Harper watched her father silence another man with the same unyielding authority she’d endured throughout her youth.  

“Henry, it’s a mis.." 

"Sit down, Oliver. This discussion is over." Henry voiced with absolute finality. 

For the rest of the meeting, Harper questioned whether she’d won this round. And at what cost?

When everyone left, Oliver turned to her, his calm a thin veneer.

“What happens if you’re stuck here, Harper?”

She avoided his gaze.

"You might want to be careful with what you wish for."

Harper met his gaze steadily. "Is that a threat?"

"God, Harper! You know I would never threaten you." He straightened his tie. “But you should think about your choices. Ivan isn’t the answer.”

Oliver’s laugh was hollow as he pushed through the door.  

Harper bowed her head. “No. He’s the punishment.”  

She closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing.  

Ivan Vernon swayed his coin in a steady rhythm, staring at his phone. A message flashed across the screen.  

3 PM. Emergency board meeting. Your presence is required.

“Required,” he muttered, scoffing.

An hour later, his phone buzzed again, this time with a call.

"You're being late. Where are you?" Oliver’s voice dripped with irritation, as if Ivan’s absence was a personal slight.

"Speak short."

“This is urgent. We need you here.”

Ivan frowned, memories of past arguments flooding back. 

He’d laid out the truth to their father once, voice tight with frustration, trying to make him see reason.

“We’re falling apart,” Ivan had said, pointing to the evidence. “At this rate, we’re done.” 

Oliver had leaned back, casual in his leather jacket. “We just need time. I’ve got a plan.”

Ivan had pushed harder, showing the cracks in Oliver’s ideas. 

“You were so sure we’d come out ahead. But every step you took cost us.”  

“Things changed,” Oliver had snapped.  

“You failed,” Ivan countered. “We were lucky to scrape by.”  

Oliver’s face had darkened. “Those were calculated risks.”  

“I warned you. I said we were overextended. I begged you to pull back.”  Ivan had pulled out a letter, dated March 15th, 2019. 

Oliver’s response had been curt. “Noted. Moving forward as planned.”

“Four minutes,” Ivan shouted. “You spent four minutes dismissing weeks of my work.”

Yet their father had chosen Oliver’s path anyway.

Now, Henry Owen held sway over their family’s legacy. Was Ivan supposed to step back into the chaos?

“What’s this about?”

“They want you to help settle things.”

The coin slipped from Ivan’s fingers, clattering against the desk. “They want me to do what?”

“Co-lead with someone from the Owen family. It’s already decided.”

“Decided?” Ivan stood, his chair scraping the floor. “They pushed me out, and now they think I’ll come running because they snapped their fingers?”

“Ivan, don’t be a child. This isn’t…”

“This isn’t what? You let them take everything, and now you want me to help fix it?” He paused. “Why me?”

Oliver’s silence stretched too long.

“They need someone who can handle complicated situations.”

Ivan laughed at the sudden understanding. “You mean because I’ve cleaned up your messes before.”

“No! You just… smoothed things over.”

“I’ve built my own life now, Oliver. I don’t need you or them.”

“Dad wants to see you.”

"..."

Ivan sighed, leaning back in his chair, glancing at his desk. He’d carved out his own path, free of family politics.

After complete silence his father wanted to talk, but as the founder of LV.

"When?"

"Tonight, family dinner at nine o'clock."

Ivan closed his eyes. Family dinner. As if they were still a family. As if months of exile could be erased with pot roast and strained conversation.

“Listen…” Oliver said after a pause.

“What now, Oliver?”

“You didn’t say if you’re coming tonight.” Oliver’s tone was clipped, laced with the impatience of someone used to getting his way.

Ivan twirled the coin between his fingers, its familiar weight grounding him. “I’ll think about it.”

“Think faster. Dad’s not in the mood for games.”

“Games?” Ivan’s laugh was sharp, cutting through the line. “You’re the one playing, brother. Dragging me back into this mess after you let it all fall apart.”

“Let it fall apart?” Oliver’s voice rose up. “I’ve been holding things together while you ran off to play lone wolf.”

