Patricia had arranged it as a formality, a scheduled walkthrough so Lucien Legion could remove any remaining personal items before the house officially transferred back under Stacy's sole management pending final settlement, a small mercy squeezed out of otherwise brutal negotiations. He drove there on a quiet Saturday morning, the streets nearly empty, and sat in the driveway for several minutes before he could make himself go inside.The house looked exactly the same from the outside. Pale brick, dark shutters, the same oak tree in the front yard that Chloe used to climb until she was old enough to be embarrassed about climbing trees at all. Nothing about the exterior suggested that within a matter of weeks it would legally belong to someone he no longer recognized as the woman he'd married.Inside, the silence hit him first, thick and strange, a house built for the noise of a family standing empty and still in a way it had never once been while he actually lived there.He started i

Three more weeks of grinding negotiation passed before Patricia Stack finally called with the news Lucien Legion had been both dreading and desperate for in equal measure."They've moved on the confidentiality clause." Her voice carried careful relief, the kind that came from a long fight finally reaching some kind of end even if the end wasn't the one either of them had originally wanted. "Not fully off the table, but narrowed considerably. It only covers financial details of the settlement now, not the paternity matter itself. You'll be free to discuss that part whenever you're ready to, on your own terms.""And the money." Lucien Legion asked it flatly, already braced."The money is still bad, Lucien." Patricia didn't soften it. "I won't pretend otherwise. But given where we started, and given how thin your resources have gotten over the last two months, I think this is close to the best realistic outcome available without dragging this into a trial you can't financially survive lo

"Yeah." Lucien Legion straightened up from the damaged bumper, wiping his hands on his slacks out of old habit. "Used to work on them, a long time ago. Not professionally, just for my uncle, back in college.""Could've fooled me." The older man crouched down beside him, peering at the same crumpled metal with a practiced eye. "Most people just see a wrecked car. You were looking at it like you already knew what's broken underneath before you even popped the hood.""Radiator core's probably cracked, given the coolant pooling there." Lucien Legion pointed without really thinking about it, old instinct taking over before his usual caution could catch up. "Impact looks like it pushed the condenser back into the fan assembly too. Whoever fixes this is going to find more damage once they actually get the bumper off than what's visible from out here."The man studied him for a long moment, something calculating behind his eyes. "Name's Hank. I run a shop about ten minutes from here. You look

Hank pulled a rolling stool over and sat down a few feet away, arms crossed, clearly settling in to watch rather than help, the posture of a man who'd believe it when he saw it and not a moment sooner. Diego and Ruth lingered nearby too, their earlier mockery softened into something closer to reluctant curiosity, neither of them quite willing to leave before finding out how badly the new guy was about to embarrass himself.Lucien Legion rolled up his sleeves and got to work, starting by carefully disconnecting the battery to eliminate any risk of a live short while he worked, a habit so ingrained from years of careful, methodical practice that he barely had to think about the sequence at all. He traced the wiring harness back from the suspect junction, following it along its full route toward the firewall, confirming with his own hands what his eyes had already told him from a distance."Here." He said it quietly, mostly to himself, finding the exact spot where the harness sheathing h

Kessler had the second vehicle delivered to the shop the following afternoon, a low, aggressive looking sports car in matte black, the kind of machine that seemed to radiate expense even sitting perfectly still in the service bay. Hank walked around it twice before Lucien Legion's shift even started, whistling low under his breath at the sight of it."Man's serious about this." Hank shook his head, half amused, half nervous. "Told me himself on the phone, and I quote, only your new guy touches it. Nobody else. That's a hell of a thing to say about someone who started here two days ago.""No pressure, then." Lucien Legion managed a tired half smile, rolling his sleeves up as he approached the open hood.Ruth and Diego drifted over as well, no longer hiding their curiosity behind sarcasm the way they had two nights earlier. Word had apparently spread fast through the shop about the Mercedes, and whatever skepticism remained in either of them had softened considerably into genuine intere