Fort Brothers

0005— Isa

It’s not that I didn’t want to talk. I always did. I always wanted someone I could actually tell everything to.

My father was never that person.

If he had been, he would’ve understood how wrong it was — marrying me off to a man I’d only known for twenty-four hours.

Of course, Kesley was fine with it. She never saw me as a person, just leverage.

I got the MBA. I got the CNA. All of it was forced down my throat for the “good of the family business.”

Suddenly, marriage became another cage. Just a prettier one with flowers, vows, and a ring

I married Scott in a flash wedding that felt more like signing a business transaction than saying vows.

He had a temper that lived just under his skin. He never gave me room to breathe without deciding what I should do with it. A man who believed the world bent to his will, and I was supposed to bend with it.

I was ambitious. I had plans that stretched further than being somebody’s wife standing beside him at events with a practiced smile glued to my face.

Made Scott and I a terrible match. Our parents picked wrong, and Scott corrected it for them by serving me divorce papers.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to unload all that.

Years of it. Years of cruelty. Scathing, biting words.

Of getting slapped across the face by my father’s sister, and somehow ending up the one expected to apologise after.

I looked at him—at Mr Edmund—and thought better of it.

Not on a man who already had a sick brother to care for, plus what I imagined were his own heavy pile of personal and business problems.

“It’s stopped raining,” I said, setting the wine glass down on the centre table with more care than necessary. “I should head out now.”

I pushed myself to my feet before I could overthink it.

The room still felt warm from the fire, too warm in a way that made leaving feel slightly heavier than it should’ve.

I appreciated his gestures — the champagne, the conversation by the fire, the strange mix of hospitality and bluntness, how he’d looked me up and down in the kitchen earlier and told me I didn’t look professional at all.

That still stung

"Let me drop you off then," he said, already pushing to his feet.

“Don’t bother." The words came out sharper than I intended.

Mr. Edmund’s face shifted—just a flicker of a frown, there and gone.

I felt his eyes on me the whole time I turned and walked out. Puzzled. Confused. Like he had no idea what he’d done to deserve that.

Outside it was still drizzling. The air was cool and heavy, smelled like wet pavement and clean rain.

I pulled my leather jacket tighter around me and half-ran down the driveway, hoping I could grab a taxi before it got worse.

***

“She can handle it. She’s a nurse after all.”

I stopped in the hallway.

It was Kesley. I recognised her voice immediately.

My clothes were still damp from the rain and sticking to me slightly. My hair was wet and hanging heavier than usual. I knew I should go upstairs, take a hot shower, change, maybe drink something warm. I couldn’t show up to work already sounding like I had a cough when I’d be the one looking after someone.

“Pull her off Mr. Fort’s case, Kesley. There are other nurses. Professionals who can handle it,” my father said.

I frowned when I heard him

“Isa's got a nursing certificate, doesn’t she?

If the MBA was a waste, let her at least make use of that.”

"Kelsey—"

"Isa is 24 now, not a child anymore. It’s time she learned the truth about her paternity—that her father is a Fort, and that's why I sent her there. Or better yet, push her to become a wife again. Scott asked to meet. Said he wanted to remarry her."