Chapter 14
Garrett did have another recording.
He surrendered it voluntarily.
Alessia listened with Miriam beside her.
The audio was five years old.
Carlo Carbone had been dying.
Miriam sat beside him.
Her voice was tired.
Carlo asked:
“Do you regret helping the Lawsons?”
Miriam answered:
“No.”
A pause.
Then:
“I regret letting you teach Alessia that mercy is weakness.”
Alessia stopped the recording.
Her mother looked down.
“You heard enough.”
“No.”
Alessia restarted it.
Miriam continued:
“If our daughter ever takes this family, I hope she becomes powerful enough to forgive what you were too frightened to forgive.”
Carlo laughed weakly.
“You think forgiveness keeps power?”
Miriam answered:
“No.”
A long silence.
“I think knowing when not to punish someone proves you already have it.”
The recording ended.
Alessia sat motionless.
Garrett had kept it because Evelyn wanted to use Miriam’s words to paint her as disloyal to Carlo’s legacy.
Instead, the recording gave Alessia something else.
A way out.
She met Garrett one final time inside the same ballroom where the marriage ended.
The fountain had been repaired.
The banquet console replaced.
No guests.
Garrett stood near the place where Miriam had fallen.
Alessia approached.
His shoulders tensed.
She stopped several feet away.
“You’re leaving tonight.”
He nodded.
“No argument?”
“No.”
“What happened to everything belonging to you?”
His mouth tightened.
He remembered his own words.
Alessia continued.
“You will lose every position you gained through me. Every access privilege. Every vote attached to being my husband.”
Garrett’s eyes stayed on hers.
“And then?”
“Then you live with what remains.”
His breathing changed.
“You're not going to destroy me?”
Alessia thought about Miriam’s recording.
“No.”
Garrett almost looked relieved.
She finished:
“I’m going to let you discover how much of your power was ever actually yours.”
That hurt him more.
He removed his ring.
Placed it on the edge of the fountain.
Then left.
A bodyguard approached Alessia after the doors closed.
“Boss.”
He held out a sealed envelope Garrett had left behind.
On the front:
FOR ALESSIA — AFTER I’M GONE.
Inside was one sentence.
May you like
My mother wasn’t the only person who lied to me about Thomas.
Underneath it was Miriam’s name.
