Chapter 13
Clare went into surgery for the second time in 6 weeks.
Adrien sat in another waiting room.
Lily sat on 1 side of him.
Noah sat on the other.
The boy had been brought from school and told his sister was hurt.
He sat very straight and held Adrien’s hand.
“She’s going to be okay. Clare always gets back up. She always does.”
Adrien told him he knew.
He prayed the boy was right.
Then, while Clare was in surgery, Adrien did what he had avoided for 6 weeks.
He had Daniel brought to him.
Not to a basement.
Not somewhere Daniel would disappear.
A room where Adrien could sit across from him and speak.
“I killed your family.”
Adrien did not wait for Daniel to ask.
“25 years ago. Your wife. Your daughter. It wasn’t an accident. It was me. I was young and I was desperate and I did something unforgivable. And I’ve spent 25 years pretending I didn’t.”
Daniel had spent those same 25 years knowing.
Now there would be no lie between them.
Adrien had done it.
Nothing he did now could undo it.
Daniel asked why he was admitting it.
Adrien could have buried the truth.
He could have buried Daniel.
That was what Adrien Voss did.
Adrien looked at him.
“That’s what I did. It’s not what I do anymore.”
Adrien did not ask Daniel Cain for forgiveness.
There was nothing Daniel could give him that would restore a wife and daughter dead for 25 years, just as there had been nothing Marcus Reed could give him that would erase the fire by the water.
The truth was not a transaction.
Neither was remorse.
Adrien had spent most of his adult life treating both as though they could be negotiated.
Now he understood otherwise.
Daniel would face what he had done to Clare. Adrien would not make the charge disappear, nor would he use his influence to destroy the man privately. Daniel would go through the legal system for the attack he had committed.
Adrien would also tell the truth about what had happened 25 years earlier.
No more hidden files.
No more men ordered to handle things.
May you like
No more families reduced to costs on a ledger.
Whatever followed would follow.
