SOPHIA'S POV

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SOPHIA'S POV

Thirty days.

The Millbrook Psychiatric Facility wasn't what I expected. No padded cells or screaming patients. Just quiet hallways, scheduled meals, and Dr. Reeves, who had kind eyes and asked the kind of questions designed to make you contradict yourself.

I knew exactly what to say and what not to say. I'd spent five years building a persona. Surely I could survive thirty days.

I lasted three before I started unraveling.

"Tell me about the first time you remember the other timeline," Dr. Reeves said on day four.

"I've told you. It was a dream."

"You told the court it was real."

"I was upset."

He wrote something down. "Your mother describes you as having changed dramatically at age eighteen. Becoming secretive, obsessive about work, withdrawing from family."

"I grew up."

"Overnight?"

I looked at the window. Gray October sky. "People change."

"They do. But the people who know you best describe it as something closer to a personality transplant. Like you became someone else entirely."

"Maybe the person I was before wasn't really me."

He paused. "That's an interesting way to frame it."

I said nothing.

"Sophia, I'm not trying to trap you. If you experienced something traumatic at eighteen that changed your worldview, that's worth discussing. Trauma manifests in many ways."

"Is one of those ways building a successful business empire and maintaining genuine friendships?"

"Occasionally, yes. High functioning is not the same as healthy."

He wasn't wrong. I hated that he wasn't wrong.

That night I lay awake thinking about what Alexander had said at the hearing. *The sanest person in this room.* He'd testified for me. Lost his job, his family's company, and still showed up to sit in a courtroom and tell a judge that time travel was real.

I didn't know what to do with that.

On day nine, they told me I had a visitor. Not Alexander. Not Marcus.

Catherine.

She sat across from me in the family visiting room looking immaculate and appropriately sorrowful for anyone who might be watching.

"You look tired," she said.

"I'm in a psychiatric facility, Mother."

"You put yourself here." She folded her hands. "The offer still stands. Recant, accept a treatment plan, and I'll speak to the DA about dropping your charges entirely."

"And you walk away clean."

"I walk away with my daughter not in prison." She leaned forward. "Sophia, I made mistakes. I arranged that marriage because I believed it was the right thing for our family. I was wrong. But I was not criminal."

"You were going to let Alexander's grandmother have me committed in the original timeline. When I started asking too many questions about the family's finances."

Silence.

"You didn't know I knew that," I said.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Eleanor came to you with the plan. You didn't agree to it, but you didn't stop it either. You were going to let them lock me away to protect the alliance." I watched her face. "In this timeline, you found a more elegant solution."

She stood up. "You're not well."

"Maybe not. But I'm right."

She left without looking back. I sat alone in the visiting room for a long time, realizing that was probably the last honest conversation we'd ever have.

**ALEXANDER**

Rebecca called on day twelve. "The independent psychiatrists are split. Two say she's competent. One says she shows signs of a dissociative disorder."

"What does that mean for the evaluation?"

"It means the thirty days will probably extend. They want a consensus." She paused. "The good news is they haven't found her incompetent. The bad news is this could drag on another month."

I was sitting in what used to be my office, now just a rented apartment in Seattle while I figured out what came next. The boxes from Sterling Hotels sat in the corner, still unpacked.

"What can I do?"

"Nothing right now. Let the process work." She hesitated. "There is one thing. The psychiatrist who flagged the dissociative disorder, a Dr. Paulson, he was referred to the facility by Catherine Chen's legal team."

I sat up. "Can we challenge that?"

"I'm already filing the motion. But it takes time."

After I hung up, I called James. He'd stayed on as personal assistant even without the company, for reasons he hadn't fully explained.

"Paulson has a connection to Catherine's lawyers," I said. "I need everything. Cases he's testified in, who hired him, any pattern of his evaluations favoring whoever retained him."

"I'll have something by tomorrow."

He called back in six hours. "Paulson testified in fourteen cases in the last four years. Twelve of them hired through the same three law firms. In nine of those cases, his evaluation directly benefited the party who arranged his referral."

"That's a pattern."

"It's also potentially witness tampering if we can prove the arrangement was made to influence Sophia's specific evaluation."

I sent everything to Rebecca. She filed an emergency motion to exclude Paulson's testimony and requested an independent replacement.

The judge approved it in forty-eight hours.

On day twenty-two, Dr. Reeves called my cell directly. I didn't ask how he got the number.

"She's talking," he said. "Really talking. I thought you should know."

"Is she"

"She's not well, Mr. Sterling. But she's not delusional either. What she experienced, whatever it was, it's real to her in ways that go beyond any disorder I've studied." He paused. "I don't know what happened to that young woman. But I know she's not what they're trying to make her."

I thanked him and hung up.

Then I went to see Eleanor.

She was in the family estate outside Seattle, skeleton staff now that the company was in chaos. She looked smaller than I remembered. Old in a way she'd been hiding for years.

"You testified for that girl," she said.

"Yes."

"You destroyed this family for her."

"You destroyed this family. I just stopped lying about it." I sat down across from her. "I need you to give a statement. About what you knew. About how you treated her."

"Absolutely not."

"Then I'll tell Rebecca to subpoena you." I met her eyes. "You made her life miserable for three years in a timeline she's the only one who fully remembers. The least you can do is help fix the damage you're causing in this one."

She looked away. "You love her."

The word landed strangely. I hadn't let myself think it that plainly.

"Yes," I said. "I do."

"She'll never forgive you."

"That's her choice to make." I stood. "The statement, Eleanor. All of it."

She gave it.

Thirty days ended on a Tuesday. Sophia walked out of Millbrook in the same clothes she'd arrived in, Marcus on one side, Isabelle on the other.

I waited by the car.

She stopped when she saw me. We looked at each other across the parking lot for a long moment.

"Eleanor gave a statement," I said. "It'll help the DA's case against Catherine."

"I heard."

"You don't have to say anything."

She walked toward me slowly. Stopped two feet away. "Why are you still here, Alexander?"

"Because I was too late once. I'm not going to be too late again."

She studied my face like she was looking for the lie. I waited, knowing she'd find nothing but the truth.

"I'm not the Sophia you dreamed about," she finally said.

"I know. She's gone. You're who she became." I held her gaze. "That's who I'm here for."

She didn't answer. But she didn't walk away.

It was the most honest beginning I'd ever been offered.