Page 70 of Inheritance

Sophia sat at the chessboard, bent forward slightly, hand hovering above the board. Her fingers rested just shy of the piece, unmoving.

I stepped inside.

Sophia didn’t look up—too focused. But she leaned back slightly as I approached, as if sensing me. I let my hand brush her shoulder, then dropped it to the back of her chair.

“You’re hesitating,” I murmured.

“It’s a big move,” she said, still not looking away from the board.

I studied it. My father was exposed—one move from checkmate. I touched a piece lightly.

“Here.”

“Hey, that’s cheating,” Caroline said.

Sophia finally looked up from the board. “I’m surprised you care.”

Caroline snorted. “I don’t. I just hate watching people bend the rules.”

Her voice carried that baiting edge—meant more to rile Sophia than out of any real sense of right and wrong.

Sophia scoffed as I slipped out. “Really?”

“Mmhmm,” Caroline hummed back.

It’s good to have them back.

Their voices followed me down the hall, their bickering fading into the distance. Toward Logan’s room.

The air felt cold now.

I told myself I was just working soreness from fresh wounds—another lie. A healing walk ends at the library or the garden. A healing walk doesn’t lead a man to a door shut by nearly a year of grief and guilt.

I slowed beside the display table where his first boxing medal still lay. No one had moved it. Dust hadn’t dared settle on the brass. I set two fingers on the ribbon; a tremor ran up my arm and through the stitches in my shoulder. I pushed off and kept moving.

Three doors down, last on the right.

The doorknob gleamed ahead, daring me. I stopped close enough to smell the wood, my forehead on the door.

It felt like he was just beyond the door. For some reason the image I held of him seemed locked at him as a kid. But he was a man when he died.

The gym came back to me, a memory from over a decade ago—the reek of leather and sweat, Logan fumbling with gloves too big for his hands.

“Keep your guard up.” I said.

“They’re heavy.”

“Then get stronger.”

He laughed, bouncing on his toes, throwing a sloppy jab I let connect.

“Like that?”

“Not even close.”

I caught his wrist, straightened it, nudged his chin down with a knuckle. Made him do it again. And again. Until he mirrored it right—chin tucked, shoulders tight. He always had so much trust in his eyes, like he knew he could always rely on me.

“Better,” I told him, and he grinned like I’d just crowned him champion.