His expression collapsed. “Dad, please.”

There it was. Please. No forty-eight-hour deadline now. No jokes about seagulls. No laughter over a broken-down cabin. Only my son sitting inside the room he had ridiculed, slowly understanding it might be the last place anyone could protect him from the consequences he’d created.

I unfolded Helen’s final letter. “She wrote something for this moment.” Bradley went still. I read aloud.

By the time Bradley comes to you, he will be frightened. The villa will not save him. His creditors will be demanding payment. He will cry. He will promise to change.

He may even mean it while he says it. Do not mistake fear for transformation.

Bradley recoiled slightly. I kept reading.