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She shakes her head. “I was the only one who knew. Or, I thought I was. Turns out his lawyer did some digging as well and realized Phillip had a granddaughter, too.” She purses her lips together in anger. “Phillip told me he was making some changes to his estate. He wanted to leave everything to you.”

The remnants of my broken heart, or what little had remained intact, fall apart.

“That’s why I think he’s coming after you.”

“You do think it’s the lawyer?” Ryker questions.

“I don’t know who else it could be. Phillip told me that originally, fifty percent of his estate was going to go to his attorney, and the other fifty percent was to be distributed to charities. But after he found Dahlia⁠—”

“That changed,” Ryker finishes. “And now he needs to get rid of the only heir Phillip had.”

She nods.

“That explains the drugs and the car accident,” Garrison says. “He needed it to look like an accident so no suspicion would be raised.”

Everything they’re saying makes logical sense, and yet I can’t seem to wrap my brain around it. Phillip Prescott’s granddaughter? Surely that can’t be true…can it? I try to picture his face, but everything is such a haze.

“I need some air.” Pushing to my feet, I all but sprint out of Ryker’s house. Less than a heartbeat later, the door opens behind me, and Ryker comes out.

Of course, I can’t see him to know for sure, but I feel him. There’s this awareness whenever he’s near. This understanding that I am both safe and in danger of losing a piece of me I’ve never given to anyone.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay!” I yell as I whirl toward him. “Ryker, if what she’s saying is true, then I’m the reason that Phillip—that my grandfather is dead.”

“Dahlia, this is not on you.” Ryker steps closer. “This is not your burden to carry.”

I shake my head. “I wouldn’t have wanted any of it. I would have just wanted to know him. He died to give me everything, but in doing so, I lost the only family I had left, Ryker. And I didn’t even know it.” The tears come hard and fast. I cover my face with shaking hands, and Ryker steps forward to pull me into his arms.

I fist the front of his shirt and let myself grieve for a man I never even really knew. Was he alone when he died? Or was he scared?

“You shouldn’t have come, dear Dahlia,” Mr. Prescott says sadly. “Please know that I am so very sorry for everything. And I have loved you since I knew you existed.”

The words hit me, and I straighten as the fragment of what must be a memory slams forward.

Him in a hospital bed.

Staring up at me, expression broken.

“Dahlia, what is it?”

“I—” I look up at Ryker. “I think I was with him when he died, Ryker.”

“What do you remember?”

“He was lying there, looking pale and—sad.” I narrow my gaze, trying to focus in on the pieces. “I remember he looked at me and told me that I shouldn’t have come in. But that he was sorry and—” My voice breaks. “He told me he’d loved me.” I tilt my face up toward Ryker. “He killed him, Ryker. I can’t see his face, but I know it was the lawyer. It had to be. He killed him, and then he tried to make it look like it was me.”

“We won’t let him get away with it, Dahlia.” Ryker grips my chin and forces my face up to look at him. “I promise you that.”

“Can you tell me about him?” I ask Mrs. Marooney.

Ryker, Weston, Zane, Garrison, and Sawyer are all back outside, likely discussing their next steps. But once I’d gotten myself together, I’d come back inside.

“Of course. He was as stubborn as they come, and he certainly had his moments, but overall, he was a good man.”

“My father described him as awful.”

“Your father was always a spoiled little stinker,” she says, anger in her tone. “Did he ever tell you why they drifted?”