Chapter 24
“Yes.”
“Did you ever think I might have the right to know the truth?”
“I thought the truth would get you killed.”
Her words were not dramatic. They were spoken with the weary certainty of someone who had lived too long with fear.
“Was that true?” I asked.
“I don’t know. That was the problem. I knew enough to be afraid and not enough to be brave.”
Alexander stepped toward the desk.
“Where is the proof?”
Elena opened the final folder.
“Here. Original ledgers, correspondence, account records, and the names of those involved.”
He looked through the papers.
“What do you want from us?”
“Nothing.”
“No one does this for nothing.”
Elena looked at me.
“I want Claire to hear me say that I was wrong.”
The office became very quiet.
“I was wrong,” she continued. “I thought protecting the family meant protecting its structure. I forgot that a family is made of people. I helped turn a mother into a stranger to her child. I cannot undo that.”
“No,” I said.
“I know.”
She placed a small drive on the desk.
“Everything is copied here. The original documents are with a solicitor in Lisbon. If anything happens to me, they will be released to the authorities.”
Alexander looked at the drive.
“Why not go directly to the authorities?”
“Because I need to understand what remains inside Russo Global before I do. There are people who will lose everything. Some are guilty. Some are not.”
“That isn’t your decision anymore,” I said.
Elena accepted that.
“No. It isn’t.”
Rebecca moved toward her.
“You could have told me.”
“I thought you would hate me.”
“I do,” Rebecca replied. “But I also wanted the chance to know what happened.”
Elena nodded.
“That is fair.”
Alexander picked up the drive.
“I’ll arrange independent counsel. No company lawyers. No family intermediaries.”
Elena studied him.
“You’re different.”
“I should have been different ten years ago.”
His gaze moved to me.
“I failed Claire because I valued certainty over trust. I believed the evidence because it allowed me to avoid the harder truth—that my father was capable of using all of us.”
I felt the ache of those years between us.
“Finding the truth doesn’t erase what happened.”
“I know.”
“And an apology doesn’t restore the time I lost with Ethan.”
“I know.”
“What do you want from me?”
He took a breath.
“Nothing tonight. I want you to have the truth, and I want the chance to earn whatever place you decide I may have in your life.”