"Yes," Jade said, "it is."
He pulled a chair up beside her without asking and started reading over her shoulder. After a while, he said very quietly, "He did this to all of them?"
"Looks that way."
Finn did not say anything else; he just kept reading. And something in his face—something in the set of his jaw that looked so much like Derek—made her chest tighten, telling her he understood more than she had given him credit for.
She cooked dinner that evening. Nothing complicated: rice, chicken, the green beans Finn claimed to hate but always finished. She turned the television off and kept it off. No news cycle, no share counts, no comment sections. Just the two of them at the table with the window open, the warm evening air moving through the curtains, and Zeus and Ares settled on the kitchen floor in their usual spots.
Jade watched her son eat and thought about Derek—about what he would say if he were sitting in that empty chair right now. She could hear his voice so clearly; sometimes it almost hurt. Low and steady and certain, the way it always was when things got hard: "You handled it, Jade. Now let the rest take care of itself."
She almost smiled.
"Mom," Finn said, looking up, "are we going to be okay?"
She looked at him directly. She never lied to him, not once in 10 years. "We're going to be okay," she said.
He nodded once, serious and trusting, and went back to his green beans. They washed the dishes together after dinner: Finn washed, Jade dried. Nobody said much. The kitchen was warm and ordinary and safe, and Jade held on to that feeling with both hands.
Her phone buzzed on the counter later that morning. Marcus Hale calling, not texting. She looked at the screen. She knew that number; she knew the difference between a check-in call and a brace-yourself.
Marcus did not waste time. "Harlan is suing you," he said. "Filed this morning. I'm looking at the paperwork right now."
Jade sat down slowly at the kitchen table. The coffee in front of her had gone cold; she did not notice. "Tell me everything," she said.