[MAYA'S VAN – AFTER THE CALL]
Maya didn't ask why he hadn't walked straight up to her team when they arrived. Didn't ask why he'd ghosted back to the penthouse instead of letting the people who'd come to rescue him actually do it.
She already knew.
It was the same reason he'd called her and not the others.
He wanted this secret to live between just the two of them.
And the calculus wasn't complicated—not for someone raised in Paradise's gutters, who understood the rules better than the Legacies ever would.
Sierra would have charged in like righteous fire.
That is the problem.
Phei had run the numbers while blood still dripped from his split lip: Sierra didn't do subtle. Didn't do patience. She'd unleash the full Montgomery arsenal—lawyers, private investigators, media storms, whatever it took—and it would become Legacy war.
Montgomerys versus the other founding seven. Paradise split down the middle, everyone forced to pick a side.
And the cold truth?
