Chapter 194
Kieran opened the passenger door and set her down carefully. He looked at the welt on her leg. It was ugly, but it would heal. The rot inside this family, however, went all the way to the bone.
He walked around to the driver’s side and gripped the wheel until his knuckles went white.
“I promise,” he said.
But his mind was not on the woman beside him. It was on the cold, still eyes of the woman who had just driven away.
The emergency room at Mt. Sinai was a study in controlled chaos, but the curtained VIP area was quiet, smelling of antiseptic and floor wax.
The doctor — a tired man with grey stubble — examined Aspen’s leg, pressing gently at the red welt.
“It’s a nasty contusion,” he said, peeling off his latex gloves. “No broken skin. No fracture. You’re lucky.”
Aspen winced dramatically, clutching the paper sheet on the exam table. “Will it scar? I have a photoshoot next week for the charity gala. I cannot have a scar.”
“Unlikely,” the doctor said, unimpressed, scribbling on his clipboard. “Ice and rest. Ibuprofen. You’ll be fine in a few days.”
ո𝗼𝘷elѕ і𝘯 𝘵𝗿e𝗻𝖽 o𝘯 𝘨𝗮𝗹𝘯о𝘷𝗲l𝘴.с𝗼𝘮
Kieran stood by the curtain with his arms crossed, feeling a deep, bone-weary exhaustion settling into his marrow. He watched Aspen examine the welt from several angles under the harsh fluorescent light.
“Kieran, my phone,” Aspen said, holding out her hand. “I need to tell my followers I’m okay. They’ll worry if I go silent.”
“No,” Kieran said.
Aspen blinked. “Excuse me?”
“No social media. We are keeping this quiet.” His voice was flat and final. “You are not posting a cryptic photo of a hospital wristband. You are not alluding to an attack. We are burying this.”
Aspen’s lower lip trembled. “But she hurt me. People should know!”
“If people know, they’ll ask why,” Kieran said, stepping closer to the bed. “And if they ask why, the story about Grandma Wolfe comes out. Do you want that?”
Aspen shrank back. She knew when to play the victim, and she knew when she was cornered. She lowered her hand. “Fine.”
The office of the Schneider Estate was thick with expensive scotch and silence. Robert and Elouise sat in the leather armchairs, the decanter considerably lighter than it had been an hour before. The mood was grim, weighted by the slow recognition that their control over Jocelyn was not merely slipping — it was gone.
“She is out of control,” Elouise said, staring into her glass. “If she comes back here with a weapon again…”
“We need to cut her loose,” Robert said. He took a long drink. “Officially.”
“What do you mean?”
“A public disownment,” he said, setting his glass down hard on the coaster. “A statement to the press. We say that Jocelyn Wolfe’s actions do not reflect the values of the Schneider family. We say she is mentally unstable. We distance ourselves before she drags us down.”
Elouise hesitated. She thought briefly of the baby girl she had once held. Then she thought of her country club membership. The whispers at the salon. The weight of the Schneider name.
“That’s drastic,” she murmured. “She is my daughter.”
.