Chapter 3

I said nothing. Before, I'd been afraid of divorce because Dad was still alive. He needed treatment and money. And as long as keeping him alive depended on Marilyn, I'd swallowed every insult, every humiliation, every scrap of dignity they took from me.

But now, Dad was dead. He had died somewhere inside Marilyn and Callan's neat little corporate approval process. He had died over 138 dollars. There was nothing left for them to hold over me. Nothing left that could make me stay.

At exactly 7:00 pm, the doorbell rang. I didn't move from the living room couch.

The butler hurried to answer it, and seconds later, Callan's deliberately charming voice floated in from the entryway.

"Thanks, Mr. Wolff. I brought some of those dry-aged steaks Marilyn likes. Thought we could have them for dinner."

He sounded so comfortable here, as though he were the man of the house.

Callan walked in, the sharp click of his dress shoes against the marble floor announcing every step.

Marilyn emerged from her study. The moment she saw him, something in her expression softened. "You're here."

"Yeah. Traffic was awful." Callan smiled. His gaze drifted casually around the living room before settling on me.

For just a second, something flickered in his eyes—surprise, maybe, or amusement. It disappeared too quickly to be sure.

"Oh, Lucian. You're home too." His smile widened with perfectly rehearsed concern. "You look terrible. You really should get some rest."

I didn't answer.

Callan handed the steaks to the housekeeper, Jenna Mercer, then wandered through the living room with the casual confidence of someone inspecting property that already belonged to him.

He stopped beside a small end table where I'd placed an old photograph of Dad. He reached out and ran a fingertip along the edge of the frame.

"Marilyn," he said, turning toward her, his voice gentle and almost thoughtful. "Do you think this should really be sitting here? It's the first thing you see when you walk through the front door. It makes the room feel a little… somber, don't you think?"

Marilyn was looking down at her phone. She barely gave it a thought. "Sure. Put it away."

That was all the permission Callan needed. He opened the drawer beneath the table, slipped Dad's photograph inside, and pushed it shut with a soft click.

The whole thing was so smooth, so effortless, that it felt practiced. It was as if he'd been rearranging my home for years.

My nails dug into my palms until the dull sting brought me back to myself.

Dinner was served soon afterward. Marilyn took her usual seat at the head of the table. Without hesitation, Callan pulled out the chair immediately to her right and sat down, as if that seat had always been his.

I sat across from Marilyn at the opposite end, as far away from both of them as I could get.

Callan controlled the conversation through most of dinner, talking almost exclusively about work. Marilyn occasionally responded, but for the most part, she simply listened.

Their world of budgets, contracts, and corporate decisions felt impossibly far removed from the life I'd been living for the past five years. Yet, somehow, it had been close enough to kill my father.

All that had stood between him and the money he needed was a request in their company portal.

"Oh, that reminds me." Callan turned to me as though the thought had only just occurred to him, a polished professional smile settling onto his face. "Lucian, I took another look at that emergency advance you submitted."

For a moment, the atmosphere around the table seemed to freeze.

Callan continued, "According to the system logs, you actually submitted the request in Bellan dollars instead of dollars.

"You were probably panicking and selected the wrong currency. Just be more careful next time. Mistakes like that create a real headache for the accounting department."

Then he sighed, wearing the patient expression of someone generously overlooking another person's incompetence. "Everyone makes mistakes, but you really need to slow down and pay attention. You can't keep creating problems for Marilyn to clean up."

Selected the wrong currency?

I set down my fork. The sharp clink of metal against porcelain cut through the room.

Then I looked Callan straight in the eye. "Mr. Rourke, once an expense request has been submitted, does the person approving it have permission to edit the request directly? Including the currency?"