CHAPTER NINETEEN
ETHAN
THE SCENT OF ROASTED chicken filled the dining room, lemon and herbs mingling with the buttery steam rising from the mashed potatoes.
Aria dragged her fork through a scoop of food and licked it clean, her expression pure triumph.
"Daddy, guess what?"
"What?" I humored her, giving her my full attention.
"I paid the new kid a Feastable today to make Jackson leave Ellie alone during dodgeball."
"And did he?"
She nodded hard. "Sure did."
"It was a..." Ellie's brow furrowed as she searched for the word, chin raised like she was under oath. "...a settlement."
A laugh ripped out of me, full and unguarded. "That's my girls."
"Ethan," Julia warned, but she looked far too pleased with herself to sell the act. Her hazel eyes caught the amber glow from the pendant light above us, her mouth fighting a smile.
"They're learning real-world skills, bella," I shot back. "Trading goods for services. That's more than half the Armani-suited assholes I've gone against in court ever figured out."
She shook her head but gave in to a quiet laugh before turning toward the girls. "What's the new boy's name?"
Ellie and Aria shared a conspiratorial look before answering together.
"Taeha Lombardi."
Lombardi.
I knew that name well. Old money. Mansions overlooking Biscayne Bay.
High society polished enough to distract from the filth festering beneath its foundations.
I knew the name from the underground too, the place where men kept score in blood and debts survived long after the people who owed them didn't.
Julia froze for half a second, fork hovering over her plate before she carefully lowered it. Her eyes found mine. Recognition. Sometimes I forgot she knew just as much, if not more than I did about certain people. It was not a good feeling.
"Oh, and he's nice?" she asked, feigning casual curiosity.
Aria's head bobbed. "And transacted."
Julia frowned. "Aria, what do you mean he was... what did you say?"
Ellie gave her sister one of her most withering glares. "Adopted, Riri. Adopted."
Julia turned toward Aria, her voice gentle but firm. "We don't say adopted kids are transacted. That's not how it works."
Aria shrugged, completely unbothered.
Ellie immediately took offense. "Don't say stuff if you're going to say it wrong!"
"Why are you yelling when I'm sitting right here?" Aria asked flatly.
I hid my grin behind my glass. God help me, it was too damn funny. Aria's straight-faced delivery. Ellie's righteous indignation. Julia looking approximately thirty seconds from asking why she'd ever reproduced with me.
"The point," Julia said, fighting her own smile, "is that we use the right words. Adopted. Not the other one. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings."
"Okay." Aria shrugged again.
I leaned back, warmth spreading through me as I looked at all three of them.
My entire world fit around that table. The Lombardi name lingered somewhere in the back of my mind, though.
Our daughters would always be around families like that.
Old names. Powerful money. Legacies wrapped in Versace silk with razor wire underneath.
Hell, some of their closest friends came from families with enough skeletons to fill their sprawling estates.
Still, this was the first time Ellie had smiled that hard over a boy. When the fuck did little girls start getting crushes? I forced my expression neutral before Julia caught me.
She caught me anyway—amused. Of course, she did. Dinner wound down with the girls whispering behind cupped hands they apparently believed made them soundproof. When the plates were cleared, I caught Julia's eye.
"Settle the girls. I'll clean up, then come upstairs with a drink, and we'll talk."
She nodded once. She knew this wasn't going to be light conversation. I kissed each of my daughters' goodnight. Ellie threw both arms around my neck with octopus-like determination while Aria planted a quick kiss against my cheek before they took off toward the stairs.
"Don't run in the damn house," Julia called after them.
I grinned. My wife, the enforcer. Everything felt too quiet the second they disappeared upstairs.
I could never live a life without them. They weren't simply part of it.
They were it. I cleaned the kitchen methodically, scraping plates, loading the dishwasher, wiping down the table until every fingerprint and water ring disappeared.
When I finished, I crossed to the antique bar cart and poured two fingers of Macallan 18 into heavy-bottomed tumblers. Mine neat. Julia's over a single cube of ice. For the conversation we were about to have, she'd probably prefer the bottle, but I needed her sober.
Cortez had dropped something into my lap today that I still hadn't fully processed myself, and I wanted Julia to hear it exactly as it had happened, without my frustration distorting it. By the time I made it upstairs, she'd showered and changed into a black silk kimono robe trimmed in lace.
