Caleb’s POV
William's lead attorney, David Hargrove, sits at the kitchen table with his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose and a stack of printed emails fanned across the surface like a losing hand of poker.
He arrived twenty minutes ago with the kind of expression people wear to funerals they knew were coming.
"The reporter's name is Andrea Choi," he says, tapping one of the printouts. "Investigative beat for the Herald. She's been building this piece for at least two weeks."
"How much does she have?" William stands by the counter with his arms crossed, still in the dress shirt he wore to work.
"Enough to be dangerous." Hargrove flips to a second page. "The party footage that's already circulating. Lucas Bennett's public accusation about the stepsiblings from his arraignment. And sources confirming Simon Thornton's reappearance and the ongoing marital dispute."
The kitchen goes quiet. I lean against the doorframe with my hands shoved in my pockets, watching Serena at the far end of the table.
Her shoulders are drawn tight, her jaw set in the way it gets when she's calculating every possible outcome before anyone else finishes a sentence.
"Our recommendation," Hargrove continues, removing his glasses, "is a firm no comment. Across the board. Let the attorneys redirect everything toward the pending criminal proceedings."
"And if no comment makes us look like we're hiding?" I ask.
"Silence is a legal strategy, Caleb. It protects the family from —"
"Silence is also a confession." I push off the doorframe. "That's how people read it. We say nothing, and every rumor fills the gap for us. The stepsiblings become the headline. Lucas's crimes become a footnote."
"He's right." Serena's voice cuts through the room. Her hazel eyes meet mine with the kind of steadiness that makes my chest tighten.
"If we go silent, the story becomes about us. The focus shifts away from seven women who deserve to be heard."
William looks between us. "What if they don't confirm anything, but they also don't run? Is there a middle ground?"
Hargrove hesitates. "Any engagement with the press opens doors that are difficult to close."
"We're not engaging," I say, sitting down beside Serena. "We're just not hiding. If someone asks about us, we don't confirm and we don't deny. We redirect every conversation to what matters — Lucas Bennett assaulted seven women and his father's firm covered it up."
Serena nods. "The story isn't about our family. The story is about a predator and the institution that protected him."
William studies us both. Catherine's hand finds his arm, carrying the quiet solidarity of two people who have weathered worse than a headline.
"David," William says. "Draft a statement along those lines. Factual. Focused entirely on the proceedings against Lucas Bennett."
Hargrove gathers his papers and leaves with a handshake and a briefcase full of every secret we've been carrying.
***
Shane's garage smells exactly the way it always has — motor oil, burnt rubber, and the metallic tang of tools that have seen more honest work than most people do in a lifetime.
I find him bent over a disassembled carburetor, his broad shoulders hunched beneath a grease-stained undershirt.
He looks up when my shadow crosses his workbench, and his eyebrows rise just enough to register surprise.
"Didn't expect to see you again," he says, straightening to his full height. He wipes his hands on a rag that's already more oil than fabric. "Thought we had our goodbye."
"We did." I lean against the doorframe. "I'm not here about racing."
Shane studies me with those sharp eyes that used to read my body language before a race and know whether I was focused enough to ride. He pulls up a metal stool, sits, and waits.
"There's a reporter writing about my family," I say. "About Lucas Bennett. About my father showing back up. About me and Serena."
"The stepsister."
"Yeah."
He chews his gum slowly. "You here for advice or just to hear yourself talk through it?"
"Advice." I drag my hand through my hair. "I've spent two years outrunning things. Debt, my father's name, the truth about my family. And now there's nowhere left to go. The reporter has enough to print whatever story she wants, and I can't ride fast enough to leave it behind."
Shane leans forward, elbows on his knees. His thick, calloused fingers lace together, and the chipped front tooth catches the light when he speaks.
"You remember what I told you the night before your first race? When you were so scared you could barely grip the handlebars?"
"You told me fear was just fuel I hadn't burned yet."
"And what did you do?"
"I rode."
"Damn right you did." He fixes me with a look that carries the unvarnished authority of a man who has survived worse odds than mine.
"I've watched guys wreck their bikes because they couldn't stop checking what was behind them. Kept looking at the rider gaining on them, the turn they almost missed. You know what happens when you ride like that?"
"You don't see the road ahead."
"You can't win a race by looking in the rearview mirror." He points a grease-blackened finger at my chest.
"Eyes forward. Whatever this reporter writes, whatever people say about your family — that's behind you. The only question that matters is where you're headed next."
The words settle into my ribcage like an anchor finding the bottom. Not heavy in a way that drags me down, but heavy in a way that holds me steady.
"I'm scared," I admit. "Not of the article. Of what it does to the people I love."
Shane's expression softens by a fraction, which for him is the equivalent of a full embrace. "That fear means you've got people worth protecting. Don't waste it on regret."
He grips my shoulder once, hard, the same way he did the night I turned in my gear. Then he lets go and turns back to his carburetor without ceremony.
"Take care of yourself, kid."
"You too, Shane."
I drive home with the windows down and the evening air pulling at my hair, and for the first time in weeks, the tightness in my chest doesn't feel like dread.
***
The article drops at eleven PM.
Serena sees it first. She's beside me on my bed, her laptop open between us, refreshing the Herald's homepage every thirty seconds because neither of us can pretend we aren't waiting.
Her breath catches, and she angles the screen toward me.
The headline fills the top of the page in bold black type: "Seven Women Accuse Local Attorney's Son of Serial Assault."
No mention of stepsiblings. No mention of our family. No mention of Simon. Just Lucas Bennett's name and the weight of seven women's testimony pressing down on the empire his father spent thirty years building.
Serena's hand finds mine. Her fingers are trembling, but her grip is iron.
The Bennetts' carefully constructed world has just cracked wide open, and every lie they buried is about to come pouring through.