I looked around the table, saw the hunger in their eyes, the fear. They’d built their lives on my father’s foundation, and now, they needed me to become him.
“What would you do?” I asked Gerald. “If you were me?”
He blinked, surprised. “I would secure your legacy. Your father spent thirty years building this empire.”
“My father,” I said slowly, “was a monster. He hurt everyone he touched.” I stood, pushing back from the table. “I won’t be him.”
“Mr. Carter?—”
“Liquidate my shares.” My voice was steady. “All of them.”
Chaos erupted.
“That’s millions of dollars?—”
“Your legacy?—”
“You can’t just?—”
Gerald’s face had gone pale. “You’re walking away from everything.”
“I’m walking away frommy father,” I corrected as I looked around the room full of smug, rich assholes who’d ignored my father’s cruelty because it lined their pocketbooks. “You can run these companies, sell them, or tear them apart. I don’t care. But I won’t touch his blood money. Not anymore.”
“What will you do?” someone asked.
The question stopped me. What would I do? I hadnothing except sobriety and therapy appointments and the memory of Eva.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But not this.”
I walked out while they were still arguing. The elevator doors closed on their shock and anger, and I descended through my father’s building for the last time.
My mother waited on a marble bench in the lobby. I sank down beside her, suddenly exhausted. The adrenaline of the meeting draining away, leaving just the hollow ache.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Empty.” I stared at my hands. “Terrified. Free.”
We sat in silence. Around us, people moved through the lobby, life continuing like I hadn’t just burned my entire inheritance to ash.
“I don’t know who I am,” I said finally. “Without his money. Without hockey. Without?—”
I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say her name.
“Without Eva,” my mother supplied gently.
I nodded, my throat too tight for words.
My mother didn’t try to fill the silence with platitudes or comfort. She just sat beside me, solid and present in a way she couldn’t be when my father was still alive.
My phone sat heavy in my pocket. The nurse I’d bribed would text soon with evening updates on Eva’s progress—heart rates and walking distances—moving on and healing without me in her life.
Maybe that was what I deserved. Maybe staying away was the only good thing I could do for her now.
My mother finally spoke. “What if you’re wrong?”
I looked at her.
“What if you’re not poison?” Her blue eyes held mine. “What if you’re more than what he made you?”