Vivienne’s eyes tracked the antique clock on the study wall. 7:45 PM. The second hand ticked forward with the sound of tiny hammers against her skull.

Isaiah was late.

Not just fashionably late. Not stuck in traffic late. Late late.

She checked her phone for the seventeenth time in the past ten minutes. No messages. No calls. No explanation.

"He’s dead," Cassidy announced from her position pacing the carpet, wearing a path between the desk and the bookshelf. "He got into an accident. The Lexus is wrapped around a tree somewhere on I-95."

"He’s not dead," Vivienne said automatically, though her stomach twisted at the image. Her finger hovered over Isaiah’s contact. Should she call? Would that seem too desperate?

"What if he needs help?" Harlow’s voice came out small from where she sat curled on the sofa, her twin tails drooping. "What if he’s hurt somewhere and can’t reach his phone?"

Sabrina turned a page in her book without looking up. "If he were in an accident, we’d have been contacted by now. The Lexus is registered to our household."

"Maybe he got mugged," Cassidy continued her catastrophic speculation, her hands flexing like she wanted to punch something. "Some asshole pulled him over and—"

"Manhattan isn’t that dangerous," Vivienne cut in, though she wasn’t entirely sure. She’d never actually been to Isaiah’s neighborhood.

"How would you know? You’ve never left the Upper East Side except for work trips." Cassidy stopped pacing long enough to glare. "He could be bleeding out in an alley right now."

"Can you not?" Harlow’s voice wavered. She pressed her hands against her face. "I can’t think about that. I can’t."

Vivienne forced herself to take a breath. Stay calm. There was a logical explanation. Isaiah was responsible, careful. He wouldn’t just disappear without—

Her phone buzzed. She grabbed it so fast she nearly dropped it.

Not Isaiah. Just a reminder about tomorrow’s photoshoot schedule.

7:47 PM.

"What if it was Mother?" Sabrina asked, still looking at her book. "What if she threatened him again? Made it clear he wasn’t welcome?"

Vivienne’s chest tightened. Mother had been in Tokyo all week, but she could issue threats from halfway across the world without breaking a sweat. A single phone call. A single email. That’s all it would take to send Isaiah running back to Philadelphia and never looking back.

"She wouldn’t," Vivienne said, but her voice came out weaker than intended.

"She would." Cassidy resumed her pacing, faster now. "She told him she’d destroy Iris’s future if he touched any of us. Who’s to say she didn’t up the stakes?"

Harlow made a choked sound. "But we’re about to tell him we all want to—"

"I know!" Cassidy whirled on her. "That’s why I’m freaking out! What if all of us acting weird this week scared him off, huh? What if he took one look at our collective insanity and ran?"

The words hit Vivienne like ice water.

They had been acting weird. Cassidy dragging him to the library for "emergency tutoring." Harlow scheduling three separate costume fittings. Sabrina requesting his presence for increasingly transparent research assistance. Vivienne herself asking him to stand around during a photoshoot just so she could look at him.

They’d been circling him like sharks all week. No wonder he’d bailed.

"This is my fault," Vivienne said quietly, dropping into her desk chair. "I pushed too hard. The gala. The kiss. I compromised his position and now he’s—"

"Stop." Sabrina closed her book with a soft thump. "Spiraling helps no one."

"I’m not spiraling."

"Your left eye is twitching."

Vivienne touched her face. Damn it.

7:49 PM.

"We should call him," Harlow suggested, her voice thin. "Right? That’s what you do when someone is late. You call them."

"I’ve called four times," Cassidy admitted, stopping her pacing. "Voicemail every time."

"Same," Vivienne confessed.

They’d all been calling. They’d all been rejected by the cold automated voice telling them to leave a message.

Harlow’s eyes filled with tears. "What if something really happened?"

"Nothing happened," Sabrina said, but even she looked up from her book with actual concern creasing her brow. "He’s likely just—"

"Stuck in traffic?" Cassidy suggested. "For two hours?"

"Having car trouble?" Harlow tried.

"With a practically new Lexus?" Vivienne’s hands tightened on the armrests of her chair.

The possibilities spiraled. Each one worse than the last. Accident. Mugging. Mother’s lawyers serving him with a cease and desist. Some girl from school finally wearing him down and convincing him to go on a normal date where nobody’s family threatened to destroy his future.

That last one made Vivienne’s stomach turn in ways she refused to examine.

7:51 PM.

"Screw this." Cassidy grabbed her jacket from where she’d tossed it over the back of Vivienne’s chair. "I’m going to check on him."

"You don’t know where he lives," Vivienne pointed out.

Cassidy’s smile turned sharp. "Yes I do. I looked it up two weeks ago."

"Of course you did," Sabrina murmured.

"Well?" Cassidy turned to face her sisters, her jacket half on. "Are we just going to sit here like idiots, or are we going to go make sure he’s alive?"

