“No.”“Jade —”“I said no.” Her voice went harder. "And honestly, Ethan, I'm going to say something to you that someone should have said a long time ago. You need to understand your place. You have no money. You have no position. You have no business, no connections, no value to anything that Director Sutton is building. You work a floor-level job at Sutton Group a job you only have because of her, by the way and you stand around that building like you belong there when everyone who works there knows exactly what you are.”He didn't speak.“You are a liability,” Jade continued, her voice almost cheerful now, like she had been waiting a long time to say this. “You are dead weight. And the fact that you keep calling this number tonight, pulling Director Sutton away from something that actually matters, the fact that you think your problems are important enough to interrupt the room she is standing in right now that tells me everything about how little you understand about the life sh

Ethan sat with the phone in his hand for a very long time.Then he said, quietly, to the empty room:“She doesn't deserve it.”He stood up.He looked at the envelope in his hand the formula and inside the envelope was the herb to make it work, the years of his mother's work, the thing she had stayed alive long enough to press into his hands. He thought about what she had said. About what it was worth. About what it would mean for whoever held it.He folded the envelope with the formula and herbs still inside and set it on fire, then he left it to burn inside the metal trash box.“Mia doesn't deserve this.”At that moment he pulled back the thin hospital sheet and carefully, gently, with the same steadiness that his hands were now starting to remember, he lifted his mother and held her against him.He walked out into the corridor.The rain outside was hitting the windows so hard it sounded like it was trying to get in. Down the hall, someone had left a door open, and the cold moved th

Jade made a face and turned her head slightly to the side.“Ethan.” Mia's voice was the flattest of all of them. She looked at him from the top of the steps with her arms folded and her expression somewhere between bored and irritated, like she was running fifteen minutes behind on her morning and he was the reason. “You need to take that around to the back, and keep it at the trash area. I don't want it near the front entrance.”He looked at her.“And then,” she continued, “you are going to come inside, and you are going to explain to me and this family where you have been and why you thought it was acceptable to disappear for an entire night without a single word to anyone, and who was going to do your house Jobs, my feet your always massage every night. And your explanation needs to be good, Ethan. It needs to be very good. Because right now, the generosity of this family is wearing extremely thin, and any improper explanation will result in you getting your ass kicked out complet

Mia was still standing at the top of the steps when the gate clicked shut.She hadn't moved. Her eyes were fixed on the spot where Ethan had been standing, like some part of her was still waiting for him to turn around. Like the version of this moment she had written in her head the one where he stopped walking, where his shoulders dropped, where he came back up those steps with his bag in his hand and his pride already folding was still going to happen if she waited long enough.It didn't happen.The driveway was empty. The gate was closed. And the only sound was the distant rumble of a cab pulling away from the curb.At that moment something snapped.“How dare he.” Her voice came out low and shaking, not with sadness but with the particular kind of fury that belongs to people who are not used to being surprised. “How dare he just walk away like that, he was supposed to beg.”“Mia —” Derek started.“Don't.” She turned around sharply, and her eyes were bright in a way that had noth

He nodded once toward Mia.“I'm very sorry for the timing of this,” he said. “And I'm very sorry about his mother. She was an extraordinary woman. I met her twice, and both times I came away feeling like I'd spoken to someone from a different era entirely someone who actually knew things that most people have forgotten existed.” He moved toward the door. “I'll do everything I can from the production side. But you should know where things stand, we need him seriously.”The four of them stood in the sitting room and didn't speak for a long moment.Then everyone started at once.“This is your fault,” Karen said, turning to Jade with ice in her voice. “You were the one pushing her to keep distance from that boy. You were the one who —”“I was following Director Sutton's own instructions —” Jade started.“Don't you dare put this on me,” Mia said sharply, turning on Karen. “You told me he was dead weight. You told me he wasn't worth the time. You told me every week for four years that I s