I did know him.
I knew the way he smiled when lying. I knew how he used silence like punishment. I knew how he made cruelty sound reasonable. I knew how he could stand beside me at a funeral and complain afterward that grief made people boring.
I knew him completely.
And I was finally free of mistaking that knowledge for love.
“You have until midnight,” I said, “to return Emilia’s file and every copy.”
“Lexi, please.”
The word hung there.
Please.
How strange to hear it from a man who had spent five years treating kindness like a resource he deserved but never owed.
“After midnight,” I continued, “Victor proceeds.”
His voice cracked. “You would really destroy me?”
I looked at my grandfather’s note.
Then at Emilia’s name in the foundation proposal.
“No, Ronald,” I said. “I’m going to build something so beautiful that your worst act becomes the smallest footnote in it.”
