Chapter 700 Debts and Boundaries
A debt was a debt. Caleb would settle with Julius on his own terms.
He would never drag his sister along to square it .
Gavin exhaled a laugh too small to register on the dashboard lights. “Relax. Julius will never betray her.”
Caleb gripped the wheel harder. None of them knew whether Julius, memories restored, would bless or curse today’s stubborn choice.
Weston exhaled through his teeth. Unless Julius himself asked for it, forcing the trance off him could tear his mind apart. The thought sat like a stone in Westons chest.
From the passenger seat, Laura angled her head toward the back and whispered, “Quinn finally fought her way back to Julius with the child. Could you not provoke him for once, Harlan?”
Harlans laugh rasped, dry as gravel. “Provoke him? Julius isn’t worthy of her. While she and the kid bled for five years, he played father to another man’s daughter. Don’t pretend you haven’t heard.”
Laura blew out a slow breath. “Dr. Gavin Huxley only placed that girl there because the treatment demanded it, and you know it.”
The name Gavin Huxley ticked behind Westons ribs like a clock spring. Lauras friendship with the doctor had deepened these last years, enough to itch beneath Westons collar.
That quiet closeness gnawed at him more than he cared to admit.
Harlans voice flattened. “Even if its therapy, he still doesn’t deserve her.” The certainty in those seven words rattled around the car like loose change.
Laura drummed her nails on the console, giving him a sidelong glance. “What then? Don’t tell me you mean to wreck their marriage.”
Harlans gaze slid past the windshield to the sedan ahead. “And if I do? A man unworthy of her shouldn’t be allowed at her side.”
Lauras tongue clicked against her teeth. “You’re serious?”
He didn’t bother to look back. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
The question sucked the air from Lauras throat, leaving her silent.
Weston had known Harlan for years; the man’s stubborn streak and devotion to Quinn were carved in stone. None of this surprised him, yet the depth of it always managed to bruise.
During Quinns five–year disappearance, Harlan had hunted every lead, sworn off every willing woman, as though fidelity itself might call her home.
Once, Weston had tried to reason with him: “She loves Julius; you’re only her brother in arms. Let it go.”
Harlan had answered without blinking, “She’s free to love whom she chooses, and I’m free to love her.”
Seeing Quinn again, fragile but smiling, must have cracked whatever lid he’d kept on that resentment. Now it frothed over, aimed squarely at Julius.
Their convoy rolled to a stop outside a members–only restaurant famed throughout Jexburgh.
Without a membership card, ordinary patrons wouldn’t even clear the lobby.
Inside, Weston watched the manager and servers freeze mid–step as Julius wheeled through the doors.

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