Chapter 20: Fifty Guests, One Remote

Lainey's POV

Gabriel told me at dawn, on the back step, with his coffee going cold.

He said it all in one breath: the threat, the boy, the judge.

"She can't take him," I said.

"She can try."

"He's fifteen. He gets a say. And he told me last night he'll tell anyone."

"I don't want him to have to."

"He wants to. Let him."

Gabriel put his forehead against mine.

"If this goes wrong," he said, "I lose the house, the academy and the boy."

"If it goes right," I said, "she loses everything she planned."

He kissed me once, hard, and we went in to get ready.

By noon the lawn was full of folding chairs and the kitchen was full of caterers.

By two the first guests were coming up the walk with wine and casseroles.

Neighbors, her whole office, a dozen of Gabriel's old teammates in team shirts, the chairman and his wife.

There were fifty people on the lawn by the time the whistle was due.

My mother worked the crowd in a red dress with a glass in her hand, laughing and touching arms.

She had put the deed on the mantel in the den, under a small spotlight, beside the gold pen.

Dale arrived at three with the notary behind him.

He had a cut over his eyebrow from the bookcase and a bandage, and he told everyone who asked that he had walked into a door.

My brother stood by the stairs with a plate of food he never touched.

I caught his eye, and he nodded.

Nico arrived last, with a laptop case and a cable over his shoulder.

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