The funeral is quiet.
That's the word that keeps circling my mind as I stand beside the family crypt, watching the last of my father disappear into stone and silence.
Quiet. No cameras. No press. No business associates calculating their next moves while pretending to mourn.
Just people who actually loved him.
Maria stands to my left, her rosary beads clutched between weathered fingers. Victoria came, which surprised me. Juliana Bell, silent as always, but present. A handful of others whose faces blur through tears I refuse to let fall in public.
My father might have wanted grandeur. A spectacle befitting Richard Ward's legacy. Senators and socialites and everyone who mattered in Manhattan, dressed in black and saying beautiful things about a man they spent years trying to outmaneuver.
I cannot stomach the hypocrisy.
So I chose this instead. Intimacy over performance. Truth over theater.
Zachary stands at my right shoulder, close enough to catch me if I fall.
He's been constant through all of it. Sleeping at the penthouse so he can work nearby. Handling details I can't bring myself to face. Becoming the infrastructure that holds me upright when my own bones feel like liquid.
The minister finishes his final words. People begin to drift away, offering touches and murmured condolences that wash over me like white noise.
Then it's just us. Me and Zachary. Standing before the crypt that now holds both my parents.
"Be my right-hand man." The words escape before I've fully formed the thought. "Officially. Not just assisting—actually running things beside me."
Zachary turns to face me. His expression is careful. Measured. "Adison, grief is speaking."
"No." I shake my head, feeling something shift in my chest. "Loneliness is speaking. There's a difference."
He doesn't respond immediately. Just studies my face with that calculating gaze I've come to rely on.
Then his arms wrap around me, pulling me against his chest in an embrace that feels more necessary than romantic. Solid. Safe. Present.
"You're not alone." His voice is quiet against my hair. "Whatever else happens, you're not alone."
I laugh. The sound comes out bitter, scraped raw from days of crying. "Now I face vultures and false condolences. Everyone who hated him pretending they cared. Everyone who feared him suddenly brave enough to circle."
"The press release was carefully controlled." Zachary pulls back enough to meet my eyes. "They'll learn about his passing on our timeline, with our narrative. No speculation. No scandal. Just the dignified announcement of a titan's departure."
"Thank you." The words feel inadequate for everything he's done. "For all of it. For being here."
We stand in each other's arms while summer wind scatters leaves across the cemetery grounds. The moment stretches, weighted with everything unsaid between us.
"I accept." His voice is barely above a whisper. "The position. Whatever you need me to be."
I manage a small smile. The first one in days. It feels foreign on my face, like muscles remembering a motion they'd forgotten.
* * *
Later, the penthouse swallows me whole.
I sit in the living room, staring at nothing. The same couch where Jake and I tangled our feet while reading. The same windows that frame Manhattan's glittering cruelty. The same silence that used to hold my father's presence.
Now it holds absence. Just absence.
"Miss Adison." Maria's voice reaches me from somewhere far away. "You need to eat something. Please."
I don't turn around. "I'm not hungry."
"I baked the apple pie." Her footsteps approach slowly, careful. "Your father's favorite. Cinnamon and brown sugar, the way he liked it."
The smell hits my stomach like a fist.
Sweet. Rich. Overwhelming in ways that have nothing to do with grief and everything to do with something visceral and wrong.
I'm moving before I make the decision. Running. The bathroom door crashes open under my palms and I barely make it to the toilet before bile rises, violent and unstoppable.
Maria follows. Her hands gather my hair back, her palm rubbing circles on my spine. The kindness makes everything worse somehow.
"Breathe, dear." Her voice is gentle. Knowing. "Just breathe."
The heaving stops eventually. I sink back against the cool tile, exhausted in ways that sleep can't fix.
Maria settles beside me. Her dark eyes hold a question I'm not ready to answer.
"Miss Adison." She hesitates. Chooses her words carefully. "Is it possible you might be pregnant?"
"No." The denial comes out automatic. Sharp. "It's stress. Grief. I haven't eaten properly in days. That's all."
"Hormones explain more than anyone admits." Maria's hand finds mine, squeezing gently. "The body knows things before the mind catches up."
"It's not that." I pull my hand away. Stand on shaking legs. "Thank you for checking on me. But I can't eat right now."
She nods. Doesn't push. Leaves me alone with the bathroom's harsh lighting and my own racing thoughts.
I wait until her footsteps fade completely.
Then I open the medicine cabinet.
Maria keeps everything stocked. Band-aids and antiseptic and medications for every possible ailment. The kind of preparation that comes from years of caring for a household full of people who forgot to care for themselves.
The pregnancy test sits on the second shelf. Unopened. Waiting.
My hands shake as I unwrap it. The instructions blur through vision that won't focus properly.
I use it. Set it on the counter. Step back like the small plastic stick might bite.
The window where the result will appear stares back at me. Empty. Neutral. Holding answers I'm not sure I want.
I think about Jake. About elevator encounters and stolen moments and a man who promised to take care of me, then disappeared into silence when I needed him most.
I think about my father. About legacies and empires and what it means to inherit something built on secrets.
I think about the life I'm building. CEO of Ward Enterprises. Alone in a penthouse. Twenty-one years old and already exhausted by the weight of everything I'm supposed to become.
The test sits on the counter.
I stare at the window.
And I wait.