The cold of the marble seeped through the thin silk of my dress, but it was nothing compared to the white-hot agony radiating from my knee. My vision blurred at the edges, tunneling until the only thing in focus was Brielle’s perfectly manicured face staring down at me, a twisted smirk playing on her lips.

My mother’s eyes scanned the room, taking in the scuffed wooden floors, the mismatched armchairs in a small waiting area, and finally, Barnaby, who lifted his head and let out a low, warning growl.

“Quiet, Barnaby,” I said softly, resting a hand on his head. I looked at the three of them. I didn’t invite them to sit. I didn’t offer them coffee. I simply stood behind my desk, leaning my weight onto my good leg. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello, Harper,” my mother said. Her voice lacked its usual commanding snap. It was thinner, laced with an unfamiliar exhaustion. “We… we had a terrible time finding you. You aren’t listed in any of the normal directories.”

“That is the point of moving to Maine, Mother. Anonymity.” I looked at my father, who was staring at his shoes. “I marked your letters ‘Return to Sender.’ I changed my phone number. I made it abundantly clear that I have nothing to say to any of you.”

“Harper, please,” my father spoke up, his voice cracking slightly. “Just give us ten minutes. That’s all we ask.”

I looked at Brielle. She hadn’t taken off her sunglasses. She was chewing violently on her lower lip, staring at the floorboards as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world. The arrogance that had once defined her every movement was gone, replaced by a brittle, fragile tension.

“Ten minutes,” I said, checking my wristwatch. “Then you leave, or I call the local sheriff and have you trespassed from my business.”

My mother flinched at the word sheriff. A year ago, she would have slapped my face for suggesting such a thing. Today, she just nodded and sank into one of the mismatched armchairs. My father remained standing, while Brielle leaned against the doorframe, keeping her distance.

“We need your help, Harper,” my mother began, twisting her diamond wedding band nervously. “Things in Newport have become… untenable.”

“Untenable is an interesting word for it,” I replied, crossing my arms.

“The fallout from the… the incident,” she pushed on, refusing to use the word assault, “was worse than we could have ever anticipated. Liam’s family is very influential. When the annulment went through, they made sure everyone knew why. My event planning business lost every major client within a month. Your father’s country club asked him to resign his membership.”

“Actions have consequences,” I said flatly. “I learned that when I spent six months in a fiberglass cast.”

My mother ignored the jab. “It’s not just the social exile, Harper. It’s the finances. Brielle lost her job. The legal fees to keep her out of criminal court after you threatened to send that video to the police… they drained us. We had to take out a second mortgage on the estate. And now…”

She stopped, looking at my father. He cleared his throat, his face pale.

“Now the IRS is auditing me,” my father said softly. “They are looking into the last seven years of my business filings. They’re claiming I misclassified a massive amount of personal expenses as corporate write-offs. We are looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes and penalties. They are going to seize the house, Harper.”

I let out a slow, deliberate breath. It all made sense now. They hadn’t driven six hours up the coast because they missed me. They hadn’t come to apologize. They had come because the water was finally reaching the upper decks of their sinking ship, and they needed a life raft.

“And you came to me,” I said, “because I am a Certified Public Accountant.”

“You’re family,” my mother pleaded, leaning forward. “You know your father’s business. You know how these auditors work. If you could just look at the books, if you could represent us, maybe find a loophole, or at least negotiate a settlement we can survive…”

“You want me to commit professional suicide to save the estate,” I clarified, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “You want me to put my license on the line to untangle decades of your tax fraud.”

“It’s not fraud!” my father snapped, a brief flash of his old temper showing. “It was aggressive accounting! And you owe us, Harper! We raised you. We put you through college!”

“You put me through a staircase!” I shouted, the sudden volume of my voice startling Barnaby, who jumped to his feet.

The room fell dead silent.

I walked around my desk, ignoring the dull ache in my knee, and stopped three feet from my mother. I looked down at her, seeing her for exactly what she was: a terrified, aging woman who had prioritized appearances over her own daughter’s safety.

“Let me tell you exactly what is going to happen,” I said, my voice steady, cold, and absolute. “I am not looking at your books. I am not calling the IRS. I am not saving your house. If you committed tax fraud, you will pay the price, just like Brielle is paying the price for what she did to me.”

Brielle finally moved. She pulled off her sunglasses. Her eyes were red-rimmed, surrounded by dark circles. She looked like a ghost of the glowing bride she had been a year ago.

“Harper, please,” Brielle whispered, her voice trembling. “I have nothing. Liam took the ring back. I had to move back into my childhood bedroom. My friends pretend they don’t see me in the grocery store. I go to therapy twice a week. I know what I did was monstrous. I know it.”

She took a step toward me, tears spilling over her eyelashes.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, the sound pathetic and hollow in the small office. “I am so, so sorry. Just please… help Mom and Dad. Don’t punish them for what I did.”

I looked at my sister. A year ago, those words would have meant the world to me. A year ago, I would have broken down crying, hugged her, and forgiven everything. But the Harper who desperately sought her sister’s love had died on that marble floor in Newport.