“We followed the leads we had and found more than enough to damn her—emails, bank statements, photos. Enough to bury her.” My chest tightens at the memory. “But the problem was, it was also enough to damn everyone around her.”
I swallow hard.
“And then Bren found the emails between her and Benedict. Your father.” My voice roughens. “Saw them calling you anasset. Talking about you feeding them leads. What the hell was I supposed to think?” A bitter breath leaves me. “It felt like I was inheriting my Da’s curse—being used by the women he loved.”
I shake my head slowly. “And I knew… if I spoke out, if I pushed too hard, they’d start asking the wrong questions. They’d figure us out. And then everything would explode.”
My voice drops, stripped bare. “Because with us—being stepsiblings, being family in their eyes, and the marriage contract already in play—it would’ve been a shitshow. They wouldn’t have listened to a word I said in your defence. They’d twist it. Say you manipulated me. That you played me.”
I look at her, pain cutting deep.
“I couldn’t let them do that, Lil’. I couldn’t let them stain you.” My throat tightens. “I couldn’t let them tarnish the one good thing I’ve ever known.”
Her breath shudders. I can’t tell if it’s anger, grief, or both.
“I was scared. And fear makes you see patterns that aren’t really there. It made me hesitate instead of fight. And then it was too late.”
My jaw tightens. “But the longer I watched you—the more I tracked your movements, your streams, your life—the less it added up. I kept digging into those emails, rereading them, cross-checking timelines, looking for proof.” A bitter laugh slips out. “And I couldn’t reconcile it. The girl in those messages? Shedoesn’t exist. She doesn’t match the woman sitting in front of me.”
I swallow hard. “Then I found the wordassetplastered across files tied to that damn ring. That’s when I realised how wrong I’d been, how I let fear blind me and destroy the one good thing in my life.”
I drag a hand down my face. “I thought silence was the best thing I could do for you.” The confession tastes like ash. “I convinced myself that if I stayed quiet, the rumours around your exile would fade. That you’d be safer if I didn’t draw attention. But all it did was leave you alone to carry the weight of sins that were never yours and vulnerable.”
Her breath shakes.
“I have never—” Lily’s voice cuts in, sharp, fractured, burning. “Not once. I have never helped Jen. Not with leads, not with names, not with anything. Those damn emails are layered in lies and code and if you’d taken five seconds totalk to me, you’d have known that long before now. And I never even met Benedict, let alone knew he was my father. One photo in a hospital—hours old—shouldn’t have made you doubt me.”
Her eyes burn into mine. “And the fact that you everbelievedI could—”
She breaks off, chest heaving.
“That’s the part that hurts the most.”
Her gaze pins me, sharp enough that I almost flinch, and in that second I see every scar my doubt carved into her.
“I didn’t let them push you out because I stopped loving you.” The words tear free, raw, and unvarnished. “I let it happen because I was a fucking idiot who doubted you.”
The silence that follows is brutal.
She drops her head into her hands, folding forward like the weight finally became too much to carry. When she looks up again, her face is wrecked—hurt carved deep, and fury barely holding together.
“You stood there,” she says, voice shaking. “You let them gut me. You let Ciaran call me trash. Let him paint me with my mother’s sins.” Her eyes shine, tears clinging but unfallen. “And you”—her voice breaks, sharp and devastated—“you didn’t say a damn word.”
I don’t deflect. Don’t soften it. I take it straight to the chest.
“I know,” I say hoarsely. “And it was the worst decision I’ve ever made.”
I shift in my seat, slow, careful, like one wrong move might shatter her. “At the time, it felt like the only way. I knew if I spoke up—even with proof—they’d twist it. They’d call you my mistress. The girl I threw everything away for.” My jaw tightens. “Something forbidden. Something shameful.”
I shake my head, the regret crushing me from the inside out. “I couldn’t let that happen. Not to you.”
My chest aches with the truth of it, with all the damage I caused, despite trying to do the exact opposite.
“But I was wrong. I see that now,” I whisper. “Silence didn’t protect you. You didn’t need me lurking in the shadows while I hunted for answers. You needed me standing beside you, loud and proud.”
She tilts her head, eyes flashing, voice ice. “And instead, you left me to bleed alone.”
The venom in her voice cuts deep, but she’s right. I did nothing. I let her be exiled. And I’ll spend the rest of my life attempting to make it up to her if she’ll let me.
