Chapter Seven
Logan
I knew something was off.
Now, I know exactly what it is.
I stare at the screen, unmoving, my jaw locked hard enough to ache. My eyes scan the same set of emails over and over again as if they might suddenly change. As if I read them wrong the first time.
I didn’t. And that’s the problem.
Philip Mathews. Vice president of my father’s firm. A trusted employee. And dirty as hell.
The evidence sits right in front of me, laid out in a way that leaves no room for doubt.
The trail I’ve been chasing is finally coming together piece by piece.
The service entities. The advisory fees billed into two portfolio companies and never once questioned at fund level.
The small but consistent withdrawals that add up to something much bigger than anyone would expect.
The more I dig, the worse it gets.
Years. He’s been doing this for years.
My grip tightens on the mouse as I pull up another file, another thread of communication that I almost missed, buried deeper than the rest. Encrypted just enough to avoid casual discovery, but not enough to escape me.
And that’s when I see her name.
Ivy.
Something cold settles in my chest. I open it.
I shouldn’t be surprised. But I am.
The emails are clear. Too clear. No pretense. No caution beyond hiding the account itself. Conversations that blur the line between business and something personal.
They’re involved. Not just in this. In each other.
An affair. Of course.
It fits too easily, the pieces sliding together in a way that makes everything make sense. Her sudden reappearance, her interest in getting back into the house, into my father’s life. Not out of guilt, not out of regret, but because there is something to gain.
Inheritance. Control. And Philip gets to keep bleeding the company dry while no one is looking.
Then I find the calendar.
It’s nothing. It’s a routing artifact, a meeting invite that went through the wrong server eighteen months ago and got archived where it shouldn’t have been. Philip to Ivy, two lines, no subject.
And copied into the body, pasted in from somewhere else, is an internal email chain about a set of advisory fees that somebody in operations had started asking questions about.
Kiera’s query. The one she raised a year ago and was told to drop.
Philip sent it to Ivy the same week.
I read it four times.
Because there are two ways to read it, and I know that even while I’m doing it.
Either Philip flagged her question to his accomplice as a threat—the girl is looking, handle it.
Or the girl was never looking at all, and the two of them were comparing notes on a piece of theater she’d put on for the file.
One of those is what happened. The other one is what I’m about to decide happened.
I sit there for a long time with my hand over my mouth.
Then another thought hits.
Kiera.
My fingers still on the keyboard as I lean back slightly. My mind moves fast, connecting things I don’t want to connect, questions forming before I can stop them.
She didn’t tell me that Ivy had come back.
I know she came back. I’ve known for four days because my father told me on Sunday in about nine words, then changed the subject like he’d said something indelicate. Ivy walked into that house on Wednesday night.
The night Kiera came to my door with her bag and her face against my chest and told me she’d missed me.
I asked her. Once. I stood there with my hand on her back, said her name, and gave her the whole thing, wide open. She said not tonight. I let it go because I thought that’s what you do.
Four days.
I’ve been waiting four days.
Why?
I exhale slowly, dragging a hand down my face as I push away from the desk. The tension builds fast, sharp, uncomfortable, because I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to question her, not after everything, not after the way things have been between us.
But the doubt is there now. And it doesn’t leave.
I shake it off quickly, forcing my focus back where it needs to be. Because this isn’t about her right now. Not until I know more. Not until I have everything in front of me—something solid, undeniable.
And now, I do.
I grab the files, the evidence, everything I’ve compiled, and head out of the office. My steps are quick, controlled, my mind already set on what needs to happen next.
I need to tell Kiera. I need to tell my father.
And I need to shut this down before it gets any worse.
???
Her office door is slightly open when I get there.
I don’t knock. I push it open.
And everything inside me goes still.
Kiera stands near her desk. And Ivy is right there with her.
The world narrows instantly. My grip tightens around the file in my hand as something sharp and immediate cuts through everything else. Every thought, every explanation, every benefit of the doubt I was still holding onto.
They’re together. Talking. Close enough to look familiar. Like this isn’t the first time.
My jaw locks.
Kiera turns first, her expression shifting from neutral to surprise the second she sees me. “Logan—”
I don’t let her finish. I look at Ivy instead, my gaze hard, cold, taking in the way she straightens. The way her expression shifts into something practiced and controlled.
“Well,” she says lightly. “This is unexpected.”
Then she puts her hand on Kiera’s arm.
Just briefly. Just long enough. The way you’d touch someone you’d been standing beside for a while.
“We’re nearly done here, aren’t we, darling,” she says. Not to me. To Kiera. Perfectly warm. “Same as always.”
And she looks at me over her daughter’s shoulder while she says it, and I watch her enjoy herself.
She’s had about two seconds to work out what I am to Kiera and what she can do with it.
