8. Ryan #4
“Privacy.” His expression changes slightly.
That word means something different to someone who makes a living in public relations.
“The security is ridiculous,” she continues.
“The campus is controlled. Visitors are approved. Student information is private. Press access is basically nonexistent. They don’t talk about who attends, why somebody enrolled halfway through a term, why they left their last school, any of it. ”
Mom taps her pen against the table. “So if a celebrity’s daughter becomes tabloid news—“
“She disappears to Switzerland for a semester and six months later comes home with better French and a rebrand.”
Penny laughs. “That is horrifyingly efficient.”
Delilah’s expression sobers. “It’s not a punishment school. That’s important. Nobody is chaining girls to radiators. It’s probably nicer than Edgewood. But it is extremely secure and extremely private.”
Arthur nods. “Which matches what I found.”
“So the school isn’t the problem,” Dad says.
“No,” Arthur replies.
Delilah picks up her coffee. “Sainte-Catherine is just where you send the problem.” That kills the humor. I look at her. She seems to realize how it sounded. “I don’t mean Ally is the problem.”
“I know.”
“I mean from Roman’s perspective.”
Saoirse has been staring at one page for the last few minutes. Now she pulls it free. “Then this doesn’t make sense.”
She places it in the center of the table. At the top is the intake date.
APRIL 6, 2026.
“Alison is eighteen,” she says. Nobody answers. “She is months away from graduating from Edgewood. She’s already halfway through her final semester. If Sainte-Catherine itself isn’t significant, what educational purpose is served by transferring her there now?”
Delilah pops her gum. “Because something happened.” She gestures toward the paperwork.
“That’s when families use places like Sainte-Catherine unexpectedly.
If you’re planning boarding school for your kid, you do it normally.
Tours. Applications. Beginning of the school year.
Maybe January.” She points at April sixth.
“You don’t yank a senior out of school in the spring and send her across the Atlantic unless the education isn’t the point. ”
Mom’s gaze finds me. “She isn’t being sent there to finish high school.”
“No,” Saoirse says quietly. “She’s being removed.”
The word sits heavily between us. Removed. From Edgewood. From us. From anyone Roman doesn’t control.
My phone is sitting facedown beside my hand. I think about Ally being a few houses away. Tobias arguing about broccoli. Roman walking through his own front door tonight like he didn’t spend his morning arranging to send his daughter to another country.
Dad leans forward. “Removal from what?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to determine,” Arthur says.
I think about yesterday. About the warning Roman gave Ally. “She changed.” Everyone looks at me. I lean back. “Not suddenly. But she has.”
“How?” Saoirse asks.
“She stopped being invisible.” Cat’s expression tightens. I keep going. “She has friends now. She leaves the house more. She pushes back sometimes. She has opinions she actually says out loud. She isn’t doing anything fucking crazy. She’s just…”
“Becoming independent,” Alice says.
“Yeah.”
Mom’s mouth tightens. “And Roman notices.”
“He noticed enough to say something yesterday.”
Arthur’s attention sharpens. “What exactly?”
“He told her she needed to be careful about who she associated with.”
“Who?”
“Catherine. Penelope. Rebecca.”
Cat looks up. Penny turns toward her. Becca stops playing with Danny’s fingers. Arthur goes completely still.
Callum is the first one to speak. “He used their full names?”
“Ally said Catherine, Penelope, and Rebecca.”
Mom’s eyes move slowly between the three girls. “So Roman isn’t concerned that Alison suddenly has a large social group. He’s concerned about those three.”
Cat understands first. I see it happen across her face. “The Penningtons, Lucian, Valentina, and Veronica."
Becca’s voice is quieter. “And Hartley.”
Arthur nods. “That’s what makes the dates more interesting.”
My attention snaps back to him. “What dates?”
He reaches for Ally’s packet. “The withdrawal paperwork Roman signed this morning is new. The application isn’t. The April sixth intake is recent. The final enrollment documents are recent. The first inquiry about placing Alison at Sainte-Catherine was made months ago.”
Something cold crawls up my spine. “How many months?”
Arthur slides a printed page across the table. I take it. There’s a timestamp near the top.
OCTOBER 19, 2025.
For a second, it’s just a date.
Then Cat inhales sharply. Penny sees it next. “Oh my God.”
X looks at her. “What?”
Cat doesn’t take her eyes off the paper. “That was us.”
And suddenly I know.
Arthur says it anyway. “Roman O’Toole opened the initial placement inquiry for Alison on October nineteenth. Within forty-eight hours of Catherine and Penelope’s kidnapping.”
I look at Roman’s name. Then Cat. Penny. Back to the date. “He started planning Switzerland when the Penningtons went down.”
“Not planning Switzerland exactly,” Arthur corrects. “Not yet. This was preliminary. No enrollment date. No withdrawal from Edgewood. No completed transfer.”
Callum leans forward. “A contingency.”
Arthur meets his eyes. “That’s what it appears to be.”
Mom’s expression changes. “He got nervous.”
“Possibly.”
“Arthur.”
“I can tell you what he did, Cassandra. I cannot tell you what he thought.”
“Fine. What he did was begin creating an international exit option for his daughter within forty-eight hours of Garrett and Jon Pennington becoming a liability.”
Thomas reaches for the page. “And Roman knew them.”
Arthur pulls another page from the pile. “The application then sits.”
“For how long?” Dad asks.
“Until the next significant update.”
X sees it. His jaw tightens. “Lucian.”
Arthur places the second date beside the first. “Roman revisited Ally’s placement during the period federal investigators began digging through Lucian’s business relationships.”
My eyes move between the dates. Pennington. Lucian. Roman touching Ally’s file each time. “And then?”
Becca’s face changes before Arthur even speaks. “Hartley.”
Arthur nods. “Yes.”
Becca stares at it. “So every time one of them falls—“
“Roman checks his escape hatch,” Mom finishes.
Arthur turns his laptop. “And that’s where this stops being only about Roman.”
ASHBOURNE FOUNDATION.
Clifford closes his eyes briefly. Louise reaches for his hand. Danny stares at the screen. “Daisy gave them Ashbourne.”