Chapter 11
Valeria stopped protecting Lucian after seeing the reconstructed accounts.
Not immediately.
She spent two days refusing calls.
Then she met Rebecca with her own attorney.
She provided old emails.
Passwords.
Bank statements.
Messages she had never shown Dominic.
Some implicated Lucian.
Some implicated herself.
One message from two years earlier read:
I can cover this one. After that you tell Dominic.
Lucian replied:
After this one.
There were six more “last” rescues afterward.
When Lucian learned what she had done, he called her a traitor.
Valeria answered, “I learned from you.”
The alliance between brother and sister finally broke.
Dominic felt no triumph.
Margaret did.
Not because she enjoyed the family splitting.
Because Valeria was finally telling the truth without asking what it could buy her.
Still, truth did not repair anything.
Dominic’s board placed additional controls around his authority.
He agreed.
The atelier’s insurer reserved rights concerning certain losses.
Some money might never be recovered.
The relaunch remained months away.
Ava asked about Valeria less often.
That should have been easier.
It wasn’t.
One evening Dominic found a drawing Ava had made at preschool.
Four people.
Dominic.
Ava.
Margaret.
And Valeria.
Valeria’s figure had a giant purple dress.
Dominic stared at it too long.
Margaret came up behind him.
“Don’t make her erase people because you’re angry with them.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking something.”
“I’m always thinking something.”
“That’s your problem.”
He almost smiled.
Then Margaret became serious.
“You let Valeria into Ava’s life because you wanted a mother for her.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I loved Valeria.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“But you also wanted the house repaired quickly.”
The accusation landed.
After Elise died, Dominic hated coming home to rooms that felt incomplete.
Valeria filled them.
He had mistaken relief for proof that the foundation was sound.
“What should I have done?”
Margaret shrugged.
“Nothing quickly.”
That was difficult advice for a man who had built his reputation on decisive action.
Dominic folded Ava’s drawing carefully.
For the first time, he admitted that Valeria was not the only person whose fear had shaped bad decisions.
She feared losing Lucian.
May you like
Dominic feared remaining alone with grief.
Both had tried to solve fear by rearranging other people around it.
