Lennox's POV
I'm living in my car.
Three weeks after the gallery disaster, this is what my life has become: a rusty Honda Civic packed with garbage bags full of clothes, a sleeping bag that smells like mildew, and exactly forty-seven dollars in my bank account.
The eviction notice is crumpled on the passenger seat. So are the legal papers from Marcus's lawyer, threatening to sue me for "defamation and harassment" if I don't drop my case against him. My own lawyer quit yesterday because I can't pay her anymore.
I haven't showered in four days. I've been eating gas station crackers. And I can't stop refreshing my phone, watching my life get destroyed in real-time.
The photography community I spent years building? Gone. Every single client canceled. My Instagram account got reported so many times it was suspended. Someone posted my address online, and strangers sent hate mail calling me "obsessed" and "psycho."
Marcus and Shelby are everywhere—magazine covers, morning talk shows, podcast interviews. America's new favorite couple. The brilliant photographer and his supportive girlfriend who "survived a stalker ex."
I want to scream. I want to fight back.
But I have nothing left to fight with.
My phone buzzes. Another unknown number. I almost ignore it—probably another reporter wanting a comment about my "mental breakdown."
But something makes me answer.
"Lennox Gray?" A woman's voice. Professional but urgent.
"Yes."
"This is Dr. Patel from Willowbrook Memorial Hospital. I'm calling about Marion Gray. She's your aunt, correct?"
My heart drops into my stomach. "Is she okay?"
"She collapsed three hours ago. Cardiac event. She's stable now, but she needs emergency surgery within forty-eight hours. The procedure costs $150,000. Her insurance won't cover it."
The world spins. "I... I don't have that kind of money."
"We have a note that she listed a Caden Rivers as her emergency contact. He's been covering her medical expenses for the past five years. We've tried reaching him, but—"
I stop breathing.
Caden Rivers.
The name hits me like a punch to the chest.
Five years? He's been taking care of Marion for five years?
"Miss Gray? Are you still there?"
"I'm coming," I hear myself say. "Tell Marion I'm coming home."
I hang up before the doctor can say anything else.
My hands shake as I start the car. The engine coughs twice before turning over. The gas tank is nearly empty. I have forty-seven dollars. Willowbrook is ten hours away.
But Marion raised me after my parents died. She took in a broken twelve-year-old girl and loved her like a daughter. She worked double shifts at the diner to buy me my first camera. She never asked me to stay when I left for New York.
She just hugged me and whispered, "Go chase your dreams, sweetheart. Don't look back."
I looked back every single day.
And now she's dying, and I abandoned her just like I abandoned everything else.
I stop at a gas station and use thirty dollars to fill the tank. That leaves seventeen dollars for the entire trip. No food. No hotel. Just drive.
As I pull back onto the highway, memories flood in. Caden's smile. His laugh. The way he used to kiss my forehead and call me "Len." The last time I saw him, standing in his driveway, face destroyed as I drove away.
"If you leave, don't ever come back," he'd shouted.
But I did leave. Because Aunt Vivian—Marion's rich, controlling sister—sat me down two days before and said, "You'll ruin that boy's life, Lennox. He's poor. You're poor. Love doesn't pay bills. If you truly care about him, you'll let him go."
I was seventeen. Orphaned. Scared. And Vivian promised to pay for photography school if I left and never contacted Caden again.
I thought I was saving him.
Instead, I destroyed us both.
Now, ten years later, I'm crawling back with nothing.
The drive feels endless. My stomach cramps from hunger. Twice, I have to pull over because I'm crying too hard to see the road. My phone dies around hour six because I can't afford to charge it.
When I finally cross into Willowbrook at sunset, I almost don't recognize it.
The town I left was dying. Boarded-up shops. Cracked sidewalks. People leaving for bigger cities. It was suffocating, hopeless, the kind of place where dreams went to die.
But now?
My mouth drops open.
Willowbrook is thriving. New businesses line Main Street. Coffee shops. Boutiques. A bookstore with floor-to-ceiling windows. The old movie theater has been restored, its marquee glowing. People walk around with shopping bags, smiling, laughing.
And on every other building, I see the same logo: Rivers Tech.
Rivers.
Caden's last name.
I pull over, my hands shaking on the steering wheel.
What happened here? How did everything change so much?
A woman walks past with a Rivers Tech shopping bag. I roll down my window. "Excuse me? What is Rivers Tech?"
She looks at me like I'm crazy. "You don't know? It's the tech company that saved this town. Caden Rivers—our local hero—built it from nothing. Now he's a billionaire. He donated the community center, funded new schools, created hundreds of jobs. This whole town owes him everything."
Billionaire.
