All Chapters of OWNED BY MY EX'S GODFATHER: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

41 Chapters

Chapter Thirty-One:

Alexander comes home from his meeting with Marcus at two in the afternoon. I am still in my room with the sketchbook open on the desk and charcoal on my hands. I have been drawing for three hours straight. The sixth piece is almost finished. Just a few more details and it will be done.I hear him on the stairs. Then his footsteps in the hallway. He stops in the doorway of my room but does not come in. He has learned not to interrupt when I am working. I learned that he learned this about two months ago when I looked up from a drawing and he was just standing there watching me. I asked him how long he had been there, and he said twenty minutes. Since then, he always waits until I notice him."Hi," I say without looking up."Hi. Can I come in?""Yes."He crosses the room and sits on the edge of my bed. I can feel him watching me, but I do not stop drawing. I am almost done with this section. Just a few more lines and the light will be right."How did the meeting go?" I ask."Good. The f

Chapter Thirty-Two:

Alexander leaves for Brooklyn at nine in the morning. I walk him to the door. He is wearing jeans and a sweater instead of a suit. I have never seen him this casual for anything that matters. I think he is trying not to look like the billionaire his father has been watching from a distance for thirty-five years. He is trying to look like the son who needs answers."Call me if you need me," I say."I will.""I mean it. If it gets to be too much. If you need to leave. Just call me, and I will come get you."He cups my face in his hands. Kisses me slowly. "I will be fine. This is something I need to do.""I know. But the offer stands anyway.""Thank you."He leaves. I watch from the window as his car pulls out of the garage and disappears into morning traffic. Then I am alone in the penthouse with nothing to do except wait.I try to work on a new drawing. I sit at my desk with a fresh page and charcoal in my hand, but nothing comes. My mind is in Brooklyn with Alexander. Wondering what h

Chapter Thirty-Three:

I lead Alexander to the couch. He sits down heavily like his legs will not hold him anymore. I sit beside him and take his hand. He is gripping it so tight my fingers are starting to go numb, but I do not pull away."Tell me what happened," I say.He is quiet for a long time. Staring at nothing. I wait. I have learned that pushing him does not work. He needs to arrive at the words on his own."My father told me everything," he says finally. "Not just why he left. But what happened after? How he stayed in contact with my mother. How she knew where he was the whole time. How she made the choice to tell me he was gone and never coming back because she thought it would be easier for me to grieve someone who was dead than someone who was alive but unreachable." "She was trying to protect you.""I know. That is what my father said. That is what she told him. But it does not change the fact that she lied to me for years. She let me think he abandoned us. She let me build my entire identity a

Chapter Thirty-Four:

The dinner with Alexander's father is scheduled for Friday night. Three days away. Alexander spends those three days quieter than usual. Not distant. Just somewhere else in his head. Processing. I give him space when he needs it and stay close when he does not. I am learning the difference.On Wednesday afternoon I am in my room working on a new drawing when my phone rings. It is a number I recognize now. James Carver.I hesitate before answering. Then I pick up."Hello.""Sophia. I hope I am not interrupting." "You are. But I will allow it this once. What do you want?""I wanted to check in. To see how Alexander is doing after his conversation with his father.""You already know how he is doing. You probably know what they talked about. You seem to know everything." "I know what his father told him. I do not know how he is processing it. Those are different things."I set down my charcoal. "He is processing it the way anyone would. He is angry and sad and grieving a mother who lied t

Chapter Thirty-Five:

The waiter brings our food. We eat in silence for a while. The kind of silence that is not comfortable but is not hostile either. Just four people sitting with the weight of everything that has been said and everything that has not been said yet.James is the first to break it. "I owe you both an apology," he says. He is looking at me when he says it. "Sophia especially. I have already apologized over the phone. But I want to say it here. In person. In front of witnesses. What I did was wrong. Watching you for two years. Interfering in your life. Helping to engineer circumstances that brought you and Alexander together. It was a violation of your privacy and your autonomy. I am sorry.""Why did you do it?" I ask. "And do not tell me it was for Alexander's father. That is not the whole truth."James is quiet for a moment. Then he says, "Because thirty-five years ago I helped a man disappear. I thought I was saving his life. I was. But I did not think about what I was taking from him. F