I stopped in the doorway.
Her hair was still damp, falling over one shoulder. The robe skimmed the body I'd memorized years ago and somehow still managed to make me forget whatever the fuck I'd been thinking about two seconds earlier.
She looked at me. "What?"
"Trying to kill me before we even start?"
Her mouth curved. "Focus, counselor."
"Trying." I crossed the room and handed her the tumbler. "Neat, just how you like it."
She took it and sat on the edge of our bed, crossing one leg over the other. "Do you want to start, or should I?"
I leaned against the dresser. "You go."
Julia took a sip. "I've been thinking about Lila."
There it was. I waited.
"I don't like her."
My brow rose. "I'd gathered that."
"No." She pointed at me with her glass. "Don't be cute. I'm serious."
"I'm listening."
Her expression shifted, some of the irritation giving way to thought. "I didn't like what happened yesterday. I don't like the way she looks at you."
"Neither do I."
"But..." She trailed off.
That caught my attention. "But?"
"I keep replaying it, and something isn't sitting right with me."
I straightened slightly. "Funny you should say that."
Her eyes narrowed. "What happened?"
"Cortez has a daughter."
Julia stared at me. "Okay?"
I took a drink. "Lila Marino."
She stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth. "What the fuck?"
"That was roughly my reaction." "His daughter?"
"Apparently."
"Since when?"
I shrugged. "Usually, when a man and a woman..."
"Ethan."
I made a crude gesture with my hands.
"You know that isn't what I meant! “she laughed.
"It got you to smile."
"You're an idiot."
"An exceptionally well-paid one."
She shook her head, but the amusement disappeared quickly. "Tell me everything."
I laid it all out for her, what I could.
Coleman. The case. Cortez waiting until the last moment of the meeting to drop his demand.
His insistence that Lila held information he needed for his defense.
His quiet assumption that I’d simply slot her onto the team.
And most crucially, the yawning unknowns: did Lila even know about her father’s machinations?
Had she ever acted on his behalf? Did the timing of his request mean anything—anything at all?
By the time I finished, Julia’s stature beside the dresser went rigid. The single lamp in the corner cast long shadows across her face, turning her eyes to dark pools. She drew in a breath, held it, then let it out in a sharp whisper.
“Well,” she said at last, voice hushed but every syllable jagged, “that’s fucking inconvenient.”
I forced a dry laugh, the sound brittle in the quiet room. “That’s one word for it.”
Her gaze lifted, cool and evaluating. “Do you believe him?”
I paused, walking over to stand behind her at the edge of the bed. The sheets were rumpled, the pillows still warm from earlier. “About which part?”
“Any of it.” She set down the glass she’d been turning in her hand; beads of condensation traced lazy paths down the side.
I kept my eyes on the pale swirl of ice against the whiskey. “I believe she’s his daughter. That can be verified.”
Her brow furrowed, the crease between her eyebrows deepening. “And everything else?”
“I don’t know.” I twisted my wedding band around my finger.
She watched the ice cube clink against glass. “Does she know he came to you?”
“According to him, no.”
Julia’s lips pressed together. When she spoke next, her voice was softer but sharper. “Then those might be two completely different things.”
“That’s exactly where we landed.” I sat beside her, felt the mattress dip under my weight. The city lights outside filtered through the blinds, painting stripes across the duvet.
Her eyes snapped back to mine. “We?”
“Katerina made the same point. She said: if Lila knew her father was angling to force her onto his defense team, making googly eyes at me would be a pretty fucking stupid strategy.”
Julia’s mouth flattened. “Please never call them googly eyes again.”
I almost smiled at the small spark of exasperation in her tone. “Noted.”
She rose from the bed and began pacing the narrow space between nightstand and footboard, each step measured. “So we have Lila, and separately we have her father—a man who may have plans involving her that she doesn’t even know about.”
“Correct.”
“And he wants you to take his case.”
“Correct.”
She halted mid-stride and turned to me, arms crossed. “Are you going to?”
I met her steady gaze. “Don’t know yet.”
“Do you want to?” Her question carried no edge of jealousy—just assessment, like a chess player sizing up the board.
“Professionally?”
“Obviously.”
I let out a soft sigh. “Yeah.”
Her mouth quirked. “I figured.”
“Cortez’s case is exactly why we built this firm.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t mean I take it blind.”