Chapter 247: Miss Valentine

Reese If there was one thing I knew for certain, it was this. My father never did anything without a reason. Not kindness. Not mercy. Not patience. Reginald Blackwood didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to be generous. He didn’t suddenly soften with age, nor did he ever extend olive branches without a blade hidden in the leaves. So if Savannah was allowed to stay here— If she was permitted under this roof, breathing the same air as him—then something was coming. I just didn’t know what yet. And that was the worst part. Because when my father plotted, the danger wasn’t always immediate. Sometimes it took days. Sometimes weeks. He liked watching people settle, liked letting them believe they were safe before pulling the ground out from under them. No one ever saw it coming. Savannah emerged from the bathroom a few moments later, and despite everything weighing on my mind, I couldn’t help noticing her. The clothes fit perfectly—River’s, apparently—and that alone surprised me. A sim