Chapter 68 Chapter 68
The room didn’t spin.
It didn’t tilt or blur the way it should have when the ground drops out from under you.
It went very still.
The chandelier above us seemed to freeze mid-glint, every crystal shard holding its breath. The clink of cutlery from the kitchen stopped. Even the rain outside felt muted, like it had been turned down out of respect for whatever had just been detonated at the table.
My mother stared at the photograph.
Not like someone confused.
Like someone who had just been reminded of a pain she had trained herself to forget.
“What is this?” she asked quietly.
Her voice scared me more than if she had shouted.
Nolan reached for the photo, but Jace’s father lifted a hand, stopping him. His face had gone pale, the polished executive mask cracking just enough to show something human underneath.
“It’s an old picture,” Nolan said. “From years ago. Before everything.”
“Before what?” my mother pressed.
Marvin leaned back in his chair, satisfaction curling his mouth. This was his arena. He finally had one where he wasn’t losing.
“Before your husband died,” he said.
Jace shot to his feet so fast his chair screeched against the floor. “Shut up.”
“Or what?” Marvin snapped back, standing too. “You’ll punch me again? In front of everyone? Dad would love that.”
“Enough,” Jace’s father barked.
But it was too late. The word had landed. Died. It echoed in my head, bouncing off memories I kept locked away. Hospital corridors. Closed caskets. My mother crying into pillows she thought I couldn’t hear.
I felt Jace’s grip loosen. Not because he didn’t want to hold me anymore. Because he was shaking.
My eyes stayed on the photograph.
My childhood home sat in the background, smaller than I remembered, its white paint dull in the sunlight. In the foreground, Nolan stood beside Jace’s father. They were younger. Looser. Too close to be strangers.
And between them, barely noticeable unless you were looking for ghosts, was my dad.
Alive.
I pushed my chair back slowly and stood.
“You knew him,” I said, my voice sounding far away even to me. “You both knew my father.”
Nolan swallowed. “Cass…”
“No,” I said. “Don’t soften it. Don’t do that thing where you sound like you’re protecting me when you’re actually protecting yourself.”
My mother finally looked up. Her eyes met Nolan’s, searching. Begging.
“You told me you didn’t know him,” she whispered.
“I didn’t lie,” Nolan said. “I just… didn’t tell the whole truth.”
Jace’s father exhaled sharply. “We were partners. Years ago. Before the business split. Before things went wrong.”
“What went wrong?” I asked.
Silence.
Zayelle watched me like she was studying a painting she’d already decided she owned.
Marvin broke the quiet. “He lost everything. The company folded. Dad walked away. Nolan stayed behind. Your father couldn’t.”
My mother’s hand flew to her mouth.
I felt something crack in my chest. Not shatter. Crack. A clean, sharp line running through everything I thought I knew.
“You stood in my house,” I said slowly, looking at Jace’s father. “You stood where my father raised me. Where he died. And you never said a word.”
“It wasn’t my story to tell,” he said.
“It was my life,” I snapped.
Jace stepped in front of me then, without asking. A quiet shield. His back was straight, his jaw set, his voice steady in a way that told me he had been preparing for this kind of moment his entire life.
“This is over,” he said. “Dinner is done.”
His father looked at him sharply. “Sit down.”
“No.”
Marvin laughed. A short, disbelieving sound. “Wow. Look at you. Playing hero. You didn’t even know, did you?”
Jace didn’t look at him. He looked at me.
And in his eyes was not surprise.
It was guilt.
“You knew,” I said softly.
He flinched.
“I knew pieces,” he admitted. “Not this. Not the picture. But I knew our fathers were connected. I didn’t know how.”
The hurt twisted. Not because he’d lied. Because he’d been carrying it alone.
My mother stood then, smoothing her dress with trembling hands. “We’re leaving.”
No one argued.
The drive home was silent. Rain streaked the windows like the world was crying in a language I couldn’t translate. Nolan tried to speak twice. My mother didn’t let him.
I stared out the window and replayed everything I’d missed. Every dinner. Every laugh. Every moment that felt like healing but was built on a foundation that had been cracked all along.
When we got home, my mother finally broke.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t throw anything.
She sat at the kitchen table and cried the way only someone who has been strong for too long can cry.
“I loved him,” she said. “I loved your father. And I loved Nolan too. Just… not at the same time.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything.
I went to my room and locked the door.
The diary was waiting for me like it had always been.
I opened to a blank page and let the words pour out, messy and unfiltered and angry.
Everyone keeps telling me the truth comes out eventually.
No one tells you how violent it feels when it does.
I don’t know who I’m supposed to be mad at.
I don’t know who I’m allowed to love.
I pressed my pen so hard it tore the page.
My phone buzzed.
Jace.
I stared at his name until my chest hurt.
Then I turned the phone face down.
I couldn’t be the girl who leaned on him tonight. Not when his family had just taken something else from mine. Not when the line between us felt too fragile to survive the weight of history.
Down the street, unseen, Jace sat in his car for almost an hour.
He didn’t drive away.
He didn’t come inside.
He just sat there, forehead pressed to the steering wheel, realizing that no matter how hard he tried to protect her, the past had reached out anyway.
And it had taken aim at both of them.