Chapter 7
Gavin asked to see Sienna.
She refused.
Good.
Then he asked to see Mila.
She refused for now.
Also good.
He looked at me.
“You’re turning my family against me.”
I almost smiled.
“No.”
“You won’t even let me explain.”
“Sienna heard your explanation in the garage.”
His face tightened.
“You pushed her.”
“I lost my temper.”
“She is thirty-eight weeks pregnant.”
“I know.”
“Mila saw.”
“I know.”
“And your response was to call your daughter a brat and a liar.”
He closed his eyes.
There.
That sentence hurt him.
Good.
Not because guilt fixes things.
Because denial needed to die first.
“What were you afraid Mila would tell me?”
He whispered:
“Everything.”
There.
Not just the push.
The luggage.
Colemere.
The secret ceremony.
The second name.
All of it.
A three-year-old child could collapse months of planning with five sentences.
So they tried to make her afraid of her own mouth.
That was why the braid mattered.
It was never vanity.
It was communication control.
I picked it up from my desk.
“I’m giving this back to Sienna.”
Gavin looked at it.
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to her daughter.”
May you like
Then:
“Unlike you, I ask before deciding what family objects mean.”
