“Do you?”
“Yes.” Her voice breaks for the first time. “I know.”
The crack in her voice hits me straight in the chest.
I hate it.
I hate that I’m angry enough not to step toward her.
She grips the back of a chair. “I found a donor list first. Then an old property transfer. Then a charity account that touched one of my father’s businesses years ago. I didn’t know what it meant. I still don’t know. I thought if I asked him too soon, he would cover tracks if there were any. I thought if I told you too soon, you would storm Paradise Falls and put him against a wall.”
“I might.”
“I know.”
“He may deserve it.”
“I know that too.”
Her tears come then, but she doesn’t sob. They slip down her face silently, which is worse. Sophie crying loud would give me something to fight. Silent tears just cut.
“My father is all I have left of that life,” she says. “And I ain’t saying he is innocent. I ain’t. That is the part that scares me most. I think he knows more than he should. I think he paid for something, or hid something, or let something happen because it was easier than asking why. And every time I tried to say it to you, I saw your face when Mike’s ghosts came back.”
My jaw tightens.
“Don’t put this on my father.”
“I’m not.” She wipes her cheek angrily. “I’m saying I saw what dead fathers have already done to you. I saw Amelia walk in with Mike’s face and his abandonment in her hands. I saw Cider sitting there with no memory of who took her. I saw Becki carrying Royal’s baby while her own father’s church keeps circling missing girls. And I thought, If I’m wrong, I destroy my father for nothing. If I’m right, I destroy us.”
There it is.
The truth under the truth.
Us.
I look at the wedding notebook.
Flowers.
Bourbon.
Guest list.
Evidence.
My life has always been ugly, but I never wanted ugliness to sit at my wedding table and laugh at me.
“You should have trusted me,” I say.
The words come out lower than I expect.
Sophie closes her eyes. “Yes.”
“You trust me with your body. With your life. With every dangerous piece of this club. But not this.”
“I was ashamed.”
“Of what he might have done?”