Violet didn’t move at first.
It wasn’t fear exactly, and it wasn’t shock either. It was something heavier, something that settled in her chest the second she heard his voice and refused to leave. Her mind caught up slower than everything else, trying to connect the version of him she remembered with the one standing in front of her now.
He looked the same in the ways that mattered.
That was the problem.
“Violet,” he said again, like saying her name twice would make this easier.
It didn’t.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice steady in a way she didn’t fully feel.
Her father exhaled slowly, like he had been preparing for this and still wasn’t ready. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I changed my number,” she replied. “On purpose.”
That landed.
Aria shifted slightly besi
