Page 45 of Lennox Lane

“No. He smiled.”

Lane hated that immediately.

Lennox’s eyes darkened with memory. “That was worse. My father smiling at my talent felt like being spotted by a predator. He saw use. Not a son. Not a kid who needed guidance. Use.”

Lane’s fingers curled slightly against his chest.

“He trained me,” Lennox said. “At least that’s what he called it. He put machines in front of me. Systems. Exercises. Then real problems. Real people. Real consequences. By the time I understood how deep I was, I already knew too much.”

“Did he force you?”

Lennox looked at her. The answer was not simple. She saw that before he spoke.

“He didn’t have to put a gun to my head,” he said. “My father never had to be that obvious. He used approval. Legacy. Fear. Money. Access. He made me feel chosen, then made chosen feel like a debt.”

Lane whispered, “Damn.”

“Yeah.”

For a while, neither of them spoke.

The city beyond the windows kept moving, morning light strengthening against the curtains, but inside the room everything felt suspended. Lane had shared her ghosts with him last night. Now his were crawling out from the walls, dressed in wealth and inheritance.

“What changed?” she asked.

His gaze shifted back to hers.

“Me.”

That answer should have sounded arrogant.

It did not.

“I started realizing there were people my father would never help unless there were something in it for him. Women being stalked by men with money. Kids getting threatened with leaked photos. Small businesses being extorted. Artists being trapped in contracts with digital blackmail sitting behind the scenes. People who couldn’t afford protection because protection had become a luxury.”

Lane’s heart beat faster.

“So you became the bright side of the Ledger.”

His mouth softened. “Something like that.”

“Batman with Wi-Fi.”

He groaned. “I hate that y’all know that now.”

“It’s accurate.”

He huffed a laugh.

Lane studied him, feeling the shape of him shift in her mind. Lennox Jackson, lover boy. Lennox Jackson, menace. Lennox Jackson, MIT genius, hacker, date-ruiner, thigh-holder, self-declared future husband. And now Lennox Jackson, a boy who had been groomed into power by a father who used love like a leash and grew into a man trying, however recklessly, to use that same power to protect people who had none.

It didn’t excuse him hacking her.

It didn’t erase the violation.

But it gave her context, and context was dangerous because it made room for compassion.

Lane didn’t like how often compassion had been sneaking into the room with Lennox lately.