Chapter 10
Ava
I couldn't stop thinking about the place where his finger had touched my forehead.
Lying in the dark, blankets pulled up to my chin, my thoughts kept drifting back to that moment in the kitchen. Brian's grin. The gentle poke to my furrowed brow. You looked too serious. Someone had to intervene.
And I'd laughed. Actually laughed, despite everything.
The ceiling offered nothing. Just shadows and the faint glow of streetlight through the blinds. Watson was a warm weight against my feet, already asleep, completely unbothered by the mess his human had become.
With Brian, things felt manageable. Not because he fixed them. He didn't swoop in with solutions or try to take over. It was subtler than that.
The ceiling offered nothing. Just shadows and the faint glow of streetlight through the blinds.
Maybe you should answer. Not you need to call your father. Not I know what's best.
Just... an option. Offered gently. Taken or left.
I wasn't used to that. My father's help had always come wrapped in expectations, in obligations, in the unspoken understanding that accepting meant ceding control.
Brian's help came with nothing attached.
Just him, showing up, day after day, checking under my car, varying our routes, making sure I ate something that wasn't hospital vending machine garbage.
He'd said it like it was obvious: You don't have to forgive him. You don't have to let him back in. But if he can fight the Langs in court while Sloane works the press and we gather evidence—that's three fronts instead of one.
Three fronts instead of one. He thought in strategy. In tactics. In how to win, not how to control.
The tingles were still there, a faint warmth where his finger had touched my skin. I pressed my own fingers to the spot, feeling a little foolish. It had been nothing. A joke. A way to break the tension.
So why couldn't I stop thinking about it?
Watson shifted, rearranging himself more comfortably across my ankles. I closed my eyes and tried to will myself toward sleep.
Tomorrow, I'd see my father for the first time in five years. Tomorrow I'd face whatever came next.
But tonight, I let myself hold onto that small, ridiculous moment. Brian's grin. The warmth in his eyes. The way he'd looked at me, like making me smile was the only thing that mattered.
It was enough to hold the fear at arm's length.
For a little while.
Sleep came eventually. And for once, I didn't fight it.
The black sedan arrived at 11:30 sharp. Of course it did.
The driver didn't speak during the ride into Manhattan. Just navigated the bridge traffic with quiet efficiency while I sat in the back, watching Queens disappear behind me.
I hadn't been back to Manhattan in years. Crossing the bridge felt like crossing a border. One I'd worked hard to put behind me.
The restaurant was in Midtown—white tablecloths, hushed conversations, a sommelier who appeared the moment you sat down. My father's territory. The kind of place where Charles Rothwell had closed deals and celebrated victories for thirty years. Where power spoke softly, and money listened.
The hostess led me to a corner table. My father was already there.
He looked older than I remembered. Grayer. The lines around his eyes had deepened, and there was a slight stoop to his shoulders that hadn't been there a decade ago. Time had done what I never could. Made Charles Rothwell look small.
He stood when I approached. Old money manners.
"Ava."
"Dad."
He gestured to the seat across from him. I sat. The sommelier materialized, but I waved him off.
"Water's fine."
My father ordered a Scotch. Neat. The same order he'd had at every business dinner I'd ever witnessed.
We sat in silence for a moment. The distance between us felt wider than the table.
"You said you have information," I said finally. No warmth. No pretense. I wasn't here for a reunion.
"I do." He reached into the leather briefcase beside his chair and withdrew a thick manila folder. "But first—how are you? Are you safe?"
"I'm fine."
"Your boyfriend, Brian Torres. The firefighter." My father's tone was carefully neutral. "You're staying with him."
I went very still. I'd never mentioned Brian to him. Never mentioned anyone from my life in Queens.
"He's not my boyfriend," I said. "He's a friend who stepped up to keep me safe." I held his gaze. "How do you know I'm staying with him?"
He didn't answer. Just watched me with that steady, assessing gaze I remembered from childhood. The one that said he knew more than he was letting on, and he'd reveal it when he was ready.
"That's not protection. That's surveillance."
"I’m concerned." He held up a hand before I could respond. "I know. I know you don't see it that way. I know I lost the right to your trust a long time ago." He set the folder on the table between us. "But Ava—someone is trying to destroy you. And I have resources that can help."
