He looked at me, his expression torn. “I need a minute, Sloane.”
And then he nodded at my father—respectfully, distantly—and left without another word. The front door clicked shut behind him.
I turned back to my mother. “You should’ve told me.”
She nodded, eyes glossy now. “Yes. I should have.”
Somehow, that was worse than any lie she could’ve told. Because the truth had always been waiting. And now it had walked straight through our front door.
A thousand questions tangled in my throat, but I couldn’t form a single one. I just stood there, watching my mother fold.
Byron Dane.
She hadn’t just known of him. She’d known him. In a way that left her shaken all these decades later.
My gut twisted.
There was more. More than a long-ago romance or a polite connection she’d buried for appearances’ sake. This wasn’t nostalgia. It was fear. Regret. Something brittle and unfinished.
I didn’t know what had happened between them.
But I knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t over. Not in her mind. Not in this house.
And maybe not for Charlie, either.
20
CHARLIE
Ileft the Carrington estate in a spiral, my head a mess of jagged edges.
Sylvia’s confession about my father, Byron Dane, hit like a grenade, blowing open memories I hadn’t touched in years, and the trust I’d signed just hours ago felt like a betrayal of him, like I’d sold his legacy for a pen and a handshake.
I climbed into my truck, ignoring the buzz of my phone—Sloane’s name flashing on the screen, her calls piling up like a lifeline I wasn’t ready to grab. Her touch, her fire, had anchored me on the yacht, but now I was adrift, drowning in the weight of my father’s name and Sylvia’s haunted eyes when she said I had his.
I didn’t know how to cope, didn’t know how to face the man in the mirror who carried Byron’s face, his shadow, his sins.
I drove toward Dominion Hall, thinking my brothers might have answers, might pull me out of this freefall like they always had. But as the mansion’s gates loomed, pale stone glowing in the dusk, I knew the truth—there was no salvation here, just more questions, more weight.
I slammed the gas, peeling out with a roar, the truck fishtailing as I turned toward Sullivan’s Island, chasing the only place that might hold a piece of what I’d lost.
The old house was there, a relic of my childhood, where Mom’s laughter had once echoed and Dad’s voice had carried us through storms. As the youngest of seven, I’d spent the least time in that house, my memories of it faint, like photographs faded at the edges. My brothers—Ryker, Marcus, Elias, Atlas, Silas, Noah—had stories of Dad’s drills, Mom’s cooking, but I had fragments, half-formed images of a life that ended too soon.
Sylvia’s words, “You have his eyes,” cracked me open, a wound I thought had scarred over.
Family friends had said it when I was a kid, and at Dad’s funeral, a distant aunt had whispered it, thinking it would comfort me. It didn’t. Every morning, I saw Byron Dane in the mirror, his eyes staring back, a reminder of what I’d never fully know and couldn’t escape.
The drive to Sullivan’s Island was a blur, Charleston’s lights fading into salt air and marsh, my phone still buzzing with Sloane’s calls, each one a stab of guilt I couldn’t face. I didn’t want her to see me like this—unraveled, raw, a man who couldn’t outrun his own ghosts.
The old house came into view, a weathered two-story with peeling paint and a sagging porch, deserted now, its windows dark like eyes that had seen too much. I parked in the overgrown drive, the engine ticking as it cooled, and stepped out, the ocean’s roar a distant hum that matched the chaos in my head.
The front door creaked under my hand, the lock long broken, and I stepped inside, the air thick with dust and memory. The living room was empty, but I could still see us—kids running wild, Dad’s voice barking playful orders, Mom’s soft laugh before she vanished.
I climbed the stairs, my boots heavy on the worn wood, drawn to the master bedroom like it held answers I’d never found.
The bedroom was quiet, the faded wallpaper curling at the edges, the bed stripped to the frame. I stood in the doorway, feeling it all—Mom’s absence, Dad’s shadow, the life that had slipped through my fingers before I could hold it.
Sylvia’s voice echoed, her fear when she spoke of Dad, the way she’d said “magnetic” and “dangerous” like they were the same thing.
