The shop.
The machines.
His name.
Her future.
She had been wrong.
Walter Ashby’s most important work had never been stored inside those walls.
It was inside her hands.
The way she formed a bridge.
The way she saw angles.
The way she taught a child without making them ashamed to miss.
The way she knew a good cue should feel before she could explain why.
That was the inheritance the Langfords could never sign away.
Nyla opened Walter’s ledger to the final blank page.
For years it had remained empty.
She picked up a pencil.
Then wrote:
ASHBY CUE NO. 1
Below it:
Made by Nyla Ashby.
She hesitated.
Then added:
For Nala Reign.
She smiled.
The first new cue from the Ashby workshop in nine years would not go to a collector.
Not a celebrity.
Not someone with a million followers.
It would go to a little girl who once asked if playing was hard.
Walter would have liked that.
Nyla closed the ledger.
Outside, Chicago traffic moved beneath the lights.
Inside, Table One waited for morning.
Nine balls rested in the rack.
The nine sat in the center.
Not hiding.
Just waiting.
And for the first time in nine years, so was Nyla’s father’s name.
Back where it belonged.
