Ava looked at Lucien slumped in his chair, stripped of all his usual armor and control, and realized that despite everything—the manipulation, the imprisonment, the revelation about her father—she still didn't have the complete picture.
"There's more," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.
He looked up sharply, surprise flickering across his exhausted features. "What makes you say that?"
"Because nothing about this story makes complete sense. Your father's guilt-driven suicide, my father's embezzlement and subsequent death, the way you've been so desperate to keep me close while claiming it started as revenge." She leaned forward, studying his face. "You're not just trying to control me out of obsession or damaged feelings. You're trying to protect me from something."
For a long moment, he said nothing. Just stared at her with an expression that was equal parts impressed and wary, as if she'd uncovered something he'd hoped to keep hidden longer.
"You're more perceptive than I gave you credit for," he said finally.
"I've had months of practice reading between your lies. So tell me—what aren't you saying about our fathers' history?"
Lucien stood and moved to the windows, staring out at the Manhattan skyline that stretched endlessly below them. When he spoke, his voice was measured, careful, as if he were choosing each word with precision.
"Your father's gambling debts weren't to casinos or legitimate bookies," he began. "They were to a loan shark with connections to organized crime. When he couldn't pay, they offered him an alternative—use his position at Drake Industries to facilitate money laundering through our company accounts."
Ice formed in Ava's stomach. "Money laundering."
"Among other things. Your father was brilliant with technology and finance. He created elaborate systems of false invoices and shell companies that made dirty money look clean. The embezzlement I mentioned was real, but it wasn't motivated by greed—it was coerced. He was stealing to pay back debts while also helping criminals clean their money."
Ava felt the world shifting again, the narrative she'd barely begun to accept transforming into something darker and more complex. "And your father discovered this."
"Not at first. My father thought it was simple embezzlement and mismanagement. But when he hired forensic accountants to investigate the financial irregularities, they found patterns that suggested organized criminal involvement." Lucien turned to face her, and she saw genuine fear in his dark eyes. "That's when things became dangerous."
"How dangerous?"
"The kind of dangerous where people end up dead in 'accidents.'" His voice was flat, emotionless, but she heard the pain underneath. "My father confronted yours with the forensic evidence. Your father broke down, admitted everything—the gambling addiction, the loan shark, the coercion to participate in money laundering. He was terrified, Ava. Not of legal consequences, but of what would happen to your mother and you if he refused to continue cooperating."
The room seemed to tilt around her. "He was trying to protect us."
"He was in an impossible situation. Continue helping criminals and risk going to prison, or refuse and risk having his family targeted." Lucien moved closer, and she could see the exhaustion etched into every line of his face. "My father tried to help. Tried to negotiate with the people your father owed money to, offered to pay off the debts in exchange for leaving David Lane alone."
"But it didn't work."
"It didn't work." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Because by that point, your father had become too valuable to them. He'd created systems they couldn't easily replicate, had technical knowledge they needed. They weren't going to let him walk away just because his debts were paid."
Ava felt tears burning behind her eyes as a different picture of her father emerged—not a villain or a victim, but a desperate man caught between impossible choices, trying to protect his family while trapped by criminals who'd recognized his value.
"The accident," she said. "His death—"
"Wasn't an accident, but it also probably wasn't suicide," Lucien admitted. "The brake line was sabotaged, yes. The high levels of sedatives suggest he was drugged. The timing—just days after my father tried to extract him from the situation—was too convenient."
Understanding crashed over her in horrifying waves. "The people he was working for killed him."
"We can't prove it. The investigation was closed quickly, the evidence was circumstantial, and my father didn't push for a deeper inquiry because he was terrified of what might happen to your mother and you if he drew more attention to the situation." Lucien's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "He carried that guilt for two years—not just that he'd failed to save your father, but that his attempt to help might have been what got David Lane killed."
"So he killed himself."