Chapter Thirty-Six:

I am in my room working on the new series when my phone rings. Unknown number. I almost do not answer. But something makes me pick up anyway."Hello?""Sophia. It is your father."I go very still. I have not spoken to my father in six months. Not since the night I left Chicago with one suitcase and a folder full of my mother's medical bills. Not since he sat me down in his office and told me I needed to think about next steps. Not since he chose Vivienne and Chloe over me without even pretending it was a difficult decision."How did you get this number?" I ask."Vivienne found it. She has been keeping track of you. She saw the article about the foundation. About Alexander naming it after your mother."Of course she has been keeping track. Vivienne does not let things go. She catalogs them. Files them. Waits for the right moment to use them. "What do you want?" I ask."I want to talk to you. To apologize. To explain." "There is nothing to explain. You made your choice. You chose them o

Chapter Thirty-Seven:

The call comes at six forty-three on a Tuesday morning.I am already awake. I have been awake since five, the way I always am awake before the city decides to be, sitting at the kitchen counter with coffee going cold beside me and a Kane Global quarterly brief open on my laptop that I have not read a single word of. I have been listening to Sophia sleep instead. The particular quiet of someone who finally went under after hours of not being able to. She fell asleep around two. I know because I was watching the ceiling and tracking her breathing until it changed.The number on my phone is one I recognize but have not seen in eleven years.I answer it anyway."Alexander," Richard Hale's voice. Derek's father. My oldest friend, before he became something more complicated than that. "I need to talk to you.""It is six in the morning, Richard.""I know. I am sorry. I would not call if it were not important."I close the laptop. Stand up. Move to the window where the city is gray and just b

Chapter Thirty-Eight:

The filing hits the news cycle at eleven forty-seven on a Wednesday morning.I am in a board meeting when Marcus sends the alert. I feel my phone vibrate twice in my jacket pocket, and I do not reach for it because I am mid-sentence and because I have learned that reaching for a phone in the middle of a sentence tells a room something about your priorities. I finish what I am saying. I let the discussion continue for four more minutes. Then I excuse myself.Marcus is waiting in the hallway outside the conference room. He does not look alarmed. Marcus never looks alarmed. It is the quality I pay him most for."Three outlets," he says. A legal correspondent at the Tribune picked it up first. The filing names her twice. Once as a recipient of proprietary documents. Once as a potential material witness.""Who leaked the filing?""Derek's legal team. Deliberately. They want the public narrative established before we can counter it."I look at the wall across from me for exactly three secon

Chapter Thirty-Nine:

She decides at nine forty-three.I know because I am in the study going through Marcus's revised legal response when I hear her come down the stairs. Not hurried. Not hesitant. The specific footfall of someone who has finished thinking and is now moving.She appears in the doorway. Still in the clothes she wore to lunch. Hair still undone from the wind on the terrace."Call Nadia Reeves," she says.I look up from the documents. "Tonight?""Leave a message if she does not pick up. I want it done before I change my mind."I reach for my phone. Sophia does not move from the doorway. She stands there while I dial, watching me the way she watches things she needs to confirm are real. Nadia picks up on the third ring, which surprises me. It is nearly ten."Kane," she says. Not a question. Journalists who cover finance keep late hours and irregular instincts. "I wondered when you would call.""Sophia Bennett wants to sit down with you. Her story. Her terms. One condition.""What condition?"

Chapter Forty:

The article publishes on a Monday.I know it is live before Sophia does because Marcus sends me the link at six twelve in the morning with a single line beneath it: “Clean. Accurate. Read it before she does.”I read it standing at the kitchen counter in the gray early light. Nadia gave it the full treatment. Not a sidebar. Not a response piece buried in the business section. The front page of the Times' weekend magazine was pushed to digital Monday morning for maximum reach. The headline is simple.Her Name Was Claire.I read it twice. Then I put my phone face down on the counter and make coffee and think about what it is going to feel like when Sophia reads her own life rendered in someone else's sentences, even honest ones. Even careful ones. There is something specific about seeing yourself in print that has nothing to do with accuracy. It is the permanence of it. The fact that it exists now outside of you and cannot be taken back.She comes downstairs at seven. Hair loose. My shir

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