Chapter Two: Library

LENA

The library opened at seven. I got there at ten to eight.

I picked the corner table in the east wing. The one facing the door. I wanted to see him coming. I set the contract down and smoothed the pages flat.

Landon walked in at eight exactly. He carried two coffees, one in each hand. He set one in front of me without asking.

"I made changes." I slid the pages toward him.

He read them standing up. First payment transfers before I wear the jacket. Not after. No physical contact I haven't agreed to first. If your father contacts me directly, this ends. I keep everything already paid.

He sat down slowly. "You think he'll contact you."

"I think you know something you haven't told me."

He didn't answer that. He turned to the next page instead. Sundays stay mine. My brother's day. No events, no appearances, nothing.

"Fine." He pulled a pen from his jacket.

"Not yet." I kept my hand flat on the page. "Who's Cassidy Hale."

His jaw shifted, just slightly. "My father picked her. Before he picked you. Her father runs a firm he's merging with."

"So why me instead of her."

"Because she knows what she's worth to him." He turned the coffee cup a quarter turn. "You don't. Not yet."

I let that sit for a second. "What's the trust."

He looked at me for a long moment. "My mother has a heart condition. Managed through a trust my father controls. He decides what gets funded, and when."

"That's not in the contract."

"It's not supposed to be." His voice went careful. "But I want it there. If he redirects her funding because of us, the second payment doubles."

I read the new line he'd written at the bottom, in his own hand. I read it twice, checking the math against Leo's number.

"Why give me leverage over your own father." I watched his face for a lie.

"Because it isn't leverage over him." He met my eyes. "It's insurance for her."

I signed first. My hand didn't shake this time. He signed after me, quick and slanted, like he'd practiced not hesitating.

Four minutes. Two signatures. I folded my copy into my bag.

"One more thing." He stood, gathering his coffee cup. "He already knows we're meeting this morning."

I went still. "How."

"He has people. Everywhere that matters to him." Landon looked toward the door, like he expected it to open. "I'm telling you now. I'd rather you hear it from me."

"That's not the same as telling me everything."

"No." He held my eyes a second longer. "It's not."

He left before I could push further. Quiet and certain, the same way he had in the practice room. Like staying to argue wasn't part of any plan he'd made. I sat there with my coffee going cold. I read the contract one more time from the top.

Sixty seconds after he left, my phone buzzed. Unknown number. No message. Just a photo. Me, at this table. Taken from somewhere near the reference stacks. Timestamped 8:03 AM.

I deleted it. I sat with my hands flat on the table until they stopped feeling cold.

I thought about my mother's numbers on the envelope. I thought about Leo's face when I told him I might have a plan. I hadn't told him the plan yet. I wasn't sure I could explain it without it sounding like exactly what it was.

I packed my bag and walked to first period the long way. Past the gym. Past the parking lot where I'd played my concert last spring. Nobody watching, I told myself.

I didn't know yet how wrong that was.

Priya caught me at my locker before the bell. "You look like you slept four hours."

"Three."

"You want to talk about it."

"Not yet." I closed the locker. "Ask me again after Thursday."

She studied my face, like she was reading a page I hadn't shown her. She let it go anyway. That was Priya. Patient until she wasn't.

I walked into first period and sat by the window. I pulled out my notebook. I wrote nothing in it for ten minutes. I just held the pen and thought about a photo taken from the reference stacks. About a man who already knew where I'd be before I did.

Landon had told me about the trust. He hadn't told me who was watching. He hadn't said how long they'd been watching, or what else they already knew about my family. Things I hadn't said out loud to anyone but him.

That felt like the part of the contract nobody had written down.

I ran my thumb along the edge of my notebook and made myself breathe evenly. Four seconds in. Four seconds out. Leo's cardiologist trick, borrowed for a different kind of emergency.

The teacher's voice faded into background noise. I kept thinking about the photo. About the timestamp. About the fact that whoever took it had known exactly where to stand without being seen.

By the time the bell rang, I had a plan of my own forming. Watch everything. Say less than I knew. Let Landon believe I trusted him completely, even on the days I didn't.

It wasn't a kind way to start something. But neither was a contract with a price tag attached to my own brother's heart.