Chapter 12

IRIS POV:

Sarah gripped my arm tighter.

"Iris, what do you want to do?" she whispered.

I couldn't move. My eyes were locked on my father's face through the glass. Even from this distance, even in the dark, I could read him.

The set of his jaw. The way he stood perfectly still while everything around him moved. He wasn't worried.

He was furious.

And Nicholas stood slightly behind him, hands in his pockets, his eyes scanning the windows slowly, methodically, like a hunter who already knew his target was inside and was simply deciding how to enter.

"Iris." Sarah shook my arm gently. "Hey. Look at me."

I tore my eyes from the window.

"You don't have to go out there," she said firmly. "You haven't done anything wrong. You're not missing. You're a grown woman who made a choice."

"They called the police, Sarah."

"Because your father knows how to use power to get what he wants. That's all this is." She gestured toward the window. "That out there isn't law. That's control dressed up in a uniform."

I swallowed.

The megaphone crackled again.

"Iris Calloway. We ask that you come to the door peacefully. No one is in any trouble."

"No one is in any trouble," I repeated under my breath with a hollow laugh.

Sarah squeezed my hand. "Whatever you decide, I'm standing right next to you. You hear me?"

I looked at her. At the steady certainty in her eyes. At the way she hadn't flinched once since this all started, not when I showed up barefoot in a stranger's oversized clothes, not when I told her I had kissed Aurelian, not now.

I took a slow breath.

"I'm not running again," I said quietly. "I've done enough running tonight."

Sarah studied me for a moment, then nodded once.

"Okay," she said. "Then we walk out together."

She didn't let go of my hand as we moved toward the front door. My heart was slamming, but my feet were steady. I reached for the handle, paused for just a second, then pulled it open.

The night air hit me immediately, cool. The red and blue lights were brighter out here.

Every head turned toward me at once.

The officers near the gate straightened. My father's eyes landed on me and didn't move. Nicholas went completely still.

I stood in the doorway in Aurelian's white shirt and sweatpants, barefoot on Sarah's porch, hair still slightly wild from sleep, and I held my ground.

My father was the first to move. He stepped forward past the officers, past the gate, up the short path, until he stopped just a few feet from the bottom step. Up close, his expression was worse than I had imagined. Not relief. Not concern.

Rage wrapped tightly in composure.

"Iris." His voice was low and controlled. "Come. Now."

"I'm not missing, Dad," I said calmly. "I'm exactly where I chose to be."

Something flickered behind his eyes.

"This is not the place for this conversation," he said carefully, aware of the officers watching.

"Then there doesn't need to be a conversation," I replied.

He took one slow step up onto the path.

"Do you have any idea," he said quietly, so only I could hear, "what you have done tonight? What you have cost this family?"

"I cost this family nothing," I said. "You were the one who already sold me."

His jaw tightened.

Then Nicholas moved. He came to stand just behind my father, close enough that I could see his face clearly now. I had expected anger. Maybe arrogance. Instead, something I hadn't prepared for crossed his features.

He looked wounded.

"Iris," he said. His voice was quieter than I expected. "Just come home. We can talk about everything. Whatever you think you saw…"

"I didn't think I saw anything, Nicholas." My voice stayed flat. "I saw exactly what was on that screen."

His eyes dropped for just a fraction of a second.

That was enough.

Sarah's hand tightened around mine.

The officer who had been holding the megaphone stepped forward carefully.

"Ma'am, are you here of your own free will?"

"Yes," I said clearly. "I am."

He nodded slowly, glancing between me and the convoy behind him, looking like a man who was beginning to understand he had been pulled into something that had nothing to do with a missing person.

My father turned toward the officer with a sharp look.

"She is clearly distressed and not in her right state of mind. As her father and legal…"

"I'm twenty-one years old," I cut in. "I have every right to be exactly where I am."

Silence.

The officer looked at my father. Then at me. Then he took a small step back.

"Sir," he said carefully. "If the individual is here willingly and is of legal age, there is nothing further we can…"

"I know people in your department," my father said quietly. Not a threat exactly. Just a fact delivered like one.

The officer's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture.

I felt Sarah move closer beside me.

And then, from somewhere down the road, a sound cut through the tension.

An engine.

Low. Powerful. Unmistakable.

Every head turned.

Headlights appeared at the end of the street, moving slowly. A matte black Lamborghini rolled to a stop just behind the line of black SUVs.

The scissor door lifted, and my eyes went wide instantly.

Aurelian stepped out.