“I don’t know.” She looked down at her hands briefly. “I’ve never shown them to anyone except you. What if they’re not good enough? What if Dmitri doesn’t agree? It’s not like you’re—”
“I don’t care what Dmitri thinks about it.” The interruption came out sharper, and Caitlin stopped talking. I kept my eyeson the phone for a second longer before forcing my voice back down. “The question is whether you want this. Whether you want to make money doing something you actually love.”
“Of course I do,” she said. “I always wanted to. My parents never took it seriously, and then Ivan…” She hesitated. “He hated seeing me draw anything.”
“Let’s not talk about family,” I declared. “We’re grown. We don’t need their permission to build something for ourselves. All they know how to do is show up and expect gratitude for it.”
Caitlin blinked and studied me more carefully after that. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said too fast and looked back at my notes. “I think we should start with two designs. You make every creative decision. I’ll handle the marketing side.”
She nodded slowly. “I know a tailor, actually. We could talk to him.”
“Perfect.” Something restless had already started moving inside me again. Plans. Timing. Numbers. Steps. Movement felt better than stillness. “I’ll figure out the money.”
“I have savings. We could help pay for it,” she said, and I looked at her. “No one has ever really believed in my designs before,” she admitted. “I always wanted this to become something real.”
“It will.” The certainty in my voice surprised even me.
I needed it to work. Not just for Caitlin, but for me too. I stood up before the conversation could slow down again.
“I’m going to do more research tonight,” I said. “We need to understand the algorithm before we post anything.”
Caitlin laughed softly. “You’re already acting like a business manager.”
“Someone has to,” I pointed and then left the room.
We didn’t have time to waste. Now that she had agreed, the only thing left was to make it real.
If my mother could leave and build an entirely new life for herself, then I could build one too. Something that belonged to me. Something that would still exist even if everyone else left.
I opened a new note on my phone as I headed toward the swimming pool where I had seen Cole earlier. I could do some research while watching him. The next step was to understand exactly what we were walking into before we spent a single dollar.
Stepping outside, I looked up at Cole riding circles around the pool. “Be careful. Should you even be riding that close to the pool?” I called out.
“You’ve seen me ride here before,” he replied, looping past me without slowing down.
I settled onto the sunbed beside the pool and focused on my phone. I searched for fashion designers and filtered through the accounts that actually pulled numbers. The first posted daily content in the same format every time: an outfit reveal paired with a trending sound. The second account was smaller, but every video was filled with comments asking where people could buy the clothes. That meant demand already existed. The third designer did something different. She filmed the entire process from sketching to the finished product. People watched, not because the clothes themselves were extraordinary, but because the story behind them kept people invested.
That was a good angle. We could show the process and add some details. I wrote the idea down. We were also going to price everything accordingly. We would price confidently, not cheaply. Cheap attracted people who didn’t value the work.
I was still typing when Cole dropped beside me and leaned over to look at my screen. I locked the phone immediately.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I placed the phone down and looked at him instead, reaching over to push the hair away from his face. Iker wanted him.That man, our grandfather, the man who destroyed our family, decided Cole belonged in whatever came next.
He would have to go through me first. I didn’t spend nine years keeping Cole fed, getting him through school, and raising him just for some man tied to us by blood to appear and decide Cole’s future belonged to a family business.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Cole leaned away from my hand.
I realized I had been cupping his face without noticing, holding him the way people hold things they’re terrified of losing.
“Like what? You’re my brother. I can look at you however I want.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He stood, already done with the conversation, and climbed back onto the bike. “I know.”
I watched him ride off and finally let out a slow breath.
