“They hardly have a leg to stand on.”

“Judge Neiland, we had a plan. You did not stick to the plan. That did not go well. Now, I urge you to listen to me…”

Aaron Neiland wasn’t listening as he strode ahead of his father and his attorney.

It was his father’s idea to come that day.

He hadn’t seen Carissa recently. He didn’t know how she’d changed.

And the pompous fuck wouldn’t have listened anyway.

Aaron didn’t give a shit if he came or not. The whole play was a grandstand so he could see Carissa’s face when they told her they were taking her ass to court.

He did this because he wanted to watch her start to cave.

She was all about Travis. All about family. So he knew she would cave.

So he was shocked as shit that she didn’t.

He walked right to the elevators but as he did, he saw it.

And when he saw it, he didn’t stare. He looked away immediately.

But it was burned on his brain anyway.

He knew where Angie’s office was in that suite.

Fuck, he should have taken the long way.

But he didn’t.

So he saw it.

Carissa pressing her face into Carson Steele’s chest, the man’s head bent, lips to her hair, her shoulders shaking with her tears. He was holding Carissa close with one arm, hand buried in her ringlets, Aaron’s fucking son held tight in his other arm.

That vision was obliterated by another one he also did not like—seeing that last look of hurt and hate thrown his way through her tears—as Aaron got in the elevator.

The doors closed on him, his father, and his friend and colleague, Steven.

“Son, we’ll go back to the office and—” his dad began.

He turned his head and caught his father’s eyes. “Please, shut up.”

His chin jerked into his neck. “I beg your pardon?”

He heard her words.

I can’t stand the sight of you.

His father had fucked up. Their investigator warned them strongly not to bring in Chaos. If they did, the investigator told them that Kane Allen would activate Nightingale or Delgado, “And unless you can open your closet doors wide and only celestial light shines out with no bones dangling, they’ll eviscerate the both of you.”

His words.

Precisely.

Neither his father nor Aaron could open those doors.

So Chaos was off-limits.

But his father was so fucking arrogant, his head so far up his fucking ass, he thought he could get away with anything.

The strategy was to shake Carissa up with their news about Peter Waite and to share that her boyfriend was capable of beating a man bloody. Shake her up and make her rethink. Shake her up and drive her back to Aaron.