Chapter 315: [4.133] It’s Only Fair

The library looked different at night.

During the day it was just a room full of expensive books nobody read, another flex in a house built entirely from flexes. But at two in the morning, with the overhead lights off and only the fireplace casting orange shadows across the ceiling, it became something else. Something that felt like it might have once been a home.

Harlow had raided every closet in the east wing for blankets and pillows. She’d built a nest in front of the fireplace that would have made a five-star hotel jealous, layers of cashmere and Egyptian cotton piled so high you could sink into them and forget the world existed. Vivienne had arranged snacks on a silver tray like she was hosting a board meeting, complete with color-coordinated napkins and a handwritten menu card that I was pretty sure she’d printed in the last hour. Cassidy had contributed a bottle of whiskey she’d stolen from the wine cellar and a Bluetooth speaker currently playing lo-fi beats at a volume that suggested she’d lost the argument about metal.

Sabrina sat in the window seat, her legs tucked beneath her, staring out at the darkness beyond the glass. The letter from her father rested in her lap. She hadn’t let go of it since we’d left the hidden room.

I watched her from my spot in the blanket nest, where Harlow had essentially claimed my left side as her personal property. Her head rested on my shoulder, her hair smelling like strawberries and something floral that probably cost more than my monthly rent. Every few minutes she’d shift slightly, pressing closer, and I’d feel the warmth of her body through the thin fabric of the borrowed pajamas Vivienne had produced from somewhere.

Speaking of Vivienne, she sat on my right with her tablet propped against her knees, still reviewing documents even now. But her usual intensity had softened. Every few seconds her eyes would drift toward her sisters, checking on them the way she’d probably been doing since they were all small enough to fit in the same crib.

Cassidy sprawled on her stomach in front of me, her combat boots finally kicked off and her bare feet crossed at the ankles. She’d changed into shorts and an oversized t-shirt that I recognized as one of mine, stolen at some point during the chaos of the evening. The shirt hung off one shoulder, exposing the curve of her neck and the edge of her collarbone, and every time she moved I caught a glimpse of the red lace underneath that she definitely hadn’t been wearing earlier.

Four girls. One fireplace. A room full of secrets and grief and something that felt dangerously close to hope.

If past me could see present me right now, he’d probably have a stroke.

"Tell us about your dad."

The request came from Harlow, her voice soft and sleepy against my shoulder. She wasn’t looking at me when she said it, her eyes fixed on the flames dancing in the fireplace.

I felt the others shift. Vivienne’s fingers paused on her tablet. Cassidy turned her head slightly, her purple eyes catching the firelight. Even Sabrina looked away from the window, her attention settling on me like a physical weight.

"What do you want to know?" I asked.

"Anything." Harlow’s hand found mine beneath the blankets, her fingers threading through mine with the casual intimacy of someone who’d decided we belonged together. "We just told you everything about ours. It’s only fair."

She had a point. The last few hours had been a masterclass in Valentine family trauma, complete with forged wills, secret rooms, and enough daddy issues to keep a therapist employed for decades. I’d learned things about Richard Valentine that painted a picture of a man who’d loved too much and trusted too little, who’d seen the monster in his wife long before anyone else and spent his final years building weapons his daughters could use after he was gone.

My dad wasn’t like that.

My dad was just a guy who left.

"His name was Marcus," I said. "Marcus Angelo. He worked construction when he bothered to work, which wasn’t often. He had this laugh that could fill a whole room, the kind of laugh that made you want to be in on the joke even if you didn’t understand it. He taught me how to tie a tie when I was seven. Showed me how to throw a punch when I was nine. And then he walked out the door when I was ten and never came back."

The fire crackled. Somewhere in the house, the old bones of the manor settled and groaned.

"Do you know where he is now?" Vivienne asked.

"Florida, last I heard. He’s got a new family. Wife, two kids, the whole package. My mom found his Facebook once and showed me the pictures like she thought it would hurt me." I shrugged, the movement jostling Harlow slightly. "It didn’t. By then I’d already figured out that some people aren’t built to stay."

Cassidy rolled onto her side, propping her head on her hand. The movement made her shirt ride up, exposing a strip of pale stomach above the waistband of her shorts. She didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she noticed and didn’t care.

"That’s different from what happened to us," she said. "Our dad didn’t choose to leave. Yours did."

"Yeah."

"Doesn’t that make it worse?"

I thought about it. Really thought about it, the way I usually avoided doing because some thoughts were better left in the dark corners where they couldn’t hurt anyone.

"I don’t know," I admitted. "I think losing someone who wanted to stay is its own kind of terrible. You spend the rest of your life wondering what would have been different if they’d had more time. At least with my dad, I know exactly who he was. A coward who couldn’t handle responsibility and ran the first chance he got."