"So he killed himself. Left a note taking responsibility for everything, hoping that by claiming blame for your father's death, he might draw the criminals' attention away from your family. Make them think the matter was closed, the threat was neutralized."
The complexity of it was staggering. Not a simple story of embezzlement and revenge, but a tangled web of criminal coercion, desperate men trying to protect their families, and violence that left both fathers dead.
"You've known this the whole time," Ava said quietly. "The real story, not just the convenient narrative about revenge."
"I've known for years. Spent a fortune on private investigators, forensic accountants, people willing to dig into areas the police wouldn't touch." He met her gaze directly. "That's the real reason for the surveillance. The real reason I orchestrated your employment and inserted myself into your life."
"Protection," she whispered. "You were trying to protect me."
"The revenge narrative was real too," he admitted. "I did blame your father for my father's death. I did want to make you pay for what I thought his weakness and moral failings had caused. But underneath that, I was terrified that if the wrong people found out David Lane had a daughter, they might see you as a loose end or a potential liability."
Ava thought about all the months of surveillance, the controlling behavior, the systematic insertion into her life. Seen through this lens, it took on different shades—not just obsession and manipulation, but desperate protection against threats she hadn't known existed.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked. "Why let me think the worst of you and my father rather than explaining the real danger?"
"Because ignorance was your best protection." His voice carried the weight of terrible decisions made for good reasons. "As long as you didn't know about the money laundering or the criminal connections, you were just David Lane's daughter living a quiet life. But the moment you started asking questions, started digging into your father's death—you became a problem that might need solving."
The threat was implicit but clear. If the criminals who'd coerced her father discovered that his daughter was investigating the past, they might decide she knew too much or posed too much risk.
"Alexander Vance," Ava said suddenly. "The information he gave me—"
"Is probably accurate in parts and dangerously incomplete in others." Lucien's voice hardened. "Vance has been investigating Drake Industries for years, trying to find leverage he can use against me. He knows about the money laundering, knows there were criminal elements involved, but he doesn't know the full scope of who we're dealing with."
"And if he publishes his findings? If he goes public with accusations about your father and mine?"
"Then the people who killed your father might decide that the story is getting too much attention. That witnesses need to be silenced and loose ends need to be tied up." Lucien moved closer, and she could see genuine fear in his eyes. "I've kept this quiet for years, kept you safe by keeping you ignorant. But now you know, and Alexander Vance is circling, and the very act of investigating your father's death might put you in the crosshairs of people who don't leave witnesses alive."
The weight of it settled over her like a suffocating blanket. She'd thought the choice was simple—stay with the man who'd manipulated her or leave to pursue truth and independence. But the truth turned out to be far more dangerous than she'd imagined, and independence might come at the cost of her life.
"Who are they?" she asked quietly. "The people my father was working for."
"I don't have names. Just shadowy figures with connections to organized crime, political influence, and a very long reach. My investigators have tried to dig deeper, but every lead ends in dead ends or sudden 'accidents' for anyone who gets too close."
"So we can't even expose them without risking becoming targets ourselves."
"Exactly." He sank back into his chair, looking more defeated than she'd ever seen him. "I've spent years trying to protect you from threats you didn't know existed while simultaneously trying to manage my own rage and grief about what happened to our families. The control, the surveillance, the systematic manipulation of your life—yes, some of it was revenge and obsession. But a lot of it was desperate protection against dangers I couldn't explain without making you a target."
Ava felt her anger toward him shifting, complicating, becoming something harder to maintain in its pure form. He was still guilty of manipulation and control, still responsible for systematically destroying her autonomy. But the motivations were more complex than she'd thought—not just damaged psychology and revenge fantasies, but genuine fear for her safety mixed with his own inability to protect people through any means except total control.
"So what now?" she asked. "I know the truth, or at least more of it. I'm potentially at risk from criminals who killed my father. And you're sitting here offering me protection that comes with a side of imprisonment."
