After burying the only man who ever truly saw him, Rhys is thrust into a fight over legacy, lies, and blood. As family secrets unravel and loyalties fracture, he discovers that family isn’t about shared DNA—it’s about who shows up when everyone else walks away.

The day we buried Grandpa Ezra, the sky felt like it was pressing down on me, heavy and gray, a reflection of the weight in my chest. Standing beside his casket, I listened to hollow condolences from strangers, feeling like the only person who truly mourned was the one lying in the ground. Grandpa had been more than family; he was the only one who ever really saw me.

In contrast, my mother, Lenora, was always too preoccupied with appearances to care. My father drowned himself in bourbon long before he passed, and my sister, Marianne, had spent our childhood cultivating resentment. But Grandpa? He loved me, not out of obligation, but because he wanted to. After the service, as I stood lost in thought, my mother approached me with a chilling request: sign the house over to Marianne, or face the consequences.

I knew immediately what she meant. But this time, I wasn’t backing down. I stood firm, refusing to let her manipulate me again. The truth was already out there, in the form of a video Grandpa had recorded before his death—he knew the truth, and he’d made sure I’d never have to prove my worth. In the courtroom, the judge upheld Grandpa’s will, and my mother’s affair became public record. The fallout was swift and unforgiving. The very family that had once tried to control me was now falling apart.

In the end, the house was mine, and I moved in, making it my own. But the real victory was the peace I found. I didn’t need the answers about my biological father, or even my mother’s betrayal. I had the only family that mattered—Grandpa Ezra, the man who’d loved me without expectation. And that was enough.