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She fought him over that help at first.

“Lakelyn, tell your man I ain’t helpless.”

I laughed. “Granny, I tried.”

Caspian didn’t even bother pretending to care about her protest. “Nobody said you’re helpless. You just got somebody around if you need something.”

“I can get my own things.”

“And now you got somebody else who can get ’em too.”

She fussed, but he ignored her.

Eventually, Granny realized arguing with Caspian was a waste of blood pressure.

When it came to her house, we restored it after the fire. Once contractors opened the walls, we discovered more damage than we originally thought, especially around the electrical system and smoke-affected areas. Insurance covered the eligible repairs, and I paid for additional upgrades Granny had put off for years.

The wiring was replaced, the laundry room and kitchen were repaired, both bathrooms were remodeled, and I insisted on making one of them safer and more accessible for her.

By the time everything was finished, the house looked better than it had before the fire.

Only thing was, Granny never moved back… not permanently, anyway.

Once she got comfortable in the mansion, surrounded by family and close enough to see her great-grandchildren every day, she admitted she didn’t really want to leave. We kept her home fully furnished so she could visit whenever she wanted, and she still went by to see neighbors and check on things, but the mansion had become home… for all of us.

Henrietta’s reunion with her son had been even harder to watch. That woman had spent years carrying grief with the kind of strength that made people forget she was hurting at all.

The first time Caspian appeared in front of her, she had been standing in our living room with her purse still hanging from her shoulder.

“What’s up, Ma?”

Henrietta’s purse hit the floor, and she ran straight into his arms.

I quietly left the room and let them have each other.

Henrietta had loved me through those years. She had taken care of Kaidence, kept Caspian’s home waiting for us, and treated me like family even when she had no idea whether her son would ever return. But she had lost her child, so she deserved that reunion without an audience.

After that, the one-hour drive from her house suddenly became unacceptable. Within a few months she bought another home about ten minutes away, claiming she wanted to be closer to both of her grandchildren.

I personally believed she was tired of having to drive an hour every time she wanted to spoil them without my permission.

Either way, I wasn’t complaining.

Speaking of that lady, I finally found out what her little “job” had really been all those years.

A fuckin’ queenpin.

Who would’ve ever suspected?

Well, not my ass.

The truth came out a little while after everything went down, and suddenly years’ worth of little things about Henrietta made a whole lot more sense. The way she always seemed to know who to call, how comfortable she had been handling Caspian’s business after he disappeared, and that calm confidence she carried whenever conversations wandered into parts of his life I’d never fully understood.

By then, though, that chapter of her life was officially over. She had finally retired for real and handed the business off, with absolutely no interest in reclaiming her throne.

According to Henrietta, she had spent enough years making money, giving orders, and dealing with grown men who needed to be told the same thing three times. Now she spent her days enjoying the fruits of all that labor, spoiling her grandbabies rotten, traveling whenever she felt like it, and doing whatever else she wanted because she had more than earned the right.

Apparently, going from ‘queenpin’ to full-time grandma was the retirement plan she’d been waiting on.