She laughed bitterly.
“Then Eric realized he could take everything.”
She had wanted proof that her father had been cheated.
Eric wanted money.
Eventually, he decided he could frame me, divorce me, let authorities discover the fraudulent account, and emerge as the betrayed husband.
Marissa would get part of the hidden family assets.
Eric would get the rest.
Except Eric had also planned to betray Marissa.
Vale House Interiors wasn’t a gift.
It was another future scapegoat.
When necessary, he would blame her too.
Marissa looked at me.
“He was going to destroy both of us.”
I thought about that first night.
Her hand on my sofa.
Her smug little smile.
My hatred hadn’t disappeared.
But now I understood something.
Eric had looked at two women carrying the wreckage of an old family feud and decided that wreckage could make him rich.
“What was on Archive 07?” I asked. “Originally.”
Marissa swallowed.
“Your father’s evidence.”
“Of Eric?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Of himself.”
Dad had discovered Eric searching through his files almost two years earlier.
Instead of confronting him, Dad began assembling Archive 07.
Not merely to expose Eric.
To expose everything.
The old family business.
TMB Holdings.
David’s debts.
Dad’s transfers.
The origin of every dollar.
He intended to tell me the truth.
Then he died.
Eric found the drive first.
He hid it behind the media cabinet while copying portions of it.
But there was one final file he apparently never managed to open.
Encrypted.
Samuel recovered it.
The password hint contained only three words.
Natalie’s first room.
I knew immediately.
When I was nine, my parents let me redesign my bedroom.
I chose yellow walls.
Dad hated them.
Mom loved them.
She called the color Sunflower 17.
I entered it.
The file opened.
A video appeared.
My father sat behind his old desk.
He looked tired.
Older than I remembered.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then:
“Natalie, if you’re watching this, I ran out of time.”
I covered my mouth.
His voice filled the conference room.
“I have spent my life telling you to keep records because records survive people. Unfortunately, they also survive lies.”
He explained everything.
David had indeed gambled away enormous amounts of the family company’s money.
Dad moved my mother’s share to protect her.
But he had done it secretly.
Illegally.
He forged documents.
He lied.
He convinced himself it was justified because he was saving his wife and daughter.
Then, over the years, he kept hiding the truth because admitting it would expose what he had done.
“I was protecting you,” Dad said on the screen, “until protection became another word for control.”
I cried silently.
Then he mentioned Eric.
“I believe your husband found pieces of this history and intends to use them. I also believe David’s daughter, Marissa, may be involved.”
My breath caught.
Dad had known.
“But Natalie, listen carefully. Marissa is not responsible for what her father did. You are not responsible for what I did. Do not inherit our hatred.”