"Resources with strings attached."
"No strings." He met my eyes—the same green as mine, the same stubborn set to his jaw. "I'm not asking for forgiveness. I haven't earned it. I'm not asking you to let me back into your life. I'm simply offering help. What you do with it is your choice."
I studied him. Looking for the angle, the manipulation, the hidden agenda. My father never did anything without expecting something in return.
"Why now?" I asked. "Fourteen years of silence, and suddenly you're researching the Langs?"
"Because fourteen years ago, you walked away from me.
And you were right." He took a slow sip of his Scotch.
"I spent years telling myself you'd come back.
That you'd realize you needed me. That you'd fail without my guidance.
" His jaw tightened. "You didn't fail. You became a doctor.
A damn good one, from what I hear. You built a life without my money or my name or my approval. Exactly like you said you would."
"So this is, what? Admitting you were wrong?"
"This is admitting I was an arrogant fool who tried to control his daughter instead of trusting her.
" He set down his glass. "I called emergency medicine a waste of your potential.
I was wrong. What you do in that ER, saving lives, being the last hope for people on their worst days.
.. that's not a waste. That's extraordinary. I was wrong."
The words landed strangely. I'd imagined this conversation a hundred times over the years. Imagined him apologizing, admitting he was wrong. In my imagination, it had felt like victory.
In reality, it just felt hollow.
"The folder," I said, nodding toward it. "What's in it?"
He pushed it across the table. "Everything I could find on Richard Lang. Shell companies. Payments to 'consultants' that coincide with witnesses changing their stories in other cases. A pattern of making problems disappear."
I opened it. The documents were dense, meticulous—exactly the kind of evidence a corporate lawyer would know how to find.
"The Langs have been operating like this for years," my father continued. "Money flowing to the right people. Investigations dying quiet deaths. Your case isn't the first one Richard Lang has buried."
"And you want to help me take him down."
"I want to protect my daughter." His voice was gruff. Unfamiliar. "Whatever else has happened between us, that hasn't changed."
I flipped through the pages. Financial records. Corporate filings. A timeline of suspicious payments.
"This is good work."
"I've been at this for three weeks. Since the news first broke about Kevin Lang's arrest." He leaned forward. "I can do more, Ava. I have contacts at firms across the city. I can put pressure on the Langs from angles they won't expect. Make it expensive for them to keep fighting."
"And in return?"
"Nothing." He held my gaze. "I mean it. No strings. No expectations. If you want to walk out of here and never speak to me again, I'll understand. But let me help you first."
I closed the folder. Looked at my father—this man I'd spent over a decade avoiding, telling myself I didn't need.
Brian's voice echoed in my head: You're not crawling back. You're deploying an asset.
"Okay," I said. "Help."
Something flickered across his face. Relief, maybe. Or hope.
"Thank you." He reached into his briefcase again and pulled out a business card. "One more thing. I'm arranging a security detail for you. Two men, rotating shifts. They'll be discreet."
The words hit like ice water.
"No."
"Ava—"
"I said no." I could feel it already—the familiar tightening in my chest, the walls closing in. Fourteen years of freedom, and here it was again. The invisible hand on my shoulder, steering me where he wanted me to go. "I don't need your security detail."
"A man grabbed you outside your workplace." His voice was calm, measured, the way it always was when he thought he was being reasonable. "Someone vandalized your apartment. The Langs have resources and reach, and they've already demonstrated they're willing to use violence. This isn't negotiable."
"Everything with you is non-negotiable."
"Your safety is non-negotiable." He leaned forward, and for a moment, the mask slipped.
Underneath the control, underneath the careful composure, I saw something raw.
Fear. "We've just gotten you back, Ava. Your mother and I—we've spent fourteen years wondering if you were okay, if you were happy, if we'd ever see you again.
And now there's a powerful man out there who wants to hurt you, and I will not sit by and watch that happen. "
His voice cracked on the word please. Charles Rothwell didn't crack.
Every instinct I had screamed to refuse to prove I didn't need him, didn't need his money or his resources or his careful orchestration of my life.
But Brian's voice echoed in my head again: Take what's useful and leave the rest.
"Please." The word seemed to cost him something. Charles Rothwell didn't beg. "Let us do this. Just until everything is resolved."