Kiera’s face does something—confusion, a flinch, her arm coming away. I don’t stay to read it because I’m already looking at a calendar artifact from eighteen months ago and hearing not tonight in the dark.
I don’t respond to Ivy. I don’t trust myself to. My focus shifts back to Kiera, searching her face, looking for something, anything that tells me I’m wrong. That this isn’t what it looks like, that there’s an explanation that makes sense.
But all I see is surprise.
And that’s not enough.
“You didn’t think to mention she was back,” I say, my voice low, controlled in a way that feels dangerous, even to me.
Her brows pull together. “Logan, I was going to—”
“When?” I cut in sharply. “Wednesday? Because I asked you on Wednesday. I stood in my own doorway, and I asked you what was wrong and you told me you’d missed me.”
Her expression falters. “I know. I—”
“Four days, Kiera.”
“That’s not—” Her voice breaks and steadies. “It isn’t what you think.”
“Then what is it?”
She stops, with her mouth open, and I watch her hunt for a sentence and not find one, because the true answer is complicated. It takes about four minutes and involves things she hasn’t said out loud to herself yet.
I don’t give her four minutes. I give her about two seconds.
“Right,” I mutter.
“Logan—”
“There’s a chain from eighteen months ago.” I hold up the file. “Your query about the fees. Philip forwarded it to your mother inside a week.” I watch it hit her. “You want to tell me how to read that?”
Her face empties.
“I flagged those fees,” she says. “I’m the reason you were looking.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s the part I can’t get past.”
I laugh. Short. Humorless. “I can’t believe I almost thought you were different,” I say, hurt and angry, shaking my head once as I take a step back. The distance is suddenly necessary, the tension in my chest tightening to the point where it feels hard to breathe.
“Logan, listen to me…” she starts, stepping toward me.
I don’t let her reach me. “I’ve seen enough.”
Her face falls. For a second, something inside me hesitates.
But then I remember the emails. The lies. The history. And it hardens again.
“Stay out of my way,” I add, my gaze flicking briefly to Ivy before returning to her. “Both of you.”
I turn before she can say anything else. Because if I stay, I might say something I can’t take back.
Behind me, in the doorway, I hear Ivy say something to her daughter in a low, sympathetic voice.
I don’t catch the words.
By the time I get to the house, my anger has settled into something colder.
Garth is in his room when I walk in. The nurse steps aside the moment she sees my expression, sensing the tension without needing to ask.
I don’t waste time, I don’t soften it, I don’t ease into it.
I lay everything out. The accounts. The money. Philip. Ivy. Every piece.
Garth listens in silence, his expression shifting slowly from confusion to disbelief to something heavier. It looks dangerously close to betrayal. By the time I’m done, the room feels thick with it.
“I don’t believe this,” he says finally, his voice rough.
“It’s all there,” I reply firmly. “Every bit of it.”
A knock sounds at the door before he can respond. Then it opens.
Kiera.
Her gaze lands on me immediately, then shifts to Garth, her expression tightening as she takes in the atmosphere, the tension, the unspoken weight hanging in the air.
“You told him,” she says softly.
“I did.”
She nods once, then steps further into the room, her posture straightening as she looks at Garth.
“I need you to know something,” she says, her voice steady despite the way her hands tighten at her sides. “I had no idea my mother was involved in any of this. I didn’t even know she was coming to my office today. I was just as surprised as you were.”
Silence follows.
Garth studies her for a moment. Then, “I believe you.”
The words hit hard. Something sharp snaps inside my chest.
“Of course you do,” I mutter, the bitterness slipping through before I can stop it.
Both of them look at me.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Kiera asks quietly.
I let out a short breath, shaking my head once. “It means nothing’s changed,” I say, my voice tighter now. “You see a Durham woman standing in front of you, and you believe her. Just like last time.”
“That’s not fair,” Garth says, his tone firm despite his condition.
“No?” I fire back. “Because it looks exactly the same from where I’m standing.”
“You were eighteen,” Garth says. “You’re a grown man now. Look at her.”
“I am looking at her.”
Kiera’s expression shifts, hurt flashing across her face. “Logan, that’s not what this is—”
“It is,” I cut in. “Or it’s close enough.”
“Listen to me,” she insists, stepping closer. “I’m not her. I never have been.”
I hesitate—just for a second—but it’s not enough. The old hurt keeps breaking through.
“I’m done listening,” I say, my voice colder now. More final.
Her face falls.
Garth looks between us, tension pulling at his already weakened frame. “Logan—”
“I handled the problem,” I cut in, stepping back toward the door. “Do what you want with it.”
And then I leave. Because staying would mean admitting I might be wrong.
And right now, I don’t know if I can survive being wrong about her.