“You knew?” he asked.

Gregory looked up from a laptop. “Lower your voice.”

“You knew he was chief? The whole time?”

Vivien stood at the sink, gripping a glass so tightly Logan thought it might break. “Your father has been handling a difficult business matter.”

“You told me the guy was some nobody trying to impress the neighborhood.”

“He shouldn’t have been so arrogant,” Vivien said.

Logan looked at her with disbelief. “You called the cops on a police chief. You told them he stole his own car.”

“I followed information we had available.”

“You said you saw him take it.”

No one answered.

“I asked to drive the car because I wanted to,” he said. “But you kept telling me to go back. You said if he refused enough times, people would see him as a problem.”

Gregory shut the laptop.

“Everything I did was to protect this family.”

“From what?”

A silence settled across the kitchen.

Then Gregory said, “If the collector deal doesn’t close, the lenders will come after our assets. You like this house? You like your school? You like not worrying about money? That’s what I was protecting.”

Logan had spent seventeen years hearing that money solved problems. It had paid fees, replaced damaged things, quieted teachers, and turned consequences into meetings his parents could win. He had never understood that money could also become a trap so deep the people who controlled it would do almost anything to stay ahead.

“You used me,” he said.

“You volunteered to be part of this,” Vivien snapped.

“I volunteered to be a jerk. I didn’t volunteer to forge a dead man’s name.”

Gregory rose. “Watch your language.”

“You watch yours. You’re still lying.”

Logan left before either parent could stop him. He drove to Mason’s house and sat in the car for half an hour, gripping the wheel. He wanted to call Sophie. She had blocked his number. He wanted to blame her for the recording. But even he knew by now that the recording had not created the problem. It had revealed it.

The next morning, accompanied by his own attorney, Logan met Detective Price.

He admitted that he had repeatedly entered Elijah’s driveway after being told to stay away. He acknowledged making the edited post. He handed over text messages from Vivien telling him when to return and what to say. He also showed an image Gregory had sent him of the Mustang’s VIN, along with instructions to check whether the numbers on the car matched those in a forwarded listing.