Chapter 8: Her Mother's Theater

I stood in the lobby on my crutches and couldn't move.

When she saw me on the road.

Elias was beside me before the door finished turning.

"What did he say?"

I couldn't make my voice work twice in a row.

My throat had closed.

I typed it.

He said my mother begged too. When she saw him on the road.

Elias read it.

He handed my phone back very gently.

Then he walked toward the revolving door.

Not fast. Not angry-looking.

You'd walk to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Nico stepped into his path.

"Boss. Thirty reporters."

"I can count."

I dropped one crutch and grabbed the back of Elias's belt.

He stopped.

He could have pulled free with one step.

He didn't.

"No," I said out loud.

It came out as a crack.

He turned.

His eyes were the color of a gun.

"He killed her, Eliza. He sat at her funeral. He raised you in her house. He put you in a box."

I shook my head.

I typed with my free thumb.

If you kill him tonight, he's a victim. They'll put flowers outside his hotel.

I want him to lose everything in front of every person he ever lied to.

The way they did it to me.

Elias read it twice.

A muscle moved in his jaw.

"You'll need proof," he said finally. "Not a whisper in a lobby."

Then we'll get it.

Upstairs, he opened a flat leather case on the dining table.

Inside were the trust papers.

Nico had brought a fresh set from the family lawyer that morning.

"The covenant was only a key," Elias said. "This is the lock. Sign here, and it's yours. Not mine. Not Damian's. Yours."