"Thanks, Mom," I say, taking the box. "You didn't have to."
"I wanted to."
She looks around the studio the way she always does—slowly, appreciatively, like she still can't quite believe this place exists. That this life exists.
"Busy day?" she asks.
"Was meant to be," I say. "Might not be now."
She raises a brow. "The boys giving you hell are they?”
"One of them."
She nods, reading between the lines without pushing. Mom's gotten good at that.
"You know," she says gently, "people don't always need fixing when they're falling apart. Sometimes they just need someone to stick around and guide them.”
I glance at her. “I’m trying.”
She smiles. "I know you are, honey.”
Mom used to move through the world like she was bracing for impact, apologizing for the space she took up. For existing too loudly in a life that taught her to be quiet.
That version of her faded slowly, replaced by someone confident—someone who knows her footing now after Scott died.
Scott used to fill rooms with money. Noise. Power. Proof of worth.
What people didn't see was the rot underneath—shell companies, stolen land, fentanyl seeping into Eden like a slow poison. Families pushed out. Futures gutted.
Jake tried to stop it.
The files he left behind were meticulous. Names. Dates. Transactions. A lifetime of quiet watching turned into evidence no one could ignore. He built a case with the kind of precision that felt like devotion—like he knew it might cost him everything.
And it did.
I didn't uncover the truth. I just made sure it landed where it couldn't be buried.
The cost was my brother.
Scott went to prison for a lot of things. Money laundering. Racketeering. Aiding and abetting homicide—the warehouse fire that Monty set on Scott's orders. The same one that killed Jake and almost killed me too. But the thing I'll never forgive is the choice he made when he hired Monty in the first place. When he decided protecting himself mattered more than his own son.
Monty is serving life.
Scott never did.
Brain cancer found him in prison. Slow and brutal. He spent his last months in the infirmary—machines marking the hours, his mother at his side.
Mom didn't go. She didn't owe him that.
The money he left behind—$187 million—came to us through his estate. Mom refused her portion without hesitation. Signed it away the day the lawyers showed up.
I did too.
The money instead went towards rebuilding South Eden. Rehabilitation and community centres were built. Community programs created. Along with food banks, after-school care. Addiction recovery support. Even low-interest loans for the families Scott had pushed out.
Mom built her catering business with her own hands. Herown money. Her own sweat. Now she feeds half of South Eden through what she earns, not what she was given. And she does it without asking for applause.
I help where she lets me. Quietly. Logistically. The kind of support that doesn't take anything away from the person doing the real work.
