Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Four in the morning.
The sky outside the window was beginning to turn a pale gray.
The fire in the next room had died long ago.
The half-empty wine glasses left by the guests were still scattered across the tables, reflecting the faint light of the chandelier.
The black ledger lay wide open on the glass coffee table, right next to the phone and the gold clock.
Martin was sitting on the sofa, hanging up after a long phone call with his lawyer. He looked ten years older, but for the first time, his shoulders were no longer tense.
Lydia sat cross-legged on the rug, her head resting against the sofa, her eyes closed but not sleeping.
Julian stood by the window, looking out at the vast lawn in front of the estate.
This had once been his kingdom.
Tomorrow, it would become the scene of the greatest financial and moral scandal on the East Coast.
His family’s reputation would be crushed. The house would be seized, foreclosed, or worse, torn down. The money in the foundation would be used to compensate the names in the ledger.
There would be nothing left.
No more legacy. No more photographs in the local archive.
He would become the destroyer of his own lineage.
Claire stepped up behind him.
She didn't speak, just slipped her hand through his arm.
Her touch was steady. Not pity. Just presence.
“Are you afraid?” she asked softly.
Julian looked at the old oak trees casting dark silhouettes against the dawn sky.
The house remained silent.
But the suffocating feeling, the invisible weight that had always pressed down on his shoulders whenever he walked through the front door... was gone.
He looked back at the gold clock on the table.
Tick. Tick.
It was counting down the final seconds of an era of lies.
May you like
Julian took his wife's hand.
“No,” he said. “For the first time, I am not afraid of anything.”
