Chapter 10
The flash drive changed everything.
Not slowly.
Immediately.
The real ledgers showed dates, amounts, shell companies, and handwritten initials.
E.S.
J.S.
S.S.
Eleanor.
Julian.
Seraphina.
But the worst file was a recording.
Diana played it for me only after warning me twice.
I still wasn’t ready.
Eleanor’s voice came first.
“If Audrey becomes a problem, we make her the problem.”
Julian answered.
“She won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. She still thinks I’m better than you.”
My stomach turned.
Then Seraphina’s voice, quieter.
“What if the baby comes before this is over?”
Eleanor laughed.
“Then we smile for photographs and deal with Audrey afterward.”
Julian said nothing.
That silence was worse than a confession.
He had been given a chance to protect us before the wedding night.
He chose not to.
I asked Diana to stop the recording.
I could not listen to more.
Grace had a hard day after that.
Her oxygen levels dipped.
Not dangerously, Paula said.
But enough to terrify me.
I sat beside the incubator and made deals with the universe again.
Take the vineyard.
Take the marriage.
Take the name.
Take every dream I had built around Julian Sterling.
Just leave me my daughter.
At 6 p.m., Dr. Patel came in.
“She’s stabilizing.”
My whole body went weak.
“Thank you.”
“She’s strong.”
“I keep hearing that.”
“Because it’s true.”
That night, Julian tried again.
This time he wrote a letter.
Denise read it first, then asked if I wanted it.
I did.
Not because I wanted his words.
Because I wanted to know which version of himself he was performing now.
Audrey,
I have made mistakes I will regret forever. I was afraid of my mother. I was afraid of losing the estate, the family, everything I had been raised to protect. I know that sounds hollow now.
I did not understand how much danger you and Grace were in.
I should have opened the door.
I should have chosen you.
I am cooperating now. I am telling the truth. I hope someday that matters.
Please let me see my daughter.
Julian
I folded the letter.
Then unfolded it.
Then folded it again.
Diana watched quietly.
“What are you thinking?”
“That he still wrote ‘my daughter.’”
“She is.”
“Yes. Biologically.”
“That counts for something.”
I looked at Grace.
“So does the door.”
Diana nodded.
Denise helped me respond through attorneys.
Julian would be allowed one supervised NICU visit.
Ten minutes.
No touching.
No photos.
Hospital security present.
I did it for Grace.
Not him.
Someday she might ask if I kept him away from the beginning.
I wanted the truth to be clean.
He arrived the next morning.
He looked thinner.
Older.
His suit hung wrong.
When he saw Grace, he stopped walking.
All the performance left his face.
For ten minutes, he stood beside the incubator and cried silently.
He did not ask to hold her.
He did not ask me to forgive him.
He only whispered, “Hi, Grace. I’m sorry.”
I watched from the chair.
I felt nothing simple.
Not hate.
Not love.
Not pity.
All of them and none of them.
When the nurse said time was up, Julian nodded.
At the door, he looked at me.
“Thank you.”
I did not answer.
After he left, Grace opened her eyes.
I touched the incubator.
“You never have to carry his shame,” I whispered. “Or mine. Or theirs.”
May you like
Her tiny hand moved.
As if she agreed.
