CHAPTER 4: THE FILES
I didn't sleep that night.
Sophie was sedated in her hospital room, her small body curled under white sheets that made her look even smaller.
I sat beside her bed, holding her hand, watching the heart monitor beep in steady rhythm.
Counting the seconds.
Thinking about everything I had lost.
And everything I was about to gain.
At 6:13 a.m., my phone buzzed.
It was an email from a private investigator I'd hired three months ago.
The subject line read:
RE: PRESTON WHITMORE — ADDITIONAL FINDINGS.
I opened it.
And I stared.
My hands started shaking again.
But this time, it wasn't fear.
It was adrenaline.
Preston had been embezzling from the family business for six years.
He'd been skimming money from accounts, setting up shell companies, laundering funds through offshore banks.
But it wasn't just money.
He'd also been selling company secrets to competitors.
Stock manipulation.
Insider trading.
Everything.
And he'd been doing it with the full knowledge of our mother.
Who had been helping him.
Who had been covering it up.
Who had been planning to blame me for the whole thing.
Because I was the scapegoat.
Always had been.
Always would be.
I thought about my father.
The man who had built everything.
The man who had told me I was a disgrace.
He didn't know.
He had no idea that his wife and his son had been robbing him blind for years.
But now I knew.
And I had the evidence.
I looked at Sophie.
Her eyelids fluttered, then opened.
"Mommy…"
"Hi, baby."
"Where are we?"
"The hospital. You're okay. You're safe."
She tried to sit up, winced, and fell back against the pillows.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No. You didn't do anything wrong."
"Then why did Uncle Preston hit me?"
I didn't have an answer.
Not one that made sense.
Not one that would satisfy her.
So I just held her hand and told her the only truth I could.
"Because some people are broken. And they break other people so they don't have to feel their own pain."
"Is that why Grandma and Grandpa don't love us?"
The question cut deeper than any knife.
"Maybe," I said.
"But it's not your fault. It's never been your fault."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she asked:
"Mommy, are we going to be okay?"
I squeezed her hand.
"Yes. We're going to be okay. I promise."
And I meant it.
May you like
Because I had already started building the weapon I was going to use to destroy my brother.
And this time, I wasn't going to miss.
