CHAPTER THIRTY ONE — Face To Face
1159 Words
LENA'S POV
Edmund requested a private meeting two days before the trial.
Helen brought the request to the compound personally, sliding the letter across the conference table like she expected it to be radioactive. "His lawyers framed it as a settlement discussion," she said. "No lawyers present except mine and his, and you, Lena. He wants to talk before this goes any further."
Ghost picked up the letter and read it once, his jaw tightening with every line. "No," he said immediately, setting it back down. "Absolutely not."
"I want to go," I said.
The room went quiet.
"Lena," Ghost said, turning to face me fully. "You do not owe him a conversation. Not after everything."
"I know I do not owe him anything," I said. "I want to go anyway."
"Why," Axel said, leaning forward. "What could possibly come out of that meeting that helps us."
I thought about the question seriously before answering. "Because I have spent this entire fight reacting to him," I said. "His bounty, his lawyers, his television interview. I have never once looked him in the eye since the altar and told him exactly what I think of him while standing on solid ground instead of running. I need that. Not for the case. For me."
Ghost studied me for a long moment. "And if he tries something."
"Rook comes with me," I said. "Inside the room. Not negotiable."
Rook, who had been silent until then, said simply, "agreed."
Ghost looked between the two of us, weighing it. "I do not like this," he said finally.
"I know," I said. "But it is my decision to make."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded once, the particular nod that meant he was letting go of control because he trusted the person taking it. "Rook does not leave your side," he said. "Not for one second."
"Understood," Rook said.
The meeting took place in a small private room at the courthouse annex, neutral ground that Helen had insisted on. I walked in with Rook a step behind me and saw Edmund already seated at the table, flanked by two lawyers, looking smaller than he had on television.
He stood when I entered, an old habit of manners that felt grotesque given everything.
"Lena," he said. "You look well."
"Sit down, Edmund," I said.
He sat. I sat across from him, Rook taking the chair beside me, his presence steady and immovable.
"I wanted to speak with you directly," Edmund said, folding his hands on the table. "Without all the noise. The lawyers, the cameras, the motorcycle club making everything so dramatic."
"There is nothing dramatic about what you did to me," I said.
"I have always cared for you," he said, his voice taking on the practiced warmth I remembered from before the wedding. "Whatever happened between us, I never intended harm."
"You assaulted me in your own hallway," I said, my voice steady despite the way my hands wanted to shake. "Three months before a wedding I did not consent to, to a man I did not choose, after my parents sold me to you like livestock."
His expression flickered, something almost like genuine surprise crossing it before he smoothed it away. "That is a harsh way to characterize...."
"It is the accurate way," I said. "I am done softening language for your comfort, Edmund."
He leaned back slightly. "I am prepared to drop everything," he said. "The custody claim, the protective order request, all of it. Completely withdrawn. If you come back to me. Quietly. We handle the pregnancy privately, away from all of this circus."
I stared at him for a long moment.
"You think I would trade my freedom and my children's safety for your silence," I said.
"I think you are intelligent enough to understand what I am offering," he said. "A clean resolution. No more headlines. No more legal battles. Your children raised in comfort and privacy rather than in some motorcycle compound surrounded by criminals."
I stood up.
Rook stood with me instantly, his hand brushing my arm in quiet support.
"No," I said, looking down at Edmund. "The same word I gave you at the altar. No. I will give it to you in every room you put me in for the rest of my life if I have to."
Edmund's composure cracked, just slightly, something colder showing underneath. "I expected that," he said quietly. "I had hoped you would be reasonable. But I expected this."
"Then you already know how this ends," I said.
I turned to leave.
"Lena," Edmund said.
I stopped, looking back at him.
He was not looking at me anymore. His eyes had moved to Rook, and something passed across his face that I did not understand, calculating and quiet.
"Tell your friend," Edmund said, his voice dropping lower, meant only for the room, "that some debts come due eventually. No matter how long a man hides from them."
Rook's jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly, but I caught it.
"What does that mean," I said.
"Nothing that concerns you," Edmund said, his usual polish returning instantly. "A private matter."
I looked at Rook. His face had gone carefully blank in a way I had only seen once before, the night he told me about what he almost became before Ghost found him.
"We are leaving," I said.
Rook did not argue.
Outside the courthouse annex, in the parking lot, I turned to him immediately.
"What did he mean," I said. "What debt."
Rook was quiet for a long moment, staring at nothing in particular. "I do not know," he said finally. "I genuinely do not know what he was referring to."
"Rook."
"I am not lying to you," he said, meeting my eyes. "I do not know what he meant. But I intend to find out before he uses it as a weapon."
I studied his face, the careful control he was holding onto. "Are you scared," I said.
He considered the question honestly, the way he always did. "I am uncertain," he said. "That is different from scared, but it is close enough to feel uncomfortable."
We drove back to the compound in silence, both of us turning Edmund's words over privately, neither of us finding anything solid to hold onto.
When we arrived, Ghost was waiting at the gate, reading something on his face the moment he saw us that told him the meeting had not gone the way anyone expected.
"What happened," he said.
I looked at Rook.
Rook looked back at me, then at Ghost.
"Edmund knows something about my past," Rook said quietly. "Something I do not think even I fully understand yet."
Ghost's expression shifted into the particular stillness that meant he was already three steps ahead, already calculating what this meant and what came next.
"Then we find out what it is," Ghost said, "before he gets the chance to use it."
- Writer
