POV: Jasmine
The next morning, Jackson stood at the head of the conference table like nothing had happened.
Same expensive suit, predatory smile, casual ownership of a room that belonged to his sons. Not a single flicker of acknowledgment that twelve hours ago, I'd left him gasping on his bed while I walked out untouched.
"I'm extending my stay indefinitely," he announced to the assembled executives. "The lawsuit against Adelyn goes to trial next week. I'll personally oversee our legal strategy."
My stomach dropped through the floor.
"This company's reputation depends on crushing her claims decisively," Jackson continued, eyes sweeping the room. "She's alleging wrongful termination, hostile work environment, defamation. All baseless, of course. But the media will be watching, and we need to present a unified front."
Weeks. Weeks more of Jackson. Weeks more of his proximity, his casual touches, his silent promise of retaliation for last night's power play.
I kept my face carefully blank, but I felt the brothers' tension from across the room. Liam's jaw was tight enough to crack. Asher's hands were clenched under the table. Finn had gone completely still, his usual playful energy replaced by something cold.
"Questions?" Jackson asked.
Silence. Because what could anyone say? He'd positioned himself as the company's savior—the man who'd negotiated contracts, won lawsuits, and stabilized stock prices. Challenging him publicly would be career suicide.
"Excellent." His smile widened. "Jasmine, I'll need you to coordinate with legal on witness preparation. My office, after this meeting."
The command was casual. Ordinary. But I heard the threat underneath—the reminder that last night had changed nothing. That he still held all the cards.
"Of course," I said, voice steady.
The meeting dissolved into smaller conversations. I gathered my things slowly, buying time, trying to figure out how to survive weeks more of this nightmare.
Liam caught my eye across the room. The question in his gaze was clear: Are you okay?
I gave him a small nod. A lie, but a necessary one.
Three hours later, my phone rang with an unknown number.
I nearly ignored it. Unknown numbers meant reporters, creditors, people who wanted something I couldn't give. But something made me answer—maybe exhaustion, maybe instinct, maybe just the need to hear any voice that wasn't Jackson's.
"Hello?"
"Jasmine? Baby, it's Mom."
The world tilted sideways.
My mother's voice—thinner and shakier than memory had preserved it. The woman who chose drugs over her children fifteen years ago. Who let CPS take us without fighting. Who disappeared into addiction while I raised Leo alone, scraped together rent money, learned to survive without her.
"What do you want?" The words came out flat. Cold.
"I need to see you. Please. It's important."
"Important." I laughed, and it tasted like broken glass. "That's rich. Fifteen years of silence, and suddenly it's important?"
"I know I don't deserve—"
"You don't deserve anything." My hand tightened on the phone. "You don't get to disappear into whatever needle or pipe made you feel better than we did, and then call fifteen years later expecting—what? Forgiveness? A tearful reunion?"
"Jasmine, please—"
"Why should I believe anything you say?"
Silence on the other end. Then, quietly: "I have documents. Proof of what I'm telling you."
"Proof of what?"
"Your father died two years ago, Jasmine."
The words landed like a physical blow. My father—the man who'd walked out before I was old enough to remember him clearly, who'd chosen a new family over us, who existed in my memory only as absence and abandonment.
"Dead," I repeated numbly.
"Overdose. Same thing that almost killed me, except I got lucky." Her voice cracked. "And I'm sick now. Really sick. There are things you need to know before it's too late."
"What kind of sick?"
"Cancer. Stage four." A pause. "The doctors say I have maybe six months. Maybe less."
I should have felt something. Grief, maybe. Or relief. Or the vindication of knowing that the woman who'd abandoned us was finally facing consequences.
Instead, I felt nothing. Just hollow space where emotions should be.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because there are things about your father you don't know. Things I should have told you years ago, but I was too messed up to—" She stopped, took a shaky breath. "Please. Just meet me. One hour. If you never want to see me again after that, I'll respect it."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn't." Her honesty was startling. "I've given you no reason to trust anything I say. But I'm sober now—have been for eighteen months. And I'm dying, Jasmine. I have nothing left to gain from lying to you."
I closed my eyes, fighting the war between every survival instinct I'd developed and something deeper—something that still wanted answers, even after all these years.
"Leo," I said finally. "Does he know you're calling?"
"No. I wanted to talk to you first. You were always the strong one. The one who held everything together." Her voice broke. "I'm so sorry for leaving you with that burden."
Sorry. Such a small word for fifteen years of absence. For every birthday she missed, every crisis she wasn't there for, every night I lay awake wondering if she was alive or dead.
"One meeting," I said, and the words felt like surrender. "Tomorrow. Somewhere public. A café, somewhere with witnesses."
"Yes. Anything you want."
"And if you show up high, I walk. No second chances. No explanations. I walk and you never contact me again."
"I understand." She was crying now—I could hear it in her voice. "Thank you, Jasmine. Thank you for giving me this chance."
"Don't thank me yet." I gripped the phone harder. "I haven't forgiven you. I'm not sure I ever will."
"I know. I don't expect—"
"Just send me the address. And show up sober."
I hung up before she could say anything else.
My hands were shaking. My chest felt tight, like something was pressing down on my ribs from the inside. First Jackson extending his stay indefinitely. Now my mother rising from the dead with cancer and secrets and eighteen months of sobriety she wanted me to believe in.
The universe had a sick sense of timing.
My phone buzzed with a text—an address for a café across town. Tomorrow at noon.
I stared at it for a long moment, then saved the contact under a name I hadn't used in fifteen years.
Mom.
The word looked wrong on my screen. Foreign. Like a language I'd forgotten how to speak.
But I'd agreed to meet her. Against every survival instinct, every wall I'd built, every lesson I'd learned about people who abandon you.
Tomorrow, I'd find out if that was the bravest thing I'd ever done—or the stupidest.