Page 99 of Fate, Interrupted

Henry raises both hands slightly, a gesture that means I tried and goes silent without making a thing of it.

I think the moment has passed, as moments tend to when Elias has made his point, but his eyes stay on me.

“You’re making choices without considering their cost.”

I sigh because I’m not yet out of the line of fire. “I’m considering them.”

“Poorly.”

The word sits there. Without heat or drama.

I lean back in my chair, matching Elias’s posture more than I intend. “Please elaborate.”

“You’re spending time with someone who does not belong anywhere near this.”

Norah. I want to stand up and yell her name at him.

He doesn’t say her name. He never does. That omission carries a lot of weight. The deliberate reduction of a person to a category, the bloodless erasure that my father uses for things he decides are problems rather than people.

“She belongs exactly where she is,” I say.

His expression cools slightly. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Then you understand the problem.”

“I understand your version of it.”

Henry’s hand moves toward the wine bottle with the easy purpose of a man who has decided the conversation needs reinforcement, and wine is what’s available.

Elias leans forward. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to.

“You don’t build something like this,” he says, “and then decide it’s optional when it becomes inconvenient.”

The words sit between us.

“Inconvenient,” I say.

“Yes.”

“That’s what you think this is.”

“I think it’s shortsighted.”

I lean forward then, hands flat on the table, and I hold his gaze and keep what I actually want to say behind my teeth.

“I think you’re used to calling everything shortsighted that doesn’t fit inside the box of what you’ve decided is acceptable.”

Henry exhales. “Okay,” he says, under his breath, not quite intervening.

“That’s enough,” says Logan.

It’s a single line, not sharp or loud, delivered with the absolute certainty of a man who knows it will hit.

I sit back.

Elias watches me for a moment. Then, with the same calm confidence he brings to everything, he leans back too.