Sin Bin way that makes quiet feel like something everyone is personally offended by.
Ryan is in the kitchen still wearing his silk bonnet and one sock on his foot, arguing with Liam about whether coffee counts as breakfast if you put protein powder in it, while Liam looks at him with tired disgust.
Thorn is slumped over the island with his head on folded arms, one hand wrapped around a mug.
Roman is leaning against the counter beside Damon, who looks far too composed for someone who’s been back in the house only long enough to understand this place runs on caffeine, trauma, and people yelling across rooms instead of walking ten feet.
Luca is already dressed for the day because of course he is, standing near the fridge with Sage tucked against his side, both of them watching Ryan’s sock situation with the dead-eyed resignation of men who know better than to ask.
Eli comes down the stairs with Mila in his arms, and the entire room shifts around him.
That happens now. It’s subtle, but not if you know what to look for.
Voices dip. Bodies adjust. Coffee mugs move farther from edges.
Ryan stops mid-sentence long enough to make a ridiculous face at Mila, which she ignores with the brutal indifference of a girl who has higher priorities than basketball players before breakfast.
Eli still looks tired, and I know every mark of it because I spent the morning watching him wake up beside me after the most impossible night of my life. There’s a softness in him that wasn’t there yesterday, but there’s also a heaviness. The flash drive didn’t stop existing because we made love.
His fingers tighten slightly around Mila’s back when we step into the kitchen, and I move closer without thinking.
His gaze flicks to me for half a second, and his shoulders ease.
That alone feels like it could undo me all over again if I let it.
I keep my hand near the small of his back, not touching yet, just there in case he wants the contact.
I’ve become ridiculous about that, about making sure he has every chance to choose even the smallest thing.
I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but I know I’ll keep trying until I stop breathing.
Killian enters from the front hall with his phone in one hand, face already set in that expression that makes the rest of the house pay attention. “Mara’s here,” he says.
Eli goes still beside me. Mila, being Mila, chooses that exact moment to let out a happy little squeak and kick one foot against his stomach.
It’s absurd and perfect and awful, because she has no idea that every adult in this house is bracing for another legal update about the woman who hurt her father and then abandoned her at the front door.
I touch Eli’s back this time, just two fingers between his shoulder blades. “You want me to take her?” I ask quietly.
He looks down at Mila first, then at the hall where Mara’s heels sound against the floor. “No,” he says after a second. “I want to hold her.”
I nod. “Okay.”
That’s all. He wants her in his arms when this comes; I get it.
Mila is the whole point, the anchor, the wound, and the blessing all at once.
None of that is fair to a baby who only wants breakfast, dry diapers, and someone to admire her deeply judgmental facial expressions.
But Eli’s arms settle more firmly around her, and I see him breathe a little better.
Mara walks into the kitchen with a leather bag over one shoulder and a file tucked under her arm, looking as immaculate as always in a navy suit that says calm professional while her eyes say she has already mentally set fire to several institutions this morning.
She gives the room a quick scan, takes in who’s present, then focuses on Eli with that careful directness I’ve come to appreciate.
“Good morning,” she says. “I can speak with you privately if you prefer.”
Eli glances around the kitchen. Every person in it is suddenly very busy pretending not to watch him too hard. Killian stands beside Mara, unreadable but present.
Eli shifts Mila higher and says, “I’m fine with everyone hearing this.”
Mara nods once, expecting that answer and respecting it. “All right.”
I move with Eli to the island, and he sits on one of the stools.
I stay standing just behind and to his side because my body wants to put itself between him and any new damage, even if the damage is coming from a lawyer who’s been nothing but careful with him.
It doesn’t make sense. I know it doesn’t.
Still, when Mara places the file on the island, I feel myself tense.
Her eyes flick to me briefly—not judgmental but assessing. She knows what I’m doing too. She probably knows better than I do.
“I have a few updates,” Mara says, resting both hands lightly on top of the folder instead of opening it immediately. “Some of them are significant.”
Eli’s jaw tightens. “Okay.”
Mila grabs at the collar of his shirt, tiny fingers pulling fabric with surprising force. He adjusts her without looking down, his attention fixed on Mara.
