Chapter 5
Jasper went silent.
That frightened me more than shouting would have.
Then his voice softened.
“Camille, you’re upset. Whatever that woman gave you, she’s trying to confuse you.”
I looked at the screen.
A thumbnail of my mother’s face stared back at me.
She was sitting in her hospital bed, thinner than I remembered, but alive. A nurse stood beside her. The timestamp was blurred, but the file details were clear enough.
I clicked play.
My mother’s voice filled the tiny back room.
“Camille, if this reaches you, it means they tried.”
My knees weakened.
Lena grabbed my shoulder from behind.
On the video, my mother looked straight into the camera.
“Your father did not cut you out. He wrote letters. Jasper intercepted them. Reynolds has been moving contracts out of the company. They need your shares because your father still has enough voting control to stop him.”
I covered my mouth.
My mother continued.
“I asked Nora to keep this safe.”
Nora.
The cleaning woman.
“She worked at the factory before she cleaned offices. She saw the papers. She knows where Reynolds hid the copies.”
Outside the door, Jasper’s voice sharpened.
“Camille, open this door now.”
Lena whispered, “I’m calling the police.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Call my father.”
She stared at me.
“He’s alive?”
“My mother said he wrote letters.”
For two years, Jasper had told me Dad wanted nothing to do with me.
Two years of birthdays without calls.
Two years of grief I thought was abandonment.
Two years of my husband holding the bridge between us and slowly burning it.
I opened another file.
Audio.
Reynolds’ voice played first.
“Once Camille signs, her father loses the blocking vote.”
Then Jasper.
“Good. I’m tired of keeping her nervous. She asks too many questions when she feels safe.”
I closed my eyes.
There are moments when heartbreak becomes something cleaner.
Something sharper.
May you like
I did not feel like crying anymore.
I felt like surviving.
