Chapter 9

I couldn’t get my father’s words out of my head.

Daniel knows… the truth about the accident.

They looped in my brain like a broken record as I paced the narrow hospital corridor. My palms are damp, and my chest too tight to draw a full breath. Dad had never spoken about the accident, not once since he woke up after the surgery. Not to me, not to Sophia, not to anyone. And now, out of nowhere, he’d chosen those words. Why? Why now?

I pressed my back against the wall and closed my eyes. I wanted to believe Daniel wasn’t hiding anything. But Dad’s voice was raspy and desperate, cutting into the fragile little hope I’d been piecing together.

And the worst part? A part of me had always known Daniel was keeping something from me.

The next morning, I dragged myself into the nonprofit office, only to be hit with another blow. Ellen, our program coordinator, was waiting by the door, a file clutched against her chest. Her eyes were wide, and she didn’t even bother with a good morning.

“Jane… they canceled.”

My stomach dropped. “Who?”

“Brookfield Supplies. They’re pulling out of our contract. Effective immediately.”

I blinked, unable to process. Brookfield was our biggest partner. They donated food for the kids’ meal program, enough to cover two entire neighborhoods. Without them, the shelves would run dry in less than two weeks.

“What reason did they give?” I asked, my voice shaking.

Ellen glanced down at the paper. “They just said… ‘Corporate pressure.’ That’s all.”

The words made my skin crawl. Corporate pressure. Who could lean on a company like Brookfield? My mind supplied the answer almost instantly: Jonathan Pierce.

But I didn’t let myself believe it fully, not yet.

I forced my voice steady. “Okay. Thank you, Ellen. I’ll handle it.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, but nodded and left me alone in my office.

The silence pressed in around me. I sat heavily at my desk, staring at the eviction notice still taped to the edge of the monitor, the letter in my drawer, and now this, the canceled contract.

Every piece of my life was being stripped away, one careful move at a time, like someone playing chess with my entire future.

Daniel showed up an hour later.

I hated how my heart reacted when I saw him, how it still stumbled, how my body remembered the way his arms once felt around me, even when my mind screamed “don’t trust him.”

He walked into the office like he belonged there, crisp suit, jaw tight, eyes flicking instantly to my face.

“You heard,” I said flatly.

“I heard,” he admitted, stepping closer. “Brookfield pulled out.”

I crossed my arms, trying to protect myself. “And you just happened to know about it the same morning I did?”

“Jane…” He ran a hand through his hair, the way he always did when he was frustrated. “This isn’t a coincidence. Pierce is behind this.”

I shook my head. “You keep saying that, but all I have are your words. Do you have proof? Anything at all?”

His mouth tightened. He didn’t answer quickly enough, and that hesitation was all I needed to feel the ground shift under me.

I took a step back. “You can’t keep expecting me to take everything on faith, Daniel. Not after what you did. Not after you left.”

Something flickered across his face, pain, maybe regret, but he didn’t defend himself. Instead, he said, “Let me fix this.”

I wanted to laugh, but it came out broken. “Fix what? My nonprofit? My father? Or the accident you’ve never been able to look me in the eye and talk about?”

His jaw clenched, but instead of answering, he pulled out his phone. “I can set up a meeting with Brookfield. Today. They won’t refuse to sit down with me.”

And that was true. Daniel Logan wasn’t just a man anymore. He was an empire. He had power, influence, and reach. People listened when he spoke.

So why did I feel like letting him step in meant giving up something of myself?

The meeting was that afternoon.

I sat across the glossy boardroom table, trying to keep my hands from trembling as Daniel worked the room. The Brookfield executives were stiff at first, their answers clipped. Their eyes slid to me with pity I didn’t want.

But Daniel leaned forward, spoke with that quiet authority, cutting through their excuses like glass.

It was like watching him wield a weapon I’d never understood. He didn’t threaten. He didn’t beg. He simply reminded them of what they stood to lose: contracts, reputation, community, and goodwill, if they abandoned my nonprofit. And somehow, it worked. By the end of the hour, the CEO himself was shaking Daniel’s hand, agreeing to reinstate the partnership.

I should have been relieved. Grateful. Overjoyed.

Instead, all I felt was unease.

Because in the hallway, as the executives filed out, I caught the tail end of a hushed conversation between two of them.

“…I told you, he only came back because of the accident…”

I froze.

The accident.

They walked past me, not noticing, but the words lodged in my chest like glass splinters. I turned, my eyes searching for Daniel, but he was still inside, finishing paperwork, looking for all the world like the savior of the day.

My savior. My betrayer. Which one was he?

That night, I stayed at the hospital late. I didn’t want to go home, not when my apartment felt haunted by envelopes and shadows under streetlights. I sat by Dad’s bedside, watching the machines breathe for him, the faint rise and fall of his chest. His skin looked thinner than ever, his eyes closed, his hand cold in mine.

I whispered into the quiet. “Dad… if you know something, please. Please just tell me. I can’t keep guessing.”

The machines hummed. The night stretched on.

And then, around midnight, his fingers twitched in mine. His eyelids fluttered. His gaze, cloudy but sharp with sudden fear, fixed on me.

He struggled, his voice rasping out, barely a whisper. “Don’t trust Daniel.”

I leaned closer, my heart hammering. “What? Dad, what do you mean?”

His grip tightened with a strength I didn’t know he had left. “He was there. The accident. He was there.”

The words hit me like a sledgehammer.

Before I could ask more, his strength faltered, and his eyes slipped shut again. The machines beeped steadily, like nothing had happened.

But everything had changed.

I sat frozen in that chair, my father’s words echoing through me like gunfire.

Daniel. The boy I’d loved. The man who had reappeared in my life, promising to protect me.

He was there.

At the accident.

And now I didn’t know if I was sleeping beside a shield or a knife aimed straight at my heart.