It was also professional suicide. A statement like this would alienate board members, spook investors, provide ammunition to every enemy he’d accumulated over a thirty-year career.
“This will destroy you,” I said.
“Maybe.” He shrugged, and the gesture was both resigned and defiant in a way that was so specifically him it made my chest ache. “But I’d rather be destroyed honestly than preserved through lies. And if protecting your integrity costs me my empire—” His eyes met mine, storm-gray and unflinching. “Then the empire wasn’t worth having.”
I stood with the paper in my hands and let the weight of what he was offering settle into me fully. Not the gesture itself — though the gesture was significant. The fact that he’d brought it to me first. That he’d said this is your narrative to control, not mine and meant it in a way I could actually believe.
He wasn’t fixing it. He was handing it back to me.
“I’m not going to make this easy for you,” I said finally. “I’m not going to forgive you just because you’re saying the right things.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“And I’m not giving up my syndication deal. I’m not changing my career plans to accommodate your schedule or your needs.”
“I would never ask you to.”
“And if you ever — ever — make a decision about my life without consulting me again, I walk. No second chances. No negotiations.”
Something settled in his expression — not relief yet, something more careful. More provisional. “Understood.”
I refolded the paper and handed it back to him. “Release the statement. Not because I’m asking you to, but because it’s the right thing to do.” I held his gaze. “And then call me tomorrow. We’ll talk more.”
“Tomorrow.” He took the paper, his fingers brushing mine for just a moment. The contact sent electricity up my arm, and I saw his breath catch.
He turned toward the door.
“Sebastian.”
He stopped.
“There’s something else I need to say before you go.” I kept my voice steady, because this mattered and I wanted him to understand that I’d thought about it. “Victor Corsetti told me something at the warehouse. About your father. About the fire.”
Sebastian went very still.
“I didn’t bring it up before because I didn’t know how to ask,” I continued. “And then things fell apart and it didn’t seem—” I stopped. “I’m asking now. Tell me what actually happened.”
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful — not defensive, but the voice of a man who had been carrying something for a long time and was deciding, for the first time, to set it down.
“My father died in a house fire three weeks after I left for college. The fire marshal ruled it electrical — faulty wiring in the kitchen, where the outlets had been a problem for years.” He paused. “I got the call from my aunt at two in the morning. I drove back and stood outside the building and looked at what was left of it.”
“And?”
“And I felt relieved.” The words came out rough, dragged up from somewhere he’d kept sealed for twenty years. “Not that he was dead — I want to be clear about that. But that my mother was safe. That there was nothing left for him to come back to. That the thing I’d been afraid of every day since I was old enough to understand what he was capable of had simply — stopped.” He met my eyes. “I’ve carried the guilt of that feeling for my entire adult life. It’s why Victor’s accusation cuts so deep. Not because it’s true. Because I’ve never been entirely sure what I would have done if I’d had a choice.”
The conference room was very quiet.
“Sebastian.” I chose my words carefully. “Feeling relieved that someone who spent years hurting your mother was no longer a threat to her — that’s not a confession. That’s a human response to the end of something that should never have existed in the first place.”
“I know that. Intellectually.”
“But you’ve been punishing yourself for it anyway.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“Victor knew exactly what he was doing when he told me that,” I said. “He wasn’t giving me information. He was trying to plant a doubt he knew you’d already planted in yourself.” I held his gaze. “It didn’t work. I want you to know that.”
Something cracked in his expression — not dramatic, just the small specific release of something that had been held too tightly for too long.
