I’d laughed in disbelief. “Simon, if I had some secret treasure chest, I would’ve used it before I started eating ramen during our seed round.”

He’d agreed, gently. “Which is why I went digging. And that’s why I’m worried.”

Now, as the screenshot burned in my hand, I understood. Or at least I understood enough to feel the first hot spark of something other than shock: anger.

They knew. All this time, they knew.

I’d built my company with the desperate determination of someone who had nothing to fall back on. I’d poured myself into it to prove—to them, to myself, to everyone—that I wasn’t the reckless disappointment they’d decided I was at nineteen.

And the entire time, there had been something quietly accruing value in the background. Something with my name on it.

Something my parents were apparently trying to pull away.

I sat there until my legs went pins and needles and my wine went completely flat. The city outside shifted gradually from vibrant to drowsy. The sky deepened. Someone laughed in the hallway. A neighbor’s dog barked.

My phone buzzed one more time.

Simon: Did you send the messages?

My fingers were stiff as I typed back.

Yes. Mom wants to “talk privately.” Dad told me not to come home. Emma sent me a screenshot. You need to see this.

I forwarded it before I could second-guess myself.

The dots on his reply bubble appeared almost instantly.

I see. He wrote. Alyssa, I need you to do exactly what I say next.

My chest felt tight. I struggled to inhale slowly.

Okay.

They’re going to ask you to come over tomorrow, he sent back. They’ll say it’s urgent, that they need to “handle” something. Go. Don’t argue, don’t confront them ahead of time, and for the love of everything do not sign anything they put in front of you.

Adrenaline surged through me.

So you think—

I think they’re about to try to formalize what they’re already plotting in that chat, he answered. And I intend to be there when they do.

My mother called at exactly 7:14 the next morning.

I know the time because I watched it click over on the microwave clock while the phone lit up on the counter, her picture smiling up at me, frozen in a rare candid shot from my college graduation. Her arm was around my shoulders in that photo, her face bright, her eyes crinkled in what looked like genuine pride.

I picked up.

“Hi, Mom.”

Her voice came through too bright, like sunlight off glass. “Alyssa, sweetheart. We need you to come by the house today. There are some things we need to take care of. It’s important.”

I took in the careful wording. Not Are you okay? Not What happened?

Things we need to take care of.

“Today?” I repeated, as if I hadn’t already been waiting for this.

“Yes, today,” she said, impatience threading under the saccharine tone. “Better to get this handled quickly. Your father has taken time off work.”

There it was again, that word: handled. Like I was a spill on the kitchen floor or a line item in a budget.

“Okay,” I said. “What time?”

“Ten.” I heard voices in the background, muffled—my father, maybe Brooke. “Don’t be late. And, Alyssa?”

“Yes?”

“Come alone.”

My fingers tightened around the phone. Simon’s face flashed in my mind, composed and sharp.

“Sure,” I lied. “I’ll see you then.”

I drove toward my parents’ house with a knot in my stomach so tight it felt like it was being twisted with every mile.

The route was muscle memory. Out of the city, past the strip malls that had changed franchises a dozen times since I was a teenager, past the park where I’d learned to ride my bike and later cried after my first breakup. The closer I got, the more the scenery seemed to compress time, folding the years back on themselves until I was simultaneously thirty-two and fifteen and seven.

Simon sat in the passenger seat, his briefcase at his feet, his tie knotted a little more precisely than usual. He’d insisted on riding with me.

“It’ll be easier,” he said. “And if they see my car out front, they might… edit themselves.”

I’d thought about that, weighed the pros and cons, then shaken my head. “No. Park around the corner. Come in after they start.”

“Are you sure?” he’d asked.

No, I hadn’t been. But I also didn’t want to warn my parents in any way that this wasn’t going to go the way they expected. I wanted to see them clearly. For once.

Now, as I turned onto the familiar tree-lined street, he reached over and gently touched my elbow.

“Remember,” he said. “Whatever happens in there, don’t give them anything verbal that sounds like agreement. Don’t nod, don’t say ‘okay’ to proposals. If you’re pressed, say you need to review everything with counsel. You’re there to observe, nothing more.”

Observe.

The word sounded clinical, almost sterile. It did not match the electric storm of emotion buzzing through my chest.

But I nodded.

We stopped at the corner, and he got out, closing the door softly.

“I’ll give you fifteen minutes,” he said through the open window. “If you text me a single period, I come in. If you don’t text and you’re not out in forty-five, I come in. Understood?”

“Understood,” I said.

I watched him walk away in the rearview mirror, turning down the side street that led to a small public park where he’d leave his car. The sight of his back, straight, unwavering, steadied me more than his words had.

Then I took a deep breath, turned the wheel, and drove toward the house I grew up in.

It looked smaller than I remembered.

Maybe it was the years of my life since I’d moved out, the apartments and offices and hotel rooms that had made this place seem frozen in time. Maybe it was the way the paint had faded just slightly, the shutters needing a fresh coat, the lawn a little less manicured than it had been when my grandmother lived here.

Or maybe I had simply outgrown the version of myself who used to stand on this porch and listen for the tone of voices inside before deciding whether to ring the bell.

I parked in the same spot I’d parked a hundred times before, in front of the hydrangea bush my grandmother planted. The flowers were bare this time of year, all woody stems and potential.

My body felt like it was made of two different materials—my legs heavy, my hands weightless. I forced my fingers to close around the handle of my bag and made myself walk up the familiar path.

My mother opened the door before I could knock.

She didn’t hug me.

In the past, even when we were fighting, there had always been some kind of physical greeting—a brief squeeze of the shoulders, a perfunctory brush of cheek to cheek. Today, she simply stepped aside, her lips pressing into something that might have been a smile in poor lighting.

“Come in,” she said quietly. “We don’t have long. Your father is getting the documents.”

My feet faltered at that word.

Documents.

The entryway smelled like lemon cleaner and coffee. The same framed family photos lined the walls—the ones I’d grown up with, each image a little movie in my mind. My parents on their wedding day. My grandmother holding me as a baby. Brooke and me in matching dresses on Easter, my face smeared with chocolate.

I used to stare at those pictures when I got in trouble, trying to reconcile the frozen smiles with the current yelling. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it made it worse.

Now, I walked past them without looking too closely. My attention tunneled forward, toward the living room where I heard muffled voices.

“Sit,” my mother said sharply when I hesitated. There was an edge to her tone that made me think of the years when I’d still needed her signature on field trip forms.

I sat in the armchair by the window. Brooke was already on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, her phone in her hand. She didn’t look up at me. Her hair was perfect, her nails newly done, the kind of polished casual that said she’d had plenty of time this morning to get herself ready.

She didn’t look like someone whose sister had just supposedly lost twenty million dollars.

The click of a door made me glance down the hall. My father emerged from his home office, a thick envelope in his hand. My name was printed on the front in his familiar blocky handwriting.

He didn’t meet my eyes.

“Here,” he said, stopping in front of me and holding the envelope out like a summons. “You need to sign these. It’s better for everyone if you do.”

Better for everyone.

Except me.

My fingers folded around the heavy paper mechanically. It weighed more than it should have, like it was full of stones instead of documents.

“What is it?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay level.