“Ran off?” Ivan’s grip tightened on the coin, the edges biting into his palm. “You think exile was a vacation? I built something real out here.”

“I don’t need your lecture,” Oliver snapped.

Another pause, heavier this time. Ivan could feel Oliver’s panic through the phone.

“Just be there tonight,” Oliver said, his voice tight. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

He set the phone down with more force than necessary and stared at his hands. He’d proven himself becoming independent. And they still thought he'd come running when they called.

The worst part was that they were probably right.

He was solid. But watching his family’s legacy helplessly get carved up by strangers still was torture.

Even if that family had kicked him out.

Flipping the coin helped him think; it helped him process what Oliver hadn't said. Ivan's mind began working through possibilities. 

The coin spun in his hand, heads, tails, heads, tails. He didn’t believe in mercy, but he believed in timing. And right now, timing was everything.

Co-leading with someone from the Owen Group meant working directly with Henry Owen's people. 

Meetings. Strategy sessions. Pretending to care about their plans.

He grasped.

"Unless... Leadership means... Access to Owen Group's weaknesses. Information that could be valuable if he decided to make his moves later." 

His mind raced, calculating possibilities. The network he’d built over the past eighteen months wasn’t just about his own life. It included people who might be very interested in certain opportunities.

This could get complicated.

Ivan stared at the LV Industries building visible from his window. Soon, it would just be another conquest in Owen's empire. 

He walked to the kitchen, pulling out the whiskey he kept for nights when anger threatened to consume him. The liquor was burning in his chest like everything else in his life lately.

He remembered Harper’s office that morning.

Was she sleeping at her desk?

She seemed as if she'd been hit by a truck. Her hair was disheveled, and her blouse was wrinkled. The dark circles under her eyes couldn't quite hide even her makeup. 

“At least this is costing her sleep too.”

She’d seemed haunted, like she'd seen a ghost.

Maybe she had.

Ivan wondered what Harper knew about him. Did she see him as an obstacle in her father's grand plan? 

Her voice barely whispered when she reached out toward him. When she seized the coin, was it a relief that for a split second something flickered in her eyes? Fear?

Ivan had stormed into her office ready for a fight. He was prepared to deliver a message for Henry with enough venom to make it clear where he stood. 

But her expression had thrown him off balance. She'd seemed... fragile. Broken in a way that didn't match the lady-like woman Oliver had described.

He’d met her once at that conference before he knew who she was. She'd been arguing with someone; her voice was sharp with intelligence and frustration. And he'd found himself intrigued by her. 

Then someone called her name. 

Owen. As in Henry Owen, the man who'd been circling around his family decades. 

Ivan had left the conference without speaking to her.

The contrast to her earlier appearance was significant. 

"Not that it matters. She is still his daughter." 

That is why she was an enemy who'd benefit from his family's destruction.

Ivan finished his drink. He'd had a few decisions to make. 

Whether to accept the role and play along with Henry Owen's plans. 

He also had a different kind of preparation to do.

He unlocked his phone and scrolled through his contacts.An old friend, someone who’d navigated messy family disputes before, might be interested in hearing about this. Ivan owed him a favor from a past favor.

He left a brief message, then made two more calls, setting the foundation for possibilities he wasn’t ready to act on yet.

He might be, depending on how the next few weeks play out.

Henry Owen’s probably preparing for our first meeting, Ivan thought. Strategizing how to keep me in line.

Ivan had learned survival skills in the past months. He'd understood that the right partnerships could shift any balance.

And the best revenge was patience.

He poured another shot of whiskey, the burn steadying him. Harper’s face lingered in his mind. The woman from that brief meeting a long time ago, fierce and alive. His enemy.

The coin’s swaying sound followed him out into the evening air.

His phone buzzed against his chest. Unknown number.

Ivan almost ignored it. He'd had enough surprises for one day. But something made him answer.

"Ivan Vernon?"

The voice was distorted, mechanically altered.

"Who is this?"

"Someone who knows what really happened on the bridge."

“The bridge?”