Chapter 7 - THE LEDGER
The key opened a locker beneath an abandoned train station.
Inside they found the ledger.
But Gabriel had left something more valuable beside it.
A cassette tape.
Wren heard her father's voice for the first time in seven years.
“If you're hearing this, birdie, I'm sorry.”
Birdie.
His nickname for her.
Wren covered her mouth.
Gabriel explained everything.
The ledger could destroy Renato.
But it could also destroy innocent employees, families and companies that had nothing to do with the old crimes.
He asked Wren not to use it for revenge.
“Truth is a knife,” Gabriel said on the recording. “Hold it wrong, and it cuts the person carrying it.”
Wren cried silently.
Adriano did not touch her.
He simply stayed beside her.
That was somehow better.
Then Gabriel revealed the final secret.
Renato had not ordered the attempt on Adriano's life thirty years ago.
Someone else had.
Adriano's father.
The bomb had been intended to kill Odile.
Adriano was not supposed to be in the car.
His father had wanted control of Odile's inheritance.
Gabriel discovered the plan and stopped it.
Renato had later learned the truth.
Everything Adriano believed about his father shattered in one recording.
He left the station without speaking.
Wren found him on the platform.
“My whole life,” he said, “I tried to become the man he expected.”
“Maybe that's the problem.”
He looked at her.
“You're not him.”
“I've done things.”
“I know.”
“Things you wouldn't forgive.”
“Don't decide my forgiveness for me.”
His eyes dropped to her mouth.
Wren's heart kicked.
Then his phone rang.
Renato had Odile.
Again.
This time for real.
May you like
And he wanted the ledger.
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