Chapter 299: [4.117] Bold of You to Assume I’m Letting You Go
"She texted you?"
"We have a rapport."
"Since when?"
"Since I started feeding her information about your emotional vulnerabilities in exchange for book recommendations." Iris glanced up with a completely unrepentant expression. "What? She was going to figure it out eventually. I just accelerated the timeline."
I stared at my fourteen-year-old sister, who had apparently been running intelligence operations behind my back for weeks. "You’re terrifying."
"Thank you. Now go shower. You smell like expensive perfume and regret."
The shower helped. Hot water and steam and fifteen minutes of not thinking about anything except whether I’d remembered to buy more shampoo. I hadn’t. I used Iris’s strawberry stuff instead and tried not to think about how I was going to smell vaguely like a fruit smoothie for the rest of the day.
By the time I emerged, Iris had migrated to the kitchen and was heating up leftover curry from Mrs. Tanaka. The smell filled our tiny apartment, rich and warm and completely at odds with the anxious energy still humming through my veins.
"Eat," Iris commanded, pushing a bowl toward me.
"I had waffles."
"That was six hours ago. Eat."
I ate. The curry was even better reheated, the flavors deeper and more complex after a night in the fridge. Mrs. Tanaka really was an exceptional cook. I wondered if she’d been reporting on my eating habits along with everything else.
Probably.
My phone buzzed again. This time it was the group chat, the one Cassidy had created and named "Isaiah’s Owners" in a moment of aggressive honesty that none of us had ever corrected.
Vivienne: Reminder that tomorrow’s schedule has been adjusted to accommodate Isaiah’s work obligations. He will arrive at 4:00 PM instead of the original 2:00 PM.
Harlow: Yay! More time for me to perfect my welcome-back cookies!
Cassidy: You already made cookies yesterday.
Harlow: DIFFERENT cookies. These ones have SPRINKLES.
Sabrina: Isaiah. Did you make it home safely?
I typed a response before the others could jump in.
Safe and sound. Iris is force-feeding me curry.
Sabrina: Good. You need to eat more.
Cassidy: He needs to do a lot of things more. Eating is like fourth on the list.
Vivienne: Cassidy.
Cassidy: What? I’m being supportive.
Harlow: Are you though?
Cassidy: EXTREMELY supportive. Ask Isaiah how supportive I am.
I was not going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.
Vivienne: Moving on. Isaiah, please review the documentation I provided. There will be a quiz.
There would absolutely be a quiz. Vivienne didn’t make idle threats.
Understood. I’ll study tonight.
Vivienne: Acceptable.
The conversation devolved into an argument about cookie flavors after that, with Harlow passionately defending her choice of white chocolate macadamia while Cassidy insisted that anything less than double chocolate was a waste of ingredients. Sabrina contributed occasional observations that somehow managed to be devastating while appearing completely neutral. Vivienne attempted to moderate and gave up after approximately thirty seconds.
I watched the messages scroll by, my thumb hovering over the screen. Four girls. Four completely different personalities. Four sets of expectations and desires and hopes that I was somehow supposed to balance without dropping any of them.
The old Isaiah would have run. Would have looked at this situation, calculated the odds, and decided that the smart play was to cut his losses before things got any more complicated. Self-preservation had always been my guiding principle. Don’t get attached. Don’t let people close enough to hurt you. Don’t give anyone leverage they could use against you later.
But that Isaiah had never met Sabrina Valentine. Had never watched her mask crack open to reveal the desperate, lonely girl underneath. Had never held her in the dark while she whispered secrets she’d kept locked away for years.
That Isaiah had never been loved like this. Fiercely, possessively, with a completeness that left no room for doubt.
I was different now. Changed in ways I was still trying to understand. The old walls were still there, but they had doors now. Windows. Places where the light could get in.
My phone buzzed one more time. A private message from Sabrina.
I miss you already.
Three words. Simple. Vulnerable in a way that the public Sabrina would never allow herself to be.
I typed back before I could overthink it.
Thirteen days. Then you can have me back.
Her response came almost instantly.
Bold of you to assume I’m letting you go after thirteen days.
I smiled at my phone like an idiot. Iris noticed immediately.
"You’re doing the face again."
"What face?"
"The dopey in-love face that you’ve been making every time you look at your phone for the past three weeks." She pointed her spoon at me accusingly. "It’s disgusting."
"You’re disgusting."
"Mature."
"I learned from the best."
She threw a napkin at my head. I caught it without looking, years of practice making the motion automatic. The normality of it, the easy back-and-forth that had defined our relationship since she was old enough to talk, grounded me in a way nothing else could.
Whatever happened on Thursday, whatever Camille Valentine threw at me, I had this. I had Iris. I had a home, small and cramped and perpetually damp from that stupid ceiling leak, but mine.
And now I had something else too. Four girls with purple eyes and wine-red hair who had somehow decided I was worth fighting for.
The odds were terrible. The situation was impossible. Any reasonable person would have walked away months ago.
Good thing I’d never been particularly reasonable.
I spent the rest of the afternoon reviewing Vivienne’s documentation. She hadn’t been kidding about the thoroughness. The files included everything from Camille’s known business tactics to her preferred negotiation strategies to a detailed breakdown of her emotional triggers and how to avoid activating them.
Some of it read like a corporate intelligence briefing. Other parts read like a daughter trying desperately to understand a mother who had never let herself be understood.
I made notes. Highlighted key sections. Tried to build a mental map of the woman I was about to face.
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