black coat.
Not at the watch on my wrist.
Not at the man I had become.
He stared at me the way people stare at ruins after a storm—
trying to understand how something they ignored could suddenly become impossible to look away from.
“You came,” he said hoarsely.
I stood near the window.
“You’re surprised?”
He gave a weak, bitter smile.
“I don’t know what to expect from you anymore.”
I almost answered,
Now you know how I felt for thirty years.
But I didn’t.
Because some wounds no longer needed words.
He swallowed hard.
“Were you really helping us all that time?”
I looked at him.
“The mortgage.”
“Jace’s debts.”
“Mother’s tax audit.”
“Your board investigation two years ago.”
“The merger that saved Asterline.”
“Yes.”
His face changed.
Not disbelief.
Something worse.
Recognition.
Because he was finally seeing the truth in reverse—
every disaster that had mysteriously disappeared,
