Page 200 of Money Reigns

I swallow hard, nerves scraping my throat raw as I hop out.

I glance at Dean, the only one still watching me instead of the Inn. “Could you come with me?”

He doesn’t hesitate. Just nods. “I’ll get your bags.”

Chase and Logan head across the street, already slipping back into their rhythm, shoulders squared to carry the weight I dropped.

Dean falls into step beside me, solid and steady, as I walk toward the front porch of the house I swore I’d never need again.

My knees shake. My lungs burn.

But I keep moving.

Because my dad is waiting.

And I don’t know if I’m ready.

Dean turns the knob for me and swings open the door as I climb the patio steps, the wood groaning under my weight like it remembers me.

As soon as I step inside, I smell it.

The strawberry cake.

My cake.

The air is thick with sugar and vanilla, warm and familiar, and for a second I’m ten years old again, skipping through this hallway with sticky fingers.

I pass the living room.

The couch is still here—ten years old now, maybe more, sunk in the middle, still wrapped in Mom’s favorite color. Periwinkle. A ridiculous shade for a couch, and somehow even more ridiculous that she fought to keep it all these years. The fabric is frayed at the arms, faded in the sunlight, but it’s ours.

Photos line the walls, frame after frame. School pictures with bad haircuts. Family Christmases. Mama and Daddy on their wedding day. Chase holding my hand on my first day of kindergarten. The faces are frozen in time, smiling, laughing, alive in a way I don’t feel right now.

I make it to the kitchen doorway, and stop.

He’s there.

My dad. Standing by the counter, the strawberry cake waiting behind him like it’s been holding its breath for me.

The sight of him cracks something wide open. The tears come fast, hot, spilling down my cheeks before I can even try to stop them. A sob rips out of me, ugly and raw, but it doesn’t matter because the weight that’s been crushing me for months lifts in an instant.

“Daddy,” I choke, the word breaking as I stumble forward.

His arms are already open. I run into them, burying myself against the safe, solid wall of him. He smells like flour and coffee.Likehome.

He hugs me tight and rocks me, the same way he used to when nightmares sent me running to his room. Safe. Untouchable.

“You’ve got four layers of protection,”he used to whisper.“If anyone wants to get to you, they’ve got to go through your brothers first. And then me. And no one, no one, is getting through me.”

My chest shakes as I cling tighter, the years between us evaporating.

“I messed up again,” I sputter against his shirt, ashamed, broken.

He presses a hand to my hair, gentle, firm. No judgment in his touch, none in his eyes when I finally dare to look up.

“Well, you’re home, my Ollipop,” he says, voice steady as bedrock. “You can hide out here as long as you need.”

Chapter forty-one