CHAPTER 10: The Rule Daniel Could Not Break
Daniel let Ava cry.
It hurt him to do it. Every instinct in him wanted to sit beside her, wrap an arm around her shoulders, and tell her that everything could be fixed by morning. But he had done that too many times already. He had softened consequences because she was grieving. He had excused cruelty because she was lonely. He had given her more comfort than accountability because losing Grace had made him terrified of losing Ava too.
That fear had trained Ava to believe pain erased responsibility.
Tonight had to be different.
When her sobs quieted, Daniel sat across from her on the foyer bench. Not beside her. Across. Close enough to be her father, far enough to be serious.
“Ava,” he said, “I love you more than anything in this world.”
She nodded without looking up.
“But love is not permission.”
She wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“The party is finished. The car is gone. Your credit card is frozen. Your social accounts will be monitored until I decide otherwise. You will write apologies to every staff member who worked tonight, and not one of them will be asked to accept it before they are ready.”
Ava raised her head. “Dad—”
“I’m not done.”
Her mouth closed.
“You will also spend the rest of the summer working at the Mercer Foundation youth center. Not as a donor’s daughter. Not as a guest. As a volunteer. You will clean, serve, file, carry boxes, and listen.”
Ava stared at him. “The whole summer?”
“Yes.”
“But school starts in August.”
“Then you have six weeks.”
Her voice cracked. “Everyone will know.”
Daniel leaned forward. “Everyone already knows. The question is what they will know next.”
Ava looked down at the letter in her hands. “You hate me.”
Daniel’s face changed immediately.
“No,” he said. “I am furious with you. I am hurt by you. I am disappointed in you in a way I cannot describe. But I do not hate you.”
She cried again, softer this time.
Daniel stood. “Hate would be easier. Hate would let me walk away and let money raise you. I am not doing that.”
He picked up the velvet case and placed Grace’s locket beside Ava.
“This is still yours,” he said. “But you are not ready to wear it tonight.”
Ava nodded, unable to speak.
Daniel turned toward the stairs.
May you like
“Get some sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, we start repairing what you broke.”
Ava sat alone in the foyer long after he left, holding her mother’s letter and staring at the locket she had not earned yet.
