Always had an exit strategy ready.
I walk back inside, head to my study and close the door. I can’t bear to watch her go.
The internal memo I sent previously is still pulled up on my screen. The one where I laid myself bare.
I chose institutional loyalty over individual truth. I will not make that mistake again.
That line stares back at me. Mocking.
Because here I am, about to lose everything again. The foundation. The clinic.
Amara.
There’s a knock on the study door. I don’t answer, but it opens anyway.
Ysela stands in the doorway. “Ms. Khan is requesting a car to her villa at the main resort. She says she’ll arrange her own transportation from there.”
Because she doesn’t even want to be in the same vehicle as me anymore.
“Tell Keon to take her wherever she needs to go,” I say distractedly.
Ysela nods and disappears.
I sit alone in the study, listening to the sound of the front door opening and closing. Then Keon’s SUV starts in the distance. I hear tires on gravel.
Then silence.
She’s gone.
I lean forward, my elbows on my knees, and press my palms against my eyes.
This is what you deserve, the voice in my head whispers.You built everything on a foundation of silence and compromise. You thought you could fix it with transparency programs and accountability reports. But you can’t undo five years of rot with a few memos and a six-week pilot program.
Xavier knew that. He’s just been waiting for the perfect moment to prove it.
And Amara? She finally figured out what I’ve known all along.
I’m not redeemable.
I’m just a better liar than I used to be.
I stare at the closed door of my study. It’s only been, what, minutes?
And already I feel her absence keenly.
Fuck.
Suddenly, the words she told me when we were camped out in the storage room during the tropical storm come back to me unbidden.
Why didn’t you fight for us? Five years ago. When I walked away. You just... let me go.
And that’s when I realize it.
She wants me to fight.
That’s it.
That’s the solution.
