LOGINđ€ Jacob đ€She took my home from me.Iâd said it to Lex on the phone before I fully understood how true it was, and now, sitting alone in an Airbnb that wasnât mine with a folder full of my fatherâs betrayal still open on the table in front of me, I understood it completely.Stella hadnât just dismantled the Grey family business. Sheâd used the Fisher-Hale familyâs own power to do it Lexâs family, the family Iâd married into, the family Iâd loved enough to lose everything else for. My sister had reached across two empires, turned one against the other, and walked away with the only thing that actually mattered to her: control of everything both families had spent generations building.This shit is till unbelievable, how did she plan this? And what if my father being involved is also a lie? God I donât even know what to believe anymore.I sat back in the cheap kitchen chair and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until colored static bloomed behind them.Five years of belie
đ€ Alexandra đ€Stella is a pure evil genius. I have to give her that much, even sitting here furious enough to put my fist through a wall. How does one woman play this many people her own family included, and make every single move look like grief, like coincidence, like bad luck, instead of what it actually was?I walked out of Papaâs office with the entire sack of files heâd handed me, and instead of going to my room, I went straight to my own office down the hall the one Iâd had set up here since I was a teenager, separate from the basement office downtown, because some habits of needing my own space to think had started long before I ever needed an empire to run.I didnât know what to believe anymore. That was the part sitting heaviest in my chest as I shut the door behind me. Iâd walked into that basement hours ago thinking I had Stella in custody, thinking I was back in control of something after five years of feeling like Iâd lost my grip on all of it. Now I understood that th
đ€ Alexandra đ€âHi, Papa,â I greeted, walking into his home office after making sure my babies were tucked in bed, safe, sleeping, alive in a way that had felt impossible just hours earlier today.âI was told you went back to work,â Papa said, smiling without looking up from the files spread across his desk, the lamp light catching the silver at his temples in a way that made him look older than he had the last time Iâd sat in this room.âAnd I was surprised by how much I missed that lifestyle,â I responded, taking the seat across from him, the same worn leather chair I used to sit in as a teenager waiting to be told I was too young to understand half of what was happening around me.He looked up then, something soft and a little sad moving behind his eyes. âYou sound like my Jay right now. Sometimes he wanted something so badly, and still chose the safe option most times, for the sake of the people around him.âI felt the familiar ache settle into my chest not sharp anymore, not the
đ€ Jacob đ€Thereâs another Jacob Grey.I sat with that sentence the entire drive back from the basement, turning it over and over like a stone I couldnât get a clean grip on. What the hell was actually going on. I didnât even understand the shape of the plot I was supposedly living inside anymore, five years of running from a danger I thought I understood, and tonight alone had already rewritten the rules of it twice.âHmm. Lex, can I ask you something?â I said, turning to look her directly in the eye once we were back in the car, because if I was going to start pulling at threads, I wanted to watch her face while I did it.âAsk away,â she said.âFive years ago,â I said slowly, âwas your family the only one responsible for the Grey familyâs downfall? Or did you have help from the inside. Someone close to me.âShe didnât flinch, didnât look away, just considered the question with the same level focus she gave everything tonight. âI genuinely didnât have anything to do with your family
đ€ Alexandra đ€They had her sitting upright again by the time Jacob and I came back down, the wound dressed, her face gray with blood loss and something far worse underneath it the particular exhaustion of a person who has finally understood that nobody is coming to save her.Good. That was exactly the headspace I needed her in.âLetâs try this again,â I said, pulling my chair back into the same spot, close enough that there was nowhere for her to look that wasnât directly at me. âWho paid you, Amara?ââI told you already.â Her voice came out thin, scraped raw. âI have nothing else to say.âI nodded slowly, like Iâd expected that answer, because I had. The first hour was never about getting truth. The first hour was about teaching someone that silence cost more than talking did, and Amara was about to learn that lesson the hard way, the way people like her always did slowly, in increments, each one worse than the last until the math finally tipped in my favor.I wonât pretend the nex
đ€ Alexandra đ€Coming back into this building after years away from this life brought a strange, specific kind of clarity with it not excitement exactly, though something close enough to it that I didnât trust myself to examine it too closely. Iâd spent five years convincing everyone, myself included, that Iâd outgrown rooms like this. Standing in one again, I understood how much of that conviction had just been exhaustion wearing the costume of peace.God, I couldnât wait to torture the truth out of her.I sat down across from Amara, close enough that there was no pretending this was anything but personal between us now. âStart at the beginning,â I said quietly. âAnd Amara? Iâd choose your next words very, very carefully.ââI have nothing to say to you.âIt came out flat, almost rehearsed, and something in me that Iâd kept leashed for five years simply stopped being patient with her.I donât fully remember deciding to move. I remember the knife was already in my hand Jen always kept
đ€ Jacob đ€That banter or maybe I should just call it what it actually was, a simple yet sweet conversation was something I genuinely had not been expecting tonight.Not after the slap.Not after Chairman Fisher told me to leave the room like I was a delivery boy who had overstayed his welcome.No
đ€ Alexandra đ€âAre you going to tell me whatâs going on?â I asked the moment the door shut behind Jacob.Papa didnât answer immediately.He sat there for a moment with his hands still folded in his lap, his eyes fixed on some point past my shoulder, and I recognized that look one he got right be
đ€ Alexandra đ€âFollow me closely,â I said as I turned to look at Jacob standing behind me.He didnât argue for once. Maybe seeing Dean and Loveth lying unconscious in those hospital beds had reminded him that we had bigger problems than our complicated history.Or maybe he simply knew better than
đ€ Alexandra đ€âSheâs pregnant, President.â That was the first thing I heard when I tried to open my eyes.And honestly⊠God help me because why did my entire body feel like I got hit by a truck, reversed over, and then hit again for emphasis.My head was pounding, my limbs felt heavy, and for a s







