Chapter 10 - THE TRUTH ABOUT MY FATHER
I wanted Richard to lie.
That surprised me.
After days demanding the truth, I wanted one lie.
A good one.
Something that made my father innocent.
Richard didn't give it to me.
“Thomas invested after Russo died.”
I closed my eyes.
Sophia sat across from me.
Neither of us knew where to look.
“Did he know the company would become more valuable because Russo was gone?”
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
“Did he profit?”
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
Vincent moved toward me.
Then stopped himself.
Thank you.
I needed distance.
Richard continued.
“Thomas believed investing would give him enough influence to force Gabriel out.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
“So he took blood money and failed.”
Richard's face tightened.
“Yes.”
I stood.
For years, my father had been my standard for decency.
The man who taught me to leave a table if somebody disrespected me.
The man who gave me a house solely in my name because he said every woman should have one door nobody could close on her.
Now I learned part of his wealth had grown from a company connected to a dead man.
I walked outside.
Vincent followed only after several minutes.
He stayed ten feet away.
“You don't have to say anything.”
“I wasn't going to.”
That almost made me smile.
Almost.
“I told myself you were becoming like your family.”
Vincent looked down.
“Maybe I was.”
“My father already had.”
“Maybe.”
I looked at him.
“You're supposed to defend him.”
“Why?”
“Because he liked you.”
“He also warned you to leave me if I treated secrecy like duty.”
Fair.
I sat on the stone wall overlooking the river.
“My father was flawed.”
“Yes.”
“I hate that.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
Vincent looked toward the water.
“My father helped hide a murder. My uncle ran criminal operations. My cousin killed his own father. I am intimately familiar with disappointing family history.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
He looked surprised.
So was I.
Then his expression softened.
“I am sorry, Claire.”
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
“That is not specific enough.”
He nodded.
“I am sorry I disappeared into an investigation and expected marriage to wait for me. I'm sorry I knew rumors about Sophia existed and considered them operationally useful. I'm sorry I made decisions about your safety without your consent. I'm sorry I noticed company cash flow before I noticed you moved out of our bedroom.”
That one landed.
Hard.
“I didn't cheat.”
“I believe you.”
“But I abandoned you anyway.”
Yes.
Finally.
A truth without defense.
I looked at him.
“That is why I still want the divorce.”
His face changed.
He didn't argue.
“When?”
“Nathan filed this morning.”
Pain crossed his eyes.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
It was the first truly loving thing he'd done in months.
He let me choose something that hurt him.
Back inside, Sophia had found another document in my father's files.
A letter written ten years after Russo died.
Addressed to his widow.
Never sent.
Thomas confessed everything.
The cover-up.
The investment.
The guilt.
He had calculated every dollar of profit he believed came from the initial Moretti investment.
He placed that amount—plus interest—into an anonymous trust for Russo's daughter.
Sophia.
Nathan checked the trust.
It still existed.
Untouched.
Worth $4.7 million.
Sophia stared at the number.
“I don't want it.”
I understood.
Then she read my father's final paragraph.
Money can't repair cowardice.
If Michael's daughter ever receives this, she should decide what the money becomes. Not me.
Sophia cried again.
Not because my father was innocent.
He wasn't.
Because he'd spent years trying, imperfectly, to repair something he could never undo.
Then Vincent's phone rang.
Federal investigators had located Marco.
He wasn't leaving the country.
He was at Moretti Holdings headquarters.
May you like
Inside the executive floor.
And the building's fire-control system had just been manually disabled.
