CHAPTER FIFTEEN *SOPHIA*

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

*SOPHIA*

The contract went back and forth for a week before both sides were satisfied.

Priya handled most of it professionally, which meant Alexander and I exchanged zero personal communication during that time. I told myself that was intentional. It was also slightly maddening, which I refused to examine too closely.

Catherine's preliminary hearing was set for the following Monday. Rebecca Torres called to walk me through what to expect.

"You'll likely be called as a witness for the prosecution. Catherine's team will try to reintroduce the psychiatric angle during cross-examination. They'll suggest your testimony is unreliable."

"Let them."

"It's not that simple. A skilled defense attorney can plant enough doubt with a jury that"

"Rebecca." I cut her gently. "I spent thirty days being evaluated by psychiatrists. Two of three found me fully competent. That's the record. Whatever Catherine's lawyer tries in cross, that's what we point to."

A pause. "You're calmer than most witnesses I've worked with."

"I've been preparing for this for five years." I looked out the gallery window. "She won't rattle me."

After I hung up, David appeared in the doorway with two coffees. He'd started doing that after I came back from Millbrook. Not asking how I was. Just appearing with coffee at the right moments.

"The Harlow pieces arrived," he said, handing me a cup.

"All twelve?"

"Fourteen. The estate threw in two we hadn't negotiated for. Apparently they feel guilty about stalling while you were detained."

"Guilt is a useful currency." I took the coffee. "Have them installed in the east wing before Friday. I want them up before the Morrison retrospective crowd comes through."

He nodded but didn't leave.

"What?" I said.

"Isabelle called me."

"About what?"

"She's worried you're running at full speed because stopping means thinking." He held up a hand before I could respond. "Her words. I'm just the messenger."

"She's not wrong," I said. "But stopping doesn't change anything. It just makes the waiting louder."

He accepted that and left.

He wasn't wrong either.

******

*ALEXANDER*

My father's sentencing was Wednesday.

Three years, reduced from five for full cooperation. He stood in that courtroom and accepted it without flinching, which was the most I'd respected him in years. Maybe ever.

Afterward we sat in his lawyer's office while paperwork processed.

"You don't have to look like that," he said.

"Like what?"

"Like you're the one going to prison."

I looked at my hands. "I keep thinking about all the years I spent defending the company. The reputation. Covering for decisions I knew were wrong because the alternative was too complicated."

"You didn't know the extent of it."

"I knew enough." I looked up. "I just chose the easier thing."

He was quiet. "We're more alike than I'd like to admit."

"I know."

"The difference is you eventually didn't choose the easier thing." He straightened his tie, old habit. "That matters more than the years before it."

I drove back to the apartment and sat with that for a while.

James called at four. "Sterling Hotels confirmed the consulting offer. Six months, project basis, no executive title. Focused on the Tokyo expansion specifically."

"Accept it."

"Also, Sophia Chen's gallery sent the signed contract."

Something loosened in my chest. "Confirm receipt."

"And she included a note."

I sat up. "Read it."

"It says: Contract signed. Coffee, Saturday, eleven. Gallery café. Don't be late." James paused. "That's the entire note."

"That's enough. Confirm Saturday."

After I hung up I noticed I was smiling, which felt strange and also completely natural, which was the most confusing combination I'd experienced in months.

---

*SOPHIA*

Catherine looked smaller at her hearing.

She sat at the defense table in a charcoal suit, her lawyer beside her, her posture perfect because it was always perfect. But something in her face had gone quiet in a way I'd never seen before.

I sat in the witness gallery with Marcus until they called me.

The prosecutor was methodical. He walked me through the timeline, my warnings about the Zhao Group, my knowledge of the criminal structure, the moment I realized Robert Sterling was in danger. I answered everything clearly and directly.

Then Catherine's lawyer stood up.

He was good. Expensive and good. He spent fifteen minutes trying to establish inconsistencies in my account, circling the psychiatric evaluation, suggesting my timeline of events was shaped by a delusional framework.

"Isn't it true," he said, "that you told Dr. Reeves you believed you had lived a previous life?"

"I told him about an experience I had at eighteen that fundamentally changed my understanding of my circumstances. Yes."

"A previous life."

"That's your characterization."

"Is it inaccurate?"

"It's reductive."

He pivoted. "You admitted to deliberately allowing Robert Sterling to be placed in a dangerous situation."

"I admitted to calculating that intervention at a specific moment would be more effective than intervention earlier. He was never in lethal danger during the window I managed."

"You managed a kidnapping."

"I prevented a murder. There's a difference."

He paused, recalibrated. Tried two more angles. I stayed level throughout. After the third attempt that went nowhere, he sat down.

The judge scheduled full proceedings for February.

Outside the courthouse, Marcus exhaled. "You were extraordinary in there."

"I was just honest."

"Honest and strategic at the same time. It's a skill." He looked at me sideways. "Isabelle told me about Saturday."

"Isabelle needs a hobby."

"She has seventeen hobbies. This is just more interesting." He held the car door. "I'm not going to tell you what to do."

"Good."

"I'm just going to say that watching you hold everyone at arm's length for five years was hard. And I'd like that to change. Whoever the catalyst is."

I got in the car. "Noted."

"That's all. Noted."

"Marcus."

"Yes."

"Thank you. For everything. The whole time."

He got in the driver's side. Didn't make a thing of it, which was exactly right. "You would've done the same."

"I did, actually. In another version."

He smiled at that. The first time I'd made a direct reference to the other timeline with him that landed as something comfortable rather than something to manage.

Small progress was still progress.

---

Saturday arrived.

I was at the gallery café at five to eleven, which I'd told myself was just because I had early work to finish. Priya didn't even pretend to believe that when she brought me my first coffee.

"I'm just doing paperwork," I said.

"Of course." She set the cup down. "Should I have them prep a second setting at the table by the window?"

"That's fine."

Alexander arrived at exactly eleven. Not a minute early, not a minute late. He'd clearly thought about that. He sat down across from me, ordered a black coffee, and looked at me the way he always did now, like he was paying attention to something specific and didn't want to miss any of it.

"How was the hearing?" he asked.

I looked up. "How did you know about the hearing?"

"James monitors public court schedules. I told him to stop." He paused. "He hasn't stopped."

Despite myself, I laughed. Briefly, but real.

Alexander looked like he'd been handed something valuable and was being careful not to drop it.

"It went well," I said. "February for full proceedings."

"Good."

"Your father's sentencing was Wednesday."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. Three years is still three years."

"He said he's finally free." Alexander turned his coffee cup slowly. "I'm starting to understand what he meant."

We sat with that for a moment, two people who'd shed versions of themselves they hadn't chosen and weren't sure yet who that left them as.

"This is strange," I said.

"Yes."

"I spent five years planning what I'd do when I won. I didn't plan what came after."

"What does come after?"

I looked at him across the small table, this man who had broken a version of me that no longer existed, who had shown up in a parking lot and a courtroom and now a café, who was looking at me like I was the only fixed point in a room that kept moving.

"I have no idea," I said honestly.

He nodded. "Then we figure it out."

Not a promise. Not pressure. Just a simple, offered thing.

I picked up my coffee. "Don't make it weird, Sterling."

"Too late," he said. "It's already weird."

He wasn't wrong.