Page 134 of Beautiful When He Breaks

Eli glances around the kitchen. Every person in it is suddenly very busy pretending not to watch him too hard. Killian stands beside Mara, unreadable but present.

Eli shifts Mila higher and says, “I’m fine with everyone hearing this.”

Mara nods once, expecting that answer and respecting it. “All right.”

I move with Eli to the island, and he sits on one of the stools. I stay standing just behind and to his side because my body wants to put itself between him and any new damage, even if the damage is coming from a lawyer who’s been nothing but careful with him. It doesn’t make sense. I know it doesn’t. Still, when Mara places the file on the island, I feel myself tense.

Her eyes flick to me briefly—not judgmental but assessing. She knows what I’m doing too. She probably knows better than I do.

“I have a few updates,” Mara says, resting both hands lightly on top of the folder instead of opening it immediately. “Some of them are significant.”

Eli’s jaw tightens. “Okay.”

Mila grabs at the collar of his shirt, tiny fingers pulling fabric with surprising force. He adjusts her without looking down, his attention fixed on Mara.

Mara takes one breath and begins. “We finally tracked down Celeste’s parents.”

Every muscle in Eli’s body locks. My hand moves to the back of his neck before I consciously decide to touch him. He leans back into it by the smallest fraction, and something possessive and terrified in me settles enough to keep listening.

“They were in Paris,” Mara continues. “On holiday. They’ve been out of the country and largely unreachable except through limited channels for weeks.”

Ryan mutters, “Must be fucking nice,” under his breath, and Liam elbows him hard enough that he shuts up, though not with any real shame.

Mara’s mouth tightens slightly, but she doesn’t comment. “They did not know Celeste had dropped out of Blackthorne.”

The words take a second to land for all of us.

Luca shifts from where he’s standing by Sage. “They… didn’t know?”

“No,” Mara says. “They believed she was still enrolled and living on campus. They also did not know she was pregnant and had given birth, or that Mila existed until I contacted their attorney and eventually reached them directly through him.”

Eli’s face goes very blank. I hate that look; I know that look. It’s the expression people wear when a new truth comes in so wrong that emotion can’t attach to it yet. He stares at Mara, Mila warm and alive in his arms, while the story Celeste wrote in her letter starts breaking apart piece by piece.

“The lawyer’s letter,” Eli says slowly.

Mara’s gaze softens, not with pity but with something close to regret. “They did not send it.”

The kitchen goes dead silent at that implication. Eli looks down at Mila then, and I see the exact second the information cuts through him.

The letter that arrived with his daughter had claimed Celeste’s parents knew and that they had forced her hand. That they cared about propriety and shame and not wanting a child out of wedlock, and they’d directed or approved or at least stood behind the legal severing of rights. A whole supporting cast of parental judgment that had made Celeste’s abandonment feel structured, official, and terrifyingly final.

But now we find out it was a fucking lie wrapped around more lies.

“She forged it?” Eli asks.

“That is what we believe,” Mara says. “We are verifying signatures and letterhead through the firm allegedly named in the document, but based on the initial conversation, Celeste’s parents deny any involvement, and their attorney denies drafting or sending that letter.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Luca says quietly.

Sage presses his lips together, eyes sharp behind his glasses. “So, Celeste staged the whole thing herself?”

“It appears so,” Mara says.

Eli’s hand tightens on Mila’s back. I can see him fighting not to hold her too tight, adjusting his grip with effort. “Did they know about what she did to me?”

Mara pauses, and the entire room seems to stop with her. “No,” she says carefully. “There is no indication they knew about any of the conduct reflected on the flash drive.”

Conduct. That word makes my hands curl.