20. Luca
Luca
Oliver and Lorenzo pick up the children after breakfast when I ask everyone to meet in the office.
Rosalie leaves wearing her crown and carrying two mismatched shoes because she still hasn’t decided which pair belongs with the wedding dress.
Samuel brings the paper roof he rebuilt at Nicholas’s house, while James insists on carrying the folder containing his latest changes to the ring cushion.
Oliver pauses in the doorway long enough to look at me properly. He doesn’t ask what happened or offer to postpone whatever he planned for the morning. He only reaches across Rosalie to squeeze my wrist.
“I’ll keep them through lunch,” he says. “Longer if you need it.”
Lorenzo has Samuel tucked beneath one arm while James explains something about structural support from beside his knee.
He leans in and kisses my cheek before steering all three children toward the car.
Rosalie shouts that she still needs an answer about whether the baby will like dragons, and Oliver promises to settle the matter before they return.
The house quiets after the front door closes.
The complaint lies open on the office desk beside the transcript of Josie’s recording. Maceo has marked the edits on a separate copy without altering the original packet, while Blake has placed the known intake questions beside each clipped answer so the missing context is impossible to overlook.
I remain standing because sitting across from the desk makes me think of Josie in my office at Ember House. She occupied the guest chair with her hands folded in her lap and concern arranged carefully across her face. I remember believing her.
“She asked whether the removal hurt,” I say. Grayson moves beside me until his shoulder touches mine, but no one interrupts. “I thought she wanted to understand what it was like to have something taken out of your body that everyone else believed should stay there.”
The transcript rests beneath my hand. One of my answers has been separated from the question that came before it, leaving only the part where I admitted I’d been frightened and in pain.
“I answered because I thought she was asking as someone who’d been hurt too. She sat across from me, looked concerned, and recorded enough of it to make it sound like the choice wasn’t mine.” My fingers tighten against the paper. “She was collecting something she could hand to someone else.”
Blake turns the transcript toward himself without pulling it away from me. Luther remains near the door with his arms folded, while Maceo keeps both hands flat against the desk. No one offers an explanation for Josie’s choices because none of us has one that would change what she did.
“I let her near Maya,” I continue. “I let her participate in Philomena’s intake. They came into Ember House believing we controlled who could ask for their stories, and I brought someone inside who was collecting mine.”
Maceo’s gaze stays on me. “Her account never had access to clinical records, trauma histories, or the residents’ private advocacy notes.”
“She still had access to people.”
“Yes,” he says, without softening the answer. “That is the breach.”
The agreement loosens something in my chest and tightens something else. I don’t need him to tell me that Josie failed to reach the most restricted files. I need someone to understand that the harm began before a password or locked directory mattered.
Blake turns one of the consent forms until it faces me. His finger moves down the page without covering the resident’s signature.
“Josie exploited the access you gave her,” he says. “She didn’t erase this. Residents still choose what they disclose. Advocates still attend intake when requested. Clinical records remain separate, and the resident council still controls the governance rules.”
He reaches the final section and taps the line where the resident can revoke consent at any point.
“We fix what she reached without rebuilding the entire house around the assumption that everyone is lying.”
I stare at the form until the words begin to blur. Grayson’s shoulder remains pressed against mine, and I turn into him without planning to. I slide one arm around his waist, and Grayson immediately closes both arms around me and presses his mouth against the side of my head.
Luther moves behind us and rests his palm against my back, while Maceo comes around the desk and takes the hand I have braced against Grayson’s chest. His thumb moves slowly over my knuckles before he lifts them to his mouth.
Blake stays close enough that his knee touches mine when I finally sit. He bends to kiss my temple and leaves his hand at the nape of my neck while I breathe through the anger pressing against my ribs.
“I don’t want to hear that she may have been trapped too,” I say. “Not today.”
Luther’s hand settles against the back of my neck, and he bends to press his mouth into my hair. “Then you won’t.”
No one asks me to forgive her. No one suggests that I should have recognized the betrayal sooner or that trusting her was another symptom of damage I had not yet outgrown. They let the anger remain mine.
Thane arrives shortly after noon, once Oliver confirms the children are eating lunch with him and Lorenzo. He brings Victor’s cooperation agreement, a financial-routing summary, and the petition forms required to ask the federal court for access to my sealed Hearthstone records.
We meet in the living room rather than the office. The complaint remains on Maceo’s desk, preserved with the transcript and storage device, while Thane places Victor’s signed statement on the coffee table between us.
“Victor has confirmed that Alastair directed the merger challenge, authorized the pressure against Blake’s corporate authority, and instructed Dorian to obtain access to Ember House’s administrative and placement-related records,” Thane says.
Blake’s hand closes around the handle of his cane. “Is that enough to charge him?”
“For the corporate conspiracy and related extortion, yes.” Thane opens the financial summary but keeps it turned toward himself until he reaches the relevant section. “It is not enough to prove the current placement groups are operating as a continuation of Hearthstone.”
Luther sits beside me with one hand resting along the back of the sofa. Grayson takes the chair across from us, and Maceo lowers himself near the documents so he can follow every link Thane identifies.
Thane places two pages beside each other. One is a copy of Philomena’s nondisclosure agreement. The other contains routing information from the shell account under investigation.
“This sponsor prefix appears on both,” he says. “We can trace the current account, but we can’t yet prove what the prefix means inside the placement system.”
He opens the petition form without pushing it toward me.
