A pregnant widow crying on her own porch, no husband, no crowd, no grand speech, nothing in her hand but a phone.

But Declan had left me so much more than a house.

He’d left decisions, and paper trails, and quiet protections I hadn’t known I’d need until the morning I needed all of them at once.

And my father, in his hurry to turn my grief into his fortune, had walked straight into every single one.

An hour earlier, Courtney had stood in my kitchen and laughed while I was dragged out of my home.

Now she stood beside my father in the wreckage of their morning, waiting for him to explain how it had all come apart.