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Chapter Twenty-Four:
publish date:
2026-07-02 18:12:22
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OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Twenty-Six:
I am still staring at the space where James Carver disappeared when I feel Alexander's hand loosen on mine. Not letting go. Just easing the grip that was starting to cut off circulation. I look at him. His face is unreadable in the way it gets when he is processing something too large to show in a room full of people who are watching."Are you okay?" I ask."No."The honesty catches me off guard. Not because he does not tell me the truth. He does. Always. But because he just said it out loud in a ballroom full of two hundred people who would use that admission against him if they heard it."Do you want to leave?" I ask."No. We stay. We do exactly what we came here to do.""Which is what?"He looks at me. Really looks at me. And I see something in his face I have not seen before. Not the fourth register. Not the stillness I have catalogued over the past months. Something new. Something that looks almost like relief."We show up exactly as we are," he says. "That is what you told me th
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Twenty-Five:
James Carver does not look surprised when we approach. He looks like he has been waiting. Like he knew exactly when we would arrive and exactly when we would cross the room to him. He sets his champagne glass on the tray of a passing server and turns to face us fully."Mr. Kane," he says. His voice is quiet. Measured. The voice of someone who has spent a lifetime saying only what needs to be said. "Miss Bennett. I wondered how long it would take you to find me.""You made it easy," Alexander says. "You wanted to be found.""Yes. I did."I study him up close. He is older than I thought when I saw him at the gallery. Mid-seventies maybe. But he moves like someone younger. There is a stillness to him that reminds me of Alexander. Not the same kind. But from the same place. The stillness of someone who learned early that movement draws attention and attention can be dangerous."Is my father alive?" Alexander asks. No preamble. No buildup. Just the question that has been sitting between us
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Twenty-Four:
I stand in the closet looking at the dresses Alexander has chosen for events like this. The gala. The one that is happening tonight. The one he lied about the timing of because he thought I needed protecting from my own anxiety.He was right. I would have spent two days bracing for this if I had known. Instead I spent last night sleeping next to him and this morning drinking coffee and telling him it does not matter how we got here. It only matters what we do now.I believe that. I have to believe that. Because if I start questioning whether the bar was planned or whether someone decided I was going to matter to Alexander before I decided it myself, I will spiral into a version of myself I do not want to be anymore. The version that second-guesses everything. That assumes every good thing is a trick waiting to fall apart.I pull a dress from the rack. Dark green. Simple lines. The kind of thing that will photograph well but will not make me feel like I am wearing a costume. I have bee
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Twenty-Three:
I wake before Sophia. The room is still dark, but the city outside is beginning to lighten at the edges. Dawn is an hour away. I have been awake for longer than that. Lying still so I do not wake her. Thinking about the letter in my desk drawer and the man who wrote the final page.James Carver. I have not thought about that name in thirty years. My father mentioned him exactly three times that I can remember. Once when I was eight and asked why we never had visitors. Once when I was ten, I found a photograph in my father's desk of two men standing in front of a building I did not recognize. Once when I was twelve and my father told me that if anything ever happened to him, if he ever had to leave and could not come back, I should remember that some people disappear because staying would hurt the people they love more than leaving ever could.I did not understand what he meant at the time. I thought he was being dramatic. Parents did not just disappear. They stayed. They worked. They
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Twenty-Two:
I am still holding the letter when I ask the question that has been forming since Alexander handed it to me."If James Carver has been watching me for two years," I say slowly, "and your father has been aware of me before the contract, then what does that mean about the contract itself?"Alexander does not answer immediately. I watch him turn the question over the way he turns everything over. Precisely. Carefully. Looking for the edges that might cut if handled wrong. He is sitting across from me in his office chair, still in the suit he wore to my gallery show. My gallery show was interrupted by a ghost from his past who has apparently been watching me longer than Alexander has known me."It means," he says finally, "that someone knew we were going to meet before either of us did."I set the letter down on the desk between us. My hands are steady, but it takes effort to keep them that way. I am processing. Not panicking. Just taking in information and filing it the way I have always
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Twenty-One:
Alexander scans the room again. Slowly. The way he learned to scan rooms thirty years ago when he was building the first version of himself that mattered. Not looking for a face. Looking for the absence of one. The negative space where someone should be but has deliberately made themselves not be.The man is gone. Of course he is. Men like that do not stay in rooms longer than necessary. They deliver messages and disappear before anyone can ask the questions that matter.Sophia is still beside him. Waiting. She has learned not to push when he goes still like this. But this stillness is different from the ones she has cataloged, and she knows it. He can see her noticing. The fourth register. The one he thought he had buried so deep it would never surface in front of anyone again."We need to leave," Alexander says."Now?""Yes."He does not explain. He takes her hand and moves toward the exit. Not running. That would draw attention. But deliberate. Fast enough that people step aside wi
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Ten:
"You do not have to tell me tonight. But I need you to know I am not going anywhere while you decide."Sophia says this after Alexander tells her he needs to decide if he is ready to tell her about South Chicago. They are still in the smaller library. The afternoon light has shifted to early-evenin
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Nine:
"I need you to stay in this room until I tell you otherwise. Not a rule. A request."Alexander says this to Sophia in the entrance hall before he leaves for the office. She is standing by the kitchen counter with her coffee, still in the grey cashmere robe she has been wearing every morning since s
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Eight:
"You already knew it was her, didn't you?"It is not a question. Sophia is watching Alexander's face as she says it, and she can see the answer before he gives it. He did not go still when she started talking about the cocktail reception because the information was new. He went still because she ha
OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER Chapter Seven:
"Whoever is doing this has been inside my company for longer than three weeks. I need to know who it is before they know I am looking."Alexander is on a call at six in the morning, standing at the window of his office with the city still grey below him. Marcus Reeves is on the other end. Head of i
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