Caden Rivers is a billionaire.
The boy who worked three jobs to help his dad pay rent. The boy who wore the same shoes for two years because he couldn't afford new ones. The boy I left behind because I thought he'd be trapped in poverty forever.
He didn't get trapped.
He became a king.
And I became nothing.
My vision blurs. I force myself to keep driving. Marion's house is on the edge of town—a small, pale yellow cottage with a garden she loved.
As I pull into the driveway, I see the house looks different too. New paint. Fixed shutters. A ramp leading to the front door that wasn't there before.
Someone's been taking care of it.
Caden, my mind whispers.
I turn off the car and sit in the silence. Every part of me wants to run. Drive away and never come back. Caden probably hates me. He has every right to.
But Marion is dying.
And I'm the worst niece in the world for staying away so long.
I grab my phone to check the time, but it's dead. I'll have to go inside and use Marion's charger.
I walk up to the front door, my legs shaking. My hand reaches for the doorknob.
It's unlocked.
That's strange. Marion always locks her doors.
I push the door open. "Aunt Marion?"
The house is dark. Too dark. I fumble for the light switch.
The lights blaze on, and I freeze.
The living room is full of boxes. Moving boxes. Dozens of them, all sealed with tape, marked with dates and labels.
And sitting on the couch, looking right at me with cold, furious eyes, is Caden Rivers.
He's not the boy I remember.
He's a man now—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing an expensive suit that probably costs more than my car. His face is harder, sharper, devastatingly handsome in a way that makes my breath catch.
But his eyes. God, his eyes.
They look at me like I'm a ghost he wishes would disappear.
"Hello, Lennox," he says. His voice is ice. "Took you long enough."
My mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
Caden stands slowly, walking toward me like a predator. "Three weeks since Marion collapsed. Three weeks since the hospital tried to reach you. Three weeks of me wondering if you'd even bother to show up."
"I didn't know until today," I whisper. "They called me and—"
"Don't." His voice cracks like a whip. "Don't give me excuses. You left ten years ago and never looked back. Marion has been sick for months, and where were you? Building your perfect life in New York with your perfect fiancé, stealing credit for other people's work?"
The words are knives. Each one deserved.
"I didn't steal anything," I say weakly. "Marcus stole from me."
"I watched the video," Caden says coldly. "The whole world watched you get dragged out of that gallery, screaming like a lunatic. Very dignified, Lennox. Is that what you left me for? To become a tabloid disaster?"
Tears burn my eyes. "You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly," he interrupts. "You made your choice. You wanted the big city, the career, the glamorous life. And now that it's all fallen apart, you come crawling back. How predictable."
"I came back for Marion!" My voice breaks. "Not for you. Never for you."
The moment the words leave my mouth, I regret them.
Caden's expression turns to stone. He walks to the door and holds it open.
"Get out."
"What? No, I need to—"
"Get. Out." Each word is laced with venom. "Marion isn't here. She's in the hospital. I already paid for her surgery. It's scheduled for tomorrow morning. She doesn't need you. She has me."
The words shatter something inside my chest.
"Caden, please—"
"You're not welcome in this house," he says flatly. "You're not welcome in this town. And you're sure as hell not welcome in my life. Leave, Lennox. Like you're so good at doing."
"Where am I supposed to go?" I ask desperately. "I have nowhere. No money. Nothing."
Caden's smile is cruel. "Not my problem. You should have thought about that before you destroyed everything you touched."
He starts to close the door in my face.
"Wait!" I grab the door frame. "Please. I'll do anything. I just... I need to see Marion. To tell her I'm sorry. To make things right."
Caden stops. His eyes narrow, studying me like I'm an insect under glass.
Then, slowly, his cruel smile widens.
"Anything?" he asks softly. Dangerously.
My heart pounds. "Yes."
"Interesting." He leans against the door frame, looking down at me. "Because I might have a proposal for you, Lennox. A deal that benefits us both."
"What kind of deal?"
His golden eyes gleam with something dark and terrifying.
"Come to my office tomorrow morning. Nine AM sharp. I'll explain everything." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card. "Don't be late. And Lennox?"
"Yes?"
"If you run like you always do, Marion loses everything. Her house. Her medical care. Everything I've been paying for. Do you understand?"
I take the card with shaking hands. The address is for Rivers Tech headquarters.
"I understand," I whisper.
"Good." Caden steps back into the house. "There's a motel on Highway 9. It's cheap and depressing. Perfect for you."
Then he slams the door in my face.
I stand there in the darkness, holding his business card, my entire body trembling.
What kind of deal could he possibly want?
And why do I have the terrible feeling that whatever Caden Rivers is planning, it's going to destroy me all over again?