Chapter 12 - The Price of Silence
“What do you need from me now?”
Garrett looked at his attorney.
Then back at Alessia.
“A statement.”
“You mean a lie.”
“A clarification.”
“You kicked my mother.”
“I lost my temper.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I was trying to protect our assets.”
“You recorded me grieving.”
“You weren’t well.”
Alessia stared at him.
There it was.
Even now.
Even with Belladonna.
Even with Nathan cooperating.
Garrett still tried to rewrite reality while sitting in front of the person who lived it.
He softened his voice.
“I know you’re angry.”
“No. You know I have evidence.”
“That isn’t fair.”
Alessia actually laughed.
Garrett leaned closer.
“You want to destroy my mother too?”
“Your mother helped plan this.”
“She believed your father destroyed our family.”
“Your father?”
Garrett stopped.
Alessia noticed.
“What?”
He looked away.
“Nothing.”
Alessia’s lawyer spoke.
“Garrett.”
Garrett said nothing.
Alessia suddenly understood there was another missing piece.
“Evelyn told you Carlo ruined her family because of Victor Shaw.”
Garrett’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“But Victor wasn’t your father.”
Silence.
Alessia had always assumed Evelyn lost money as Victor’s investor.
Why would that become a generational family grievance?
She looked at Samuel.
He had gone very still.
“Find out.”
Two days later, they did.
Victor Shaw and Evelyn had been having an affair for years.
Garrett was sixteen when Victor’s fraud collapsed.
Evelyn’s husband discovered the affair shortly afterward.
The Hales’ marriage ended.
Garrett’s father moved away.
Evelyn blamed Carlo for exposing Victor.
In her version, Carlo did not merely cost her money.
He destroyed the man she loved and ended her marriage.
She raised Garrett inside that resentment.
But there was more.
Victor had recently died.
His estate contained letters.
In one, Victor admitted Carlo had offered him multiple chances to stop stealing.
Carlo had protected him from prosecution at first.
Victor wrote:
Carlo did not destroy me. He spared me longer than I deserved.
Evelyn had received a copy six years earlier.
She knew.
For six years, she knew Carlo had not destroyed Victor.
She knew Victor admitted responsibility.
And she continued the plan anyway.
Alessia sat back.
“It was never revenge.”
Samuel nodded.
“No.”
“It was entitlement.”
Evelyn did not believe the Morettis owed her because Carlo ruined Victor.
She believed they owed her because Carlo survived what Victor did not.
Success.
Reputation.
Legacy.
May you like
Money.
And she had taught Garrett to believe the same.
