Chapter 8 - THE TRUTH MY HUSBAND LEFT BEHIND
We spent the night in another location.
A small cabin outside the city.
No cameras.
No neighbors.
No one who could be watching.
At least that was what Ryan believed.
I sat near the window, holding my husband’s old letter.
The man I loved had known something was wrong.
And he had carried that fear alone.
“Your father must have been terrified.”
Ryan looked at the floor.
“He was.”
I looked at him.
“You knew?”
He nodded.
“He told me before he died.”
My heart sank.
“You talked about this?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Ryan took a long breath.
“Because Dad made me promise.”
I stared at him.
“He made you promise to hide this from me?”
“He wanted to protect you.”
I looked away.
But part of me was hurt.
Everyone had been protecting me.
Everyone except telling me the truth.
Ryan sat beside me.
“Mom, Dad knew you would blame yourself.”
“Blame myself?”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“You always do that.”
I didn’t answer.
Because he was right.
If someone hurt me, I wondered what I did wrong.
If someone left, I wondered why I wasn’t enough.
Ryan continued.
“Dad said your biggest weakness was believing people could change.”
I smiled sadly.
“That sounds like him.”
For a moment, we were quiet.
Then Ryan opened another file from the flash drive.
A video.
A hidden recording.
The date was one month before my husband died.
I pressed play.
My husband appeared again.
But this time, he wasn’t alone.
David was sitting across from him.
“You’re making a mistake,” David said.
My husband looked angry.
“No. The mistake was trusting you.”
My breath stopped.
David leaned forward.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“I understand exactly.”
My husband pushed a folder across the desk.
“You stole from me.”
David’s face changed.
“I borrowed.”
“You forged documents.”
Silence.
Then David whispered:
“If Ruth finds out, everything changes.”
I looked at Ryan.
Everything inside me went cold.
My husband had known.
He knew David was involved.
The video continued.
David stood up.
“You think Ryan will choose you over me?”
My husband laughed.
“Ryan will choose the truth.”
Then the recording ended.
I sat there in shock.
David wasn’t just involved.
He had been there from the beginning.
But something still didn’t make sense.
“If your father knew…”
I looked at Ryan.
“Why didn’t he expose them?”
Ryan’s expression became serious.
“Because he was afraid.”
“Of David?”
Ryan shook his head.
“Of what David would do.”
A terrible silence filled the room.
Then Ryan opened the final folder.
Inside was a picture.
A picture taken after my husband died.
My eyes widened.
Because standing beside David…
Was Claire.
But there was something else.
A date.
The photo was taken only two days after my husband’s funeral.
I looked at Ryan.
“Your father had already died.”
“Yes.”
“Then why were they meeting?”
Ryan didn’t answer.
May you like
Because we both knew.
The answer was worse than we imagined.
