Chapter 10
Marcus confessed next.
Not because I demanded it.
Because he finally understood Diane would sacrifice him too.
We stood outside the hunting lodge while the others remained downstairs.
“I knew about Mercer,” he said.
“How much?”
“That Mom was using him to pressure your western crews.”
“And the pool?”
“I knew meetings happened there.”
“Amelia?”
His face changed.
“I knew Mom was questioning her.”
I stared at him.
“You watched her stop eating.”
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Three days.”
“Yes.”
My hands tightened.
He did not step back.
That was the first respectable thing he had done.
“Why?”
He answered after a long silence.
“Because Mom kept saying Amelia had to learn you couldn’t rescue her from every consequence.”
I almost struck him.
Instead I asked, “Did you believe that?”
“At first.”
“And after the first day?”
His voice dropped.
“I told myself Diane would feed her when she talked.”
“Second day?”
He looked away.
“I knew it was wrong.”
“Third?”
“I stayed.”
There.
Not manipulation anymore.
Choice.
I nodded.
“You lose your crews.”
His eyes lifted.
“You lose council access. You do not enter my home unless I invite you. And you stay away from Amelia until she is old enough to decide whether she wants you near her.”
His face broke slightly.
He nodded.
No argument.
Then he said something unexpected.
“Mom told me if I helped, I’d finally have what should’ve been mine.”
“The chair.”
“Yes.”
“And you believed her.”
“Yes.”
“Robert says you were never getting it.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“I know that now.”
He looked toward the cellar.
“She wanted me angry enough to be useful and insecure enough to obey.”
That was exactly it.
Diane had trained both her children differently.
Marcus through entitlement.
Me through resistance.
One became desperate for approval.
The other became powerful by refusing it.
Neither childhood had been healthy.
Marcus looked at me.
“I hated you for becoming what she kept telling me belonged to me.”
I said nothing.
He continued.
“But Amelia didn’t take anything from me.”
That was the first time he said my daughter’s name without blame attached to it.
Too late for forgiveness.
Not too late for truth.
Then my phone rang.
The doctor.
May you like
Amelia was awake.
And the first thing she had asked was whether Grandma would make her finish the pool.
