Page 134 of Fate, Interrupted

“I know,” I say. “I’m staying anyway.”

“This was avoidable,” he says.

The sentence stays without emphasis. Logan exhales beside me, the sound carrying more tension than anything he could say. “Dad…”

Elias lifts a hand—enough authority to hold without sharpness. His attention stays on me.

“You placed yourself in a situation that carried predictable risk. You involved someone who didn’t understand that risk and had no protection against it.”

My chest tightens. Steady. A line being drawn taut.

I glance toward Greer.

He’s still near the wall, still slightly apart. His eyes are on the floor. But his shoulders tell me he’s heard every word, and how carefully he’s not looking at either of us tells me he has a position on this he won’t offer.

“She understood enough,” I say.

“Clearly not,” Elias replies. “Or she would not be in surgery right now.”

The words are delivered evenly, without accusation, making them harder to push against than if he’d raised his voice. They don’t ask for a defense. They exist as conclusion.

Logan’s jaw tightens. “That’s not fair. You don’t know what happened out there.”

“I know enough,” Elias says, his eyes boring into me. “A human man took issue with what he saw, and he acted on it. That isn’t an anomaly. It’s a pattern. And patterns don’t stop because you run three hundred miles away from them.”

I lean back slightly in the chair, my gaze dropping a fraction before it returns. I can feel the shape of the argument he’s building, every piece slotting into the next with the precision of a man who has been constructing this since Logan’s phone call and has arrived fully prepared.

“You’re making this about something it isn’t,” I say.

Elias tilts his head slightly. “Am I?” A pause. “You were running away to Paxton.”

The name hits differently in this room than it did in her kitchen.

I don’t look at Logan.

“A small town,” Elias continues. “Integrated, by reputation. Welcoming.” His gaze holds. “What exactly were you planning to do there?”

“I’d figure it out,” I say.

“Of course,” he says. “Except you’ve never had to.”

Logan moves forward. “Come on, Dad…”

“That’s not criticism,” Elias says, still without looking at him. “It’s fact. I structured things so you didn’t need to concern yourself with certain responsibilities. The business. The negotiations. The external relations. Those fell to Logan. I made sure you didn’t have to carry the responsibilities he does.”

The words carry the weight of things that are true and have always been true and have never been said out loud until now, in a hospital waiting room, in front of my older brother and my uncle.

I feel Logan’s reaction beside me—the immediate, protective tension.

“That’s not fair,” he says, more firmly now. “He’s handled plenty. You just don’t…”

“Don’t,” I say.

Logan stops.

I turn my head enough to meet his eyes, and what’s in mine makes the argument unnecessary.

“He’s right,” I say.