Chapter 17 - Celeste's Last Voice
The tape hissed for six seconds before Celeste Rousseau began to speak.
Thomas listened from a hospital bed with two armed federal agents outside his room.
Maya sat beside her mother's bed across the hall. Evelyn's shoulder surgery had gone well.
Rosa slept curled in a chair between the rooms, refusing to leave either family.
Price pressed play.
Celeste's voice filled the room.
Thomas had not heard it in twenty-eight years.
His face did not move.
His hand did.
It gripped the blanket until his knuckles turned white.
Celeste described Étienne's operation. Henri Baptiste's killings. Landry's protection.
Then she said the name Price had warned about.
"Thomas."
Thomas looked at the recorder.
Celeste continued.
"My son is not innocent. He is young, angry, and already learning to enjoy fear. If I fail, he may inherit this machine. Do not protect him from the consequences of what he chooses to become."
Thomas closed his eyes.
Maya stood in the doorway.
Price stopped the tape.
"There is more."
"Play it."
Celeste's voice returned.
"But do not punish him for the crimes of his father. Give him the truth. If he becomes his father after knowing it, then let the law take him."
Silence.
Thomas looked at Maya.
"She knew me."
Maya nodded.
"Mothers usually do."
Price placed a folder on the bed.
"Your cooperation agreement."
Thomas opened it.
Racketeering.
Bribery.
Conspiracy.
Obstruction.
Tax crimes.
A list long enough to outlive the hospital breakfast menu.
"Recommended sentence?"
"If you testify fully, surrender assets, identify burial sites and accounts, and waive challenges to forfeiture: twelve to eighteen years."
Thomas nodded.
"Do it."
Maya stared at him.
"You are not even going to negotiate?"
"I have negotiated every consequence I ever faced. I am tired."
Price left the papers.
Thomas signed.
Rosa woke while the pen was still in his hand.
She rubbed her eyes.
"What's that?"
Thomas looked at Maya.
Maya nodded once.
So he told Rosa the truth.
Not all of it.
Enough.
He told her he had hurt people. He told her he had allowed bad things because they made his life easier. He told her helping stop Jacques did not erase anything.
Rosa listened with tears in her eyes.
"How long are you going away?"
"A while."
"That's not a number."
"You are annoyingly observant."
"Mama says that."
Thomas looked down.
"Maybe twelve years. Maybe less."
Rosa's face crumpled.
"I'll be twenty."
"Maybe."
"That's old."
Maya covered her mouth to hide a laugh.
Thomas smiled.
Rosa walked to the bed and hugged him carefully around the chest.
"I don't forgive you for the clinic."
Thomas closed his eyes.
"You shouldn't."
"But I don't want you dead."
"I appreciate the distinction."
She pulled back.
"When you get out, you have to be better."
Thomas looked at the signed agreement.
"I can start before then."
Price returned to the doorway.
"Thomas. We found Jacques's contingency archive."
Thomas raised his eyes.
"And?"
"There are forty-three names we did not have. Three governors, two senators, nine police commanders."
Maya exhaled slowly.
Price continued.
"Your empire is not going to collapse quietly."
Thomas handed him the signed agreement.
"Then make it loud."
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