Vivienne’s mind raced through the variables. If they showed up at Isaiah’s apartment unannounced, it would look desperate. Clingy. Unprofessional. Everything she’d spent her life trying not to be.

But what if he was hurt? What if he needed them?

"Wait," Sabrina said suddenly, sitting up straighter. "The car."

"What about it?" Cassidy demanded.

"We put a tracker on it." Sabrina already had her phone out, pulling up what looked like a GPS interface. "For insurance purposes. Mother insists on knowing where all household vehicles are at all times."

Relief crashed through Vivienne so hard her knees went weak. "Why didn’t you mention this sooner?"

"Because I only just remembered." Sabrina’s fingers moved across her screen. "Give me a second. There’s an app somewhere..."

The three other sisters crowded around her, all trying to see the screen.

"There." Sabrina turned the phone so they could all see the blinking dot on a map of Philadelphia. "He’s home."

Home. In Kensington. Not bleeding in a ditch. Not scared off by their collective madness. Just... home.

Vivienne’s relief transformed immediately into fresh confusion. "Then why isn’t he answering?"

"Maybe his phone died," Harlow suggested.

"Or maybe something’s wrong and he can’t answer," Cassidy countered. "Emergency. Family thing. Who knows."

"Well?" Vivienne looked at her sisters. "What do we do?"

"We go." Cassidy zipped up her jacket. "Obviously. He could need help."

"Or privacy," Vivienne pointed out. "We could be overreacting."

"Better to overreact than sit here wondering all night." Cassidy was already heading for the door. "I’m going. If you don’t want to come, that’s fine."

"I’m coming," Harlow said immediately, jumping to her feet.

"This seems impulsive," Vivienne tried, but her resolve was crumbling. If something was actually wrong...

"I’ll go." Sabrina stood, smoothing her skirt. "This could be interesting."

All three looked at Vivienne expectantly.

She sighed. Long and loud and full of the acceptance that yes, she was absolutely making a terrible decision.

"Fine. I’m driving."

"Seatbelts," Vivienne commanded as her sisters piled into the black Range Rover she preferred for personal trips. "Now."

The click of buckles filled the car.

"All of you?" Mrs. Tanaka had asked when she’d spotted them heading out, her expression suggesting she knew exactly what they were doing and thought they were all idiots.

"Family emergency," Vivienne had replied.

Mrs. Tanaka’s raised eyebrow said she didn’t buy it for a second. "The guest rooms will be ready when you return."

Now Vivienne gripped the steering wheel, pulling out of the circular driveway with more force than necessary. The tires crunched against gravel.

"Put his address in the GPS," she instructed.

"Already done." Sabrina’s phone was connected to the car’s system, displaying the route to Kensington with an estimated arrival time of 9:32 PM.

"Two hours," Harlow breathed from the back seat. "That’s so far."

"He does this every day," Cassidy muttered, staring out the window. "Makes it there and back. Every single day."

The weight of The sheer distance Isaiah traveled daily just to attend school with them. To tutor Cassidy. To drive Harlow. To manage Vivienne’s schedule. To deliver ramen to Sabrina.

Vivienne merged onto the highway, her hands steady on the wheel. The city lights streamed past, bright and cold.

"What are we going to say when we get there?" Harlow asked after several minutes of silence.

"We wanted to make sure you’re okay?" Cassidy suggested.

"That sounds stalkerish," Vivienne pointed out.

"We literally tracked his car," Cassidy shot back. "We’re past stalkerish. We’re in full-blown restraining order territory."

"Maybe we could say we were in the neighborhood," Harlow tried.

Sabrina snorted. "Kensington is forty-five minutes from any neighborhood we would actually visit."

"Then we tell the truth," Cassidy said. "We were worried. He didn’t answer. We came to check on him."

"What if he’s not alone?" The question slipped out before Vivienne could stop it.

Three heads turned to look at her.

"What do you mean, not alone?" Cassidy’s voice went dangerous.

"I mean..." Vivienne kept her eyes on the road. "What if he’s with someone? A friend. Or..."

"Or a girl," Cassidy finished flatly.

The temperature in the car dropped about fifteen degrees.

"He wouldn’t," Harlow said, but she sounded less certain now.

"We don’t own him," Sabrina reminded them. "Technically, he could be doing whatever he wants with whomever he wants."

"I will burn Philadelphia to the ground," Cassidy stated.

"You’re not burning anything," Vivienne sighed.

But the image had lodged itself in her brain now. Isaiah opening his door to find them on his doorstep. Some girl behind him in his apartment, wearing one of his shirts, wondering who the hell these four identical rich girls were.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"He wouldn’t," she said out loud, convincing herself. "Right?"

Nobody answered.

The miles stretched out ahead, each one bringing them closer to answers they weren’t sure they wanted.