I gripped the phone, my knuckles white. I looked across the room at the blue suitcase, now covered in stickers from Athens, Rome, and Barcelona. I remembered the cold indifference on his face at his father’s grave.

I remembered the $418,000 ledger.

If I saved him now, every ounce of pain, every lesson, would be erased. He’d go right back to the boy who demanded the world on a silver platter.

“Iris,” I said, my voice cracking, tears spilling hot down my cheeks. “Send him a text from my number. Just one sentence.”

“What do you want it to say?”

I closed my eyes and delivered the hardest blow of my life. “Tell him: I trust you to find a way, Austin. I am not the safety net anymore. I am just your mother, and I have no more money to give.