The words sit between us, stark and unembellished.
“And you knew.”
It is not phrased as a question, and I do not treat it like one. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough to know better.”
He stops moving, his focus narrowing, and it feels like stepping straight into a beam of light.
“And you’re only just telling me now because?”
Because she asked me not to.
Because I chose her silence over your expectation.
Because I have spent every day since trying to calculate the cost of both.
“Because Millie asked me not to say anything.”
He absorbs that without visible reaction, but the stillness that follows grows more precise.
“And you agreed.”
“Yes.”
“Over the club?” The phrasing is calm enough to be surgical, and I feel it lands with that same clinical accuracy.
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“It never is,” he replies evenly.
“I didn’t know what my loyalty was supposed to look like in that moment,” I admit, the honesty in it scraping through me. “She has been carrying this alone. I wasn’t prepared to take the one thing she asked of me and hand it over like it meant nothing.”
He studies me for a long moment, measuring not just the content of what I am saying but the foundation beneath it.
“And now?”
“Now it affects the club whether she wants it to or not,” I continue, the words gaining steadiness as they find their footing. “The mine is not just her family’s livelihood anymore. It is infrastructure. If he declines quickly, everything tied to that operation shifts with him. I cannot sit on information like that indefinitely.”
Another silence unfolds, heavier this time, edged with consequence.
“You understand…” he says at last, his voice low and completely immovable, “… that you are admitting to withholding information that impacts club stability.”
“Yes.”
“And you understand what that usually results in?”
Letting out a heavy exhale, I nod. “Yes.” The acknowledgment comes without hesitation, even as the reality of it tightens somewhere tight inside me.
“And youstillchose to bring it to me now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I cannot build a future on divided ground.