Mara takes one breath and begins. “We finally tracked down Celeste’s parents.”
Every muscle in Eli’s body locks. My hand moves to the back of his neck before I consciously decide to touch him. He leans back into it by the smallest fraction, and something possessive and terrified in me settles enough to keep listening.
“They were in Paris,” Mara continues. “On holiday. They’ve been out of the country and largely unreachable except through limited channels for weeks.”
Ryan mutters, “Must be fucking nice,” under his breath, and Liam elbows him hard enough that he shuts up, though not with any real shame.
Mara’s mouth tightens slightly, but she doesn’t comment. “They did not know Celeste had dropped out of Blackthorne.”
The words take a second to land for all of us.
Luca shifts from where he’s standing by Sage. “They… didn’t know?”
“No,” Mara says. “They believed she was still enrolled and living on campus. They also did not know she was pregnant and had given birth, or that Mila existed until I contacted their attorney and eventually reached them directly through him.”
Eli’s face goes very blank. I hate that look; I know that look.
It’s the expression people wear when a new truth comes in so wrong that emotion can’t attach to it yet.
He stares at Mara, Mila warm and alive in his arms, while the story Celeste wrote in her letter starts breaking apart piece by piece.
“The lawyer’s letter,” Eli says slowly.
Mara’s gaze softens, not with pity but with something close to regret. “They did not send it.”
The kitchen goes dead silent at that implication. Eli looks down at Mila then, and I see the exact second the information cuts through him.
The letter that arrived with his daughter had claimed Celeste’s parents knew and that they had forced her hand.
That they cared about propriety and shame and not wanting a child out of wedlock, and they’d directed or approved or at least stood behind the legal severing of rights.
A whole supporting cast of parental judgment that had made Celeste’s abandonment feel structured, official, and terrifyingly final.
But now we find out it was a fucking lie wrapped around more lies.
“She forged it?” Eli asks.
“That is what we believe,” Mara says. “We are verifying signatures and letterhead through the firm allegedly named in the document, but based on the initial conversation, Celeste’s parents deny any involvement, and their attorney denies drafting or sending that letter.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Luca says quietly.
Sage presses his lips together, eyes sharp behind his glasses. “So, Celeste staged the whole thing herself?”
“It appears so,” Mara says.
Eli’s hand tightens on Mila’s back. I can see him fighting not to hold her too tight, adjusting his grip with effort. “Did they know about what she did to me?”
Mara pauses, and the entire room seems to stop with her. “No,” she says carefully. “There is no indication they knew about any of the conduct reflected on the flash drive.”
Conduct. That word makes my hands curl.
Eli doesn’t react much, which worries me more than if he had. “And where is she?”
Mara opens the file then, only enough to glance at the top page. “At present, missing.”
My hand stills against the back of Eli’s neck.
Killian speaks before anyone else can. “Define missing.”
Mara looks at him. “No current address. Phone disconnected. Blackthorne records show withdrawal paperwork filed electronically. Financial activity has become sparse and difficult to trace, possibly deliberately so. Her parents have been trying to locate her since I informed them she wasn’t enrolled, but as of this morning, they do not know where she is. ”
“She disappeared,” Eli says.
“Yes,” Mara confirms. “At least for now.”
I feel something cold and violent move through me.
Celeste gone, somewhere outside everyone’s reach with God knows what money, what connections, what insidious lies ready to use if cornered.
Celeste, who left Mila on the doorstep and vanished before anyone understood the full scope of what she’d done.
My first instinct is not rational or legal. It’s pure protective fury, hot under the skin and cold in the bones. Find her. Drag her back and make her look at what she did. Eli shifts under my touch, and I force myself back into the room.
Mara sees all of us reaching our own versions of that reaction and continues before anyone spirals too far.
“With the evidence on the drive, the pattern of conduct, the recordings, and the documentation we’ve already preserved, Celeste is facing serious criminal exposure.
So are the sorority members who knowingly participated, assisted, distributed, recorded, or concealed evidence of assaults and blackmail. ”
Ryan sets his mug down too hard. Coffee sloshes over the rim. “Good.”
His voice is so vicious that even Damon looks over from Roman’s side.