Chapter 40
SOPHIA
I caught him at his house this time, one of the rare evenings Nora had a late meeting with her father, the kind of window we used to treat as sacred once, hours we'd claim for ourselves without a second thought. I let myself in with the key I still had, the one he'd never asked back even after everything had started shifting, and found him in his study, tie loosened, a drink in his hand, staring at nothing in particular.
"We need to talk," I said, closing the door behind me. "Really talk. Not you brushing me off, not you telling me to be patient. I want to know what's actually going on."
He looked up at me, tired, something guarded settling over his face the way it had every time I'd tried to have this conversation for the past month. "Sophia, not tonight."
"When, th
