The most feared family in Fairhaven had destroyed every housekeeper who walked through their mansion doors, until one quiet young woman entered and made four broken sons beg her to stay. “You can hate me, you can fight me, but you won’t break me,” she told the mafia heir who thought nobody could challenge him. At seventeen, my family name could erase almost any mistake before it reached the outside world, but that afternoon, sitting inside a police station with dried blood on my face and a suspension hanging over my head, I did something that shocked everyone around me. When the officer placed a phone in front of me and asked who they should call, I didn’t choose my billionaire father, Julian Cavanaugh, or any of his powerful lawyers. I looked down at the list of numbers and quietly said, “Eleanor Hargrove.”

The heavy steel door of the precinct holding area clanged open, and the abrasive hum of the police station suddenly felt very distant.

Eleanor Hargrove stood in the doorway.

She wore her usual beige trench coat, her dark hair pulled back into a simple, severe clip. She didn’t look angry. She didn’t look embarrassed to be summoned to a downtown precinct at two in the morning by a bleeding seventeen-year-old who wasn’t even her family. She just looked directly at me, her brown eyes mapping the bruise forming on my jaw and the dried blood cracking on my collar.

Sergeant Miller, a man who usually tripped over his own feet to appease my father’s lawyers, crossed his arms. "And who are you exactly? Because unless you have Julian Cavanaugh’s signature on a legal retainer, this boy is going to juvenile detention for aggravated assault."

"I am the person who makes sure the Cavanaugh boys survive their own mistakes," Eleanor said. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried the weight of a judge's gavel.

She walked over to the metal table where I sat. She didn’t scold me. She pulled a pristine white handkerchief from her pocket, leaned down, and pressed it firmly against the cut on my lip. I flinched, but she didn’t pull away.

"You hit Marcus Thorne," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.

I stared at her. "How do you know it was Marcus?"

"Because Marcus is the only boy in Fairhaven who thinks his family's money can buy silence, and you are the only boy who thinks his fists can buy justice." She pressed the handkerchief harder. "You thought you were protecting your brother, didn't you? You thought Marcus was the one who pushed ten-year-old Sam into the quarry lake yesterday."

"He was there," I growled, my chest tightening. "I saw Marcus laughing about it."

Eleanor sighed, a sound older than her twenty-six years. "Marcus was laughing because he’s cruel. But he didn't push Sam."

I froze. The righteous fire that had fueled my fists all night suddenly turned to ice. "What?"

"Marcus was in a private tutoring session from three to five yesterday afternoon. I checked," Eleanor said, pulling the bloody handkerchief away. "You didn't avenge your brother tonight, Leo. You just handed the Thorne family the perfect excuse to sue your father for everything he owns. They set a trap, and you walked right into it."

The walls of the precinct seemed to close in. I hadn't been a protector. I had been a pawn.

Sergeant Miller cleared his throat loudly. "This is touching, lady, but the Thorne family is pressing charges. The kid stays."

Eleanor didn’t blink. She reached into her leather handbag. "I believe the Thorne family will reconsider."

"Oh yeah?" Miller scoffed. "Why?"

Eleanor pulled her hand from the bag and placed something on the scarred metal table. The harsh fluorescent light caught the object, and my breath physically stopped in my throat.

It was a silver pocket watch, etched with a crest of a weeping willow.

My mother’s watch.

The exact watch my mother had been wearing the night she vanished without a trace five years ago.

Miller leaned forward, his eyes widening in sudden, undisguised panic. "Where did you get that?"

"Tell Marcus's father," Eleanor said, her voice dropping to a lethal calm, "that if he presses charges against Leo, I will explain to the authorities exactly where I found this. I'm sure he wouldn't want the police digging into his private property."