"I'm offering you information and the choice to do with it what you will," Lucien corrected quietly. "Stay here where I can protect you, or leave and take your chances with threats you now know exist. Continue working for me with the understanding of why I've been so controlling, or quit and find employment elsewhere while looking over your shoulder for danger."
"Those aren't really choices. They're different flavors of the same trap."
"I know." His voice was heavy with regret. "I know that everything I touch becomes complicated and controlling and ultimately corrupting. But I also know that there are real threats out there, Ava. The man your father worked for—the loan shark or criminal mastermind or whatever he is—he's still out there. His organization is still operating, still laundering money through legitimate businesses, still silencing people who know too much."
He leaned forward, and she saw genuine terror in his dark eyes.
"And if he finds out who you are—if he discovers that David Lane's daughter is alive and asking questions about her father's death—you'll be a target. A loose end that needs to be eliminated. And I don't know if I can protect you from that if you're not close enough for me to control."
The last word slipped out unconsciously, revealing the core of his dilemma. He didn't know how to protect someone without controlling them, didn't know how to keep her safe except by eliminating her freedom of movement and choice.
Ava looked at him in his fortress high above the city, this damaged man who'd tried to exact revenge and ended up trying to protect her instead, and felt something shift in her chest. Not forgiveness—that would take time and probably therapy and a fundamental restructuring of their entire relationship. But understanding, at least. Understanding of why he'd been the way he'd been, even if she couldn't accept the methods.
"I need time," she said finally. "Time to process this. Time to figure out what I believe and what I want. Time to decide if staying close to you is protection or just a different kind of danger."
"Take all the time you need." His voice was hollow with exhaustion. "The code to the elevator is still your birthday. You can leave whenever you want. But Ava?"
She looked at him, waiting.
"Please be careful. Please watch for anyone following you, anyone asking questions about your father or your family history. And please—" his voice cracked slightly, "—consider the possibility that I'm not just a controlling bastard trying to possess you. That I'm a terrified man who's already lost both parents to this situation and can't bear the thought of losing you too."
The raw honesty in his voice made her throat tight with emotion. This was the truth beneath all the lies—not revenge or obsession or even damaged love, but terror. Terror that history would repeat itself, that the criminals who'd killed her father would come for her, that his inability to protect the people he cared about would claim another victim.
"I'll be careful," she promised quietly. "But Lucien? You need to understand that protection through control isn't really protection. It's just a slower form of suffocation."
"I know." He looked down at his hands, and she saw them trembling slightly. "I know that everything I do to keep you safe is also destroying any chance of you actually wanting to stay. But I don't know how else to be. I don't know how to care about someone without trying to control every variable that might hurt them."
It was perhaps the most self-aware thing he'd ever said to her—an admission that he was fundamentally broken in ways that made a healthy relationship impossible, even as he desperately wanted one.
Ava stood up, suddenly exhausted by the emotional weight of everything she'd learned. "I'm going to stay in the guest room tonight. Tomorrow I'll decide what comes next. But right now, I just need to sleep and process and try to make sense of a story that keeps getting more complicated every time I think I understand it."
"Of course." He didn't try to stop her, didn't make any move to close the distance between them. Just sat in his chair looking defeated and vulnerable and nothing like the powerful CEO who'd hired her all those months ago.
As she reached the hallway, his voice stopped her one more time.
"Ava?"
She turned back.
"Thank you for not running. Thank you for listening to all of this, even though you had every reason to walk away the moment you discovered the code." His dark eyes held hers with painful intensity. "Whatever you decide about us, about staying or leaving—thank you for giving me the chance to tell you the whole truth, or at least as much of it as I know."
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and continued to the guest room. But as she closed the door and sank onto the bed, one thought kept circling through her mind:
The man your father worked for is still out there.
And she was now the daughter of a man who'd known too much, asking questions that might make her a target for people who eliminated problems permanently.
The cage Lucien had built around her life suddenly felt less like oppression and more like the only thing standing between her and very real danger.
End of Chapter 34