I silence my phone before he can argue.
The diner smells like burnt coffee and decades of grease. Gerald's in the back booth, exactly where he said he'd be. He looks like hell—grey skin, sunken eyes, hands shaking aroundhis mug. He is the same age as Dad's was, fifty-five, but right now he could pass for seventy.
"Isabelle." Relief floods his face. "Thank God. I wasn't sure you'd come."
"You said you had documents." I slide into the booth, positioning myself so I can see both exits. "About the embezzlement. About what my father discovered."
"I know you've been building your own case." Gerald's eyes flick to the door, then back. "Wesley's good—he found the murder payment, the yacht footage. But I have what Richard was gathering. The paper trail he was following before they stopped him."
He pulls a manila envelope from inside his coat.
"They weren't just planning to kill him, Isabelle. They'd been stealing from Davenport Holdings for years. Skimming profits, hiding money offshore, funneling funds through shell companies. Your father discovered the discrepancies two weeks before the explosion."
Two weeks. The same timeline Mother mentioned—Dad finding out about the affair, the finances, everything unraveling at once.
"How much?" My voice sounds hollow.
"Tens of millions over fifteen years. Maybe more." He pushes the envelope across the scarred Formica. "This is what got him killed. Not just the affair. The money. He was building a case to take to the board, to the authorities. He was going to expose everything."
I open the envelope. Page after page of financial documents—transfers, invoices, account statements. Dad's handwriting inthe margins, his meticulous notes connecting dots, following the money.
He knew. He knew, and he was trying to stop them.
And they killed him for it.
"Richard gave me copies a week before he died," Gerald continues. "Told me if anything happened to him, I should get these to you. But then Matthew's people started watching me. Following me. I got scared. Went into hiding. Figured if I stayed quiet, they'd leave me alone."
"But they didn't."
"They killed every person who could testify against them. The mechanic who planted the bomb in Elena's car. Ivan Olegov. Anyone with direct knowledge." His hands shake harder around his mug. "I'm the last one, Isabelle. The last person with physical evidence of the embezzlement. That's why I called. I can't run anymore. Can't hide. So I'm giving this to you, and then I'm disappearing. New identity. New life. Let me walk away and everything your father built—everything he was trying to protect—is yours."
I stare at Dad's handwriting. His careful notes. His desperate attempt to save his company from the people bleeding it dry.
This was never just about an affair. This was about money. Power. Control.
Matthew didn't kill Dad because of Mother. He killed Dad because Dad was about to expose years of theft and fraud. The affair was just the accelerant. The money was the motive.
"The police need to see this," I say. "Detective Fraser. He's been building a case?—"
"No police." Gerald shakes his head violently. "Not yet. Matthew has people everywhere. Judges, prosecutors, cops on the take. You go to them now, before you have everything locked down, and this evidence disappears. You disappear."
"Then what do you suggest?"
"Use it strategically. Wesley knows how. Build an airtight case that Matthew's lawyers can't wriggle out of. Get your mother on record—she knows where more bodies are buried, literally and figuratively. And when you have everything, when there's no way they can escape, you burn them publicly. Humiliate them. Destroy them so completely, they can never rebuild."
His voice drops, urgent and terrified.
"That's what Richard would've wanted. Not just justice—complete annihilation. He was so tired of these people thinking they were above consequences. He wanted them to feel what it was like to lose everything."
Dad. Gentle, principled Dad, who believed in charity and second chances and helping those who couldn't help themselves.
He wanted to destroy them, too.
Maybe I'm more like him than I thought.
Movement catches my eye. It’s the young server from earlier, approaching our table with the coffee pot. Wrong. His walk is too purposeful, too focused. His eyes don't match his nervous demeanor from before.
Sergei's training kicks in. The hair on the back of my neck rises.
