Chapter 15 - WHAT REMAINED AFTER THE EMPIRE
I lost almost everything.
The criminal accounts were seized.
Properties connected to illegal operations were forfeited.
Men who had once called me boss suddenly remembered other loyalties.
My lawyers negotiated using years of cooperation, evidence and testimony.
I still faced consequences.
Real ones.
And I accepted them.
The estate was sold.
A large part of my legal fortune went into restitution funds for people harmed by Meridian and by my own organization.
Emma didn’t ask me to do it.
That mattered.
I did it because I finally understood the difference between guilt and responsibility.
Guilt asks how terrible you should feel.
Responsibility asks what you’re going to do next.
Luke survived.
Eventually he stopped calling me “boss.”
I considered that progress.
Thomas moved close to Emma.
Sarah remained in care, her better days becoming fewer, but she and Emma found a fragile peace.
My father and I never recovered the twenty lost years.
We stopped pretending we could.
Instead, we started with Tuesday lunches.
Two men eating sandwiches and learning how to be father and son again.
Emma visited me during rehabilitation.
At first once a month.
Then once a week.
Then she stopped pretending she came only to check on my progress.
One afternoon, I stood between parallel bars.
My legs shook violently.
The therapist hovered nearby.
Emma watched from the doorway.
I managed one step.
Then another.
Then my knees gave out.
I started laughing from the floor.
Emma rushed over.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
“Because two years ago I would’ve thrown something.”
She smiled.
“Growth.”
“Very expensive growth.”
She sat beside me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I said:
“I don’t know how much of what I felt in the beginning came from memory.”
Emma looked at me.
“Neither do I.”
“That scares me.”
“Good.”
I frowned.
She touched my hand.
“It means you’re not pretending certainty anymore.”
I looked at our fingers.
“So what do we do?”
Emma leaned closer.
“We start from here.”
Then she kissed me.
Not because a program predicted it.
Not because my past had arranged it.
Not because anyone had told her to trust me.
She kissed me because she wanted to.
May you like
And this time…
I remembered every second.
