Chapter 13
Nico changed too.
Not dramatically.
That would have been suspicious.
But enough.
He had always believed protection meant being the fastest person to stand between his daughter and danger.
The garage reinforced that instinct.
Rebecca challenged it.
“You punched Gavin.”
“He lunged at Mila.”
“I know.”
“He deserved worse.”
“That sentence is why we’re having this conversation.”
Nico stared at her.
She continued.
“Sienna spent seven years married to a man who decided for her because he thought his outcome was better.”
Nico’s expression changed.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Rebecca looked at him.
Everything.
He understood eventually.
Nico had never taken Sienna’s signatures.
Never deceived her financially.
But he had spent her entire life stepping into problems so quickly that other people sometimes spoke to him instead of her.
Banks.
Lawyers.
Family members.
Even Gavin.
Sienna had married a man determined not to live under Nico’s shadow.
Then Gavin created a different form of control inside the marriage.
Father and husband were not the same.
But the pattern had enough resemblance to make Sienna uncomfortable.
She told Nico directly.
“I need you to stop treating my life like a territory.”
His face tightened.
“I protect you.”
“I know.”
“I’m your father.”
“I know.”
“And he shoved you.”
“Yes.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Ask.”
Nico looked genuinely confused.
“Ask what?”
“If I want help.”
He hated the idea.
Which meant it mattered.
Over the following months, he practiced.
Badly.
When Sienna met divorce counsel:
“Do you want me there?”
“No.”
“Fine.”
When Southline held an emergency board meeting:
“Do you want my people looking at the loan?”
“No.”
Long pause.
“Fine.”
When Julian developed a fever:
“Do you want me to call the pediatrician?”
“I already called.”
Another pause.
“Fine.”
Sienna occasionally laughed at him.
May you like
He accepted the humiliation.
It was cheaper than another family learning control through crisis.
