The black sedan cut hard across the slick asphalt of Michigan Avenue, tires hissing against the rain-soaked pavement.

The hospital room grew cold as the city temperature dropped past midnight.

I pulled a chair over next to Grace’s armchair, sitting down slowly. The fight with my mother had left an electric exhaustion humming in my veins.

Grace hadn't spoken since Eleanor left. She sat staring at Leo’s sleeping face, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist as if holding herself together by sheer force of will.

"You didn't have to do that," Grace whispered into the dark.

"Yes, I did," I replied, resting my forearms on my knees. "I should have done it three years ago. I should have stood up to her the first time she made you cry in our kitchen."

Grace let out a bitter, humorless laugh. "You wouldn't have believed me back then. You thought your mother hung the moon, Ryan. You thought her approval was the metric of success."

"I was an idiot."

"You were ambitious," she corrected softly. "There's a difference. You wanted to build something that could never be touched, never be taken away. I get it now. Growing up with the Vance name... you always felt like someone was coming for your crown."

"And you?" I asked, turning my head to look at her profile in the dim light of the medical monitors. "How did you survive the last three years, Grace? No money from the trust, no support from me. How did you raise three toddlers alone in this city?"

She turned her head slowly, her green eyes meeting mine. There was no anger left in them—only a deep, bone-weary exhaustion, and something else... something fragile.

"I got a job," she said simply. "An archivist position at the Chicago History Museum downtown. The pay is terrible, but the insurance covers pediatric care if I budget down to the last dollar. I rented a small two-bedroom apartment above a bakery in Andersonville. The flour dust gets into the windows every morning, and the floorboards creak when the wind blows off the lake..."

She paused, a small, tender smile touching the corners of her lips.

"...but it was safe. It was quiet. And every time I looked at their faces, I saw you—the good parts of you, Ryan. The brilliant, focused, stubborn parts—without all the armor and the corporate bloodlines."

My throat tightened so hard I couldn't speak. I reached across the small gap between our chairs, turning my palm upward on the armrest.

For a long moment, she just stared at my hand.

Then, slowly, hesitantly, she slid her fingers into mine. Her hand was small, cold, and calloused from years of physical work and paper-handling. I closed my fingers around hers, holding on as if letting go would make her vanish back into the Chicago rain.

"Let me fix this, Grace," I whispered, my voice thick with a vow I intended to keep with every breath in my body. "Let me take care of you. Let me take care of them."

"You can't just buy a family, Ryan," she murmured, though she didn't pull her hand away.

"I'm not trying to buy anything," I said fiercely. "I'm trying to earn it. Give me a chance. Just one week. Let me show you that the man who walked away three years ago is dead."