“Your sealed intake file contains the same sponsor prefix attached to Ward’s purchase, your placement classification, and the original routing codes used when Hearthstone moved the money. That file would connect the code to its historical function.”
Maceo draws the routing summary closer to himself so I no longer have to look directly at the prefix. His other hand settles over my knee beneath the edge of the table, warm and still while Thane continues.
“And once the prefix has a proven meaning?” Maceo asks.
“We can use the current transactions to seek warrants for the locations receiving those payments.” Thane looks at me before adding the part he could have tried to soften.
“Without Luca’s file, we can still proceed against Alastair for the corporate case.
We may not have enough to reach the current placement sites. ”
My stomach tightens beneath the hand I place over it. The baby is still too small for movement, but the gesture has become instinctive since Quentin confirmed the pregnancy.
“If I refuse, the case against Alastair continues?” I ask.
“Yes.” Thane closes the petition. “The records are sealed by federal order. I can’t access them without your authorization and the court’s approval. You have the right to refuse, and refusal won't affect the corporate case.”
Luther’s fingers close briefly around my shoulder. He doesn’t tell me there will be another way if I say no.
“This is yours, sweetheart,” he says. “I want the sites found, but I don’t get to make this decision for you.”
No one tells me what the brave answer is.
Thane leaves the petition and authorization on the coffee table while he takes a call with Maceo in the office. Luther and Grayson remain nearby, though neither sits close enough to crowd me. Blake takes the other end of the sofa with his cane resting against his knee.
The summary page identifies the sealed file by number rather than name. Beneath it, the court describes the contents: intake classification, sponsor history, compliance observations, placement routing, and purchase documentation.
The language reduces the person inside it to what could be measured, transferred, and controlled.
My fingers stop at the phrase purchase documentation.
Blake leans across the cushion and presses his mouth to the inside of my wrist, directly over my pulse. He doesn’t take the page or ask whether I want him to read it for me. He settles back once he feels my hand loosen.
Oliver and Lorenzo bring the children home while Thane and Maceo are still in the office.
Their voices move through the hallway for several minutes before Grayson takes Samuel and James upstairs to put away everything they carried back with them.
Rosalie finds me there while searching for her crown.
She rushes into the living room without noticing Thane’s folder, climbs into my lap, and settles against my chest as though the space has been waiting for her. Her hair smells like the strawberry conditioner Grayson used that morning, and a strip of silver ribbon is tangled around one wrist.
“Samuel says the baby might not like dragons,” she tells me. “He’s wrong because everybody likes dragons.”
I move the authorization beyond her reach and straighten the crown sitting crookedly in her hair. “You found it.”
“It was under James’s roof.” She leans closer to the papers, but I turn them facedown before she can read any of the headings. “Oliver says the baby can have a little dragon, but mine is still the biggest.”
“Yours can be the biggest.”
She relaxes against me and begins describing the wedding cake Oliver showed her at lunch. The dragon needs purple wings, the castle requires yellow windows, and Samuel is not allowed to add a training mat to the bottom tier.
While she talks, my attention returns to the covered page beside her knee.
My parents signed the first consent that sent me toward Hearthstone. They tried to contact me after Ember House became public, and I refused every call. They won't attend the wedding, and I am no longer waiting for an apology that would change nothing written inside the file.
Rosalie reaches for my hand and places it over her crown so I will hold it in place while she demonstrates how the dragon should stand.
“The baby gets a smaller one,” she reminds me.
“Yes, baby. Yours stays the biggest.”
Grayson appears in the doorway a few minutes later with Samuel’s abandoned dinosaur tucked beneath one arm. He bends to kiss me before telling Rosalie that Samuel has found the missing sparkly shoes.
She slides from my lap and takes Grayson’s hand, but he keeps his fingers against my cheek for another second before following her into the hall. Her voice continues through the house as she demands to know why Samuel had the shoes in the first place.
Blake sits beside me only after she is gone. He doesn’t look at the authorization until I turn it toward him.
“If I release this, strangers will read everything they wrote about me.”
His hand settles over mine. “Yes.”
“And if I don’t, Alastair can still be charged.”
“Yes.”
I look toward the office where Thane and Maceo are speaking quietly. “But the current sites may stay hidden.”
Blake doesn’t answer for me. His thumb moves once across the back of my hand and then stills.
I call Thane back into the room. Maceo returns with him, closing the office file before he crosses the threshold. I hold one hand out, and Maceo comes to me immediately, bending to kiss me before taking the chair on my other side.
“Ask the court to release it,” I say.
Thane sits across from us and reviews the authorization line by line. The form doesn't release the file immediately. It gives him permission to petition the sealing court, explains how the records may be used if the judge approves, and allows me to withdraw consent before the order is issued.
Luther stands behind the sofa with one hand resting on my shoulder. Grayson stays near the doorway, close enough that I can reach him without much effort. Maceo keeps one hand against my knee while Blake holds the other.
Thane places the pen beside the signature line.
Blake keeps holding my hand until I reach for it.
I sign Luca Keller beneath the consent language and return the authorization to Thane. The pen leaves a small mark along the side of my finger.
Thane checks the signature before placing the form inside the petition folder. “I’ll prepare the affidavit and submit the request to the sealing court. Nothing is released unless the judge approves it.”
From the hallway, Rosalie calls that she has found both shoes and wants to know whether she can wear them before the wedding.
I rub once at the ink on my finger, but it has already settled into the skin. Then I leave the signed authorization with Thane and go answer her.