Ava’s POV
I spent most of the morning trying to decide whether I had the right to ask.
The west wing was quiet, as it had been since Corren restricted my movement. I sat by the window with a cup of coffee gone cold, watching the gardeners move across the distant lawns, and felt the old restlessness return. Before all of this—before Vance’s betrayal, before the restroom, before the rules and the study and the word *Daddy*—I had been planning to continue my studies. Nothing ambitious. A few courses. Something that belonged to me. The estate had swallowed that plan along with everything else.
By noon the thought had hardened into something I could no longer ignore.
I left my room and walked the long corridor that connected the west wing to the main house. A security man near the staircase
