The paper felt like a live wire in her hands, the elegant script a confession from the grave.
Elara's fingers trembled as she took it. The world narrowed to this single, worn rectangle, to the weight of a decade's hatred contained within its fibers. Alistair stood before her, a statue of torment, his breath coming in ragged pulls, his gaze burning into her, waiting for the final blow to fall.
She unfolded it. The paper crackled, a whisper from the past. The handwriting was elegant, flowing, but the lines wavered in places, as if the author's hand had been unsteady. A father's last words to his son.
My dearest Alistair,
If you are reading this, I have failed you in the most profound way a father can. I have chosen the coward's path. I cannot live with the shame of what I have done, the lies I have built our legacy upon.
The fault is not Charles Vance's. He was a loyal friend, a good man. He discovered my deception and confronted me. The embezzlement, the fraudulent reports… they were mine. All mine. I used his codes, his signatures, to hide my own catastrophic failures. I built this empire on a foundation of sand and when the tide turned, I let the waves take him instead of me.
I dragged you into this web, my boy. I saw your ambition, your brilliance, and I corrupted it. I made you complicit in my sins. For that, I can never forgive myself.
Forgive me. It was always my fault.
Do not let this destroy you. Do not seek revenge on an innocent man. Build something true.
With all my love, and all my regret,
Father
The air left Elara's lungs in a silent, painful rush. The words blurred on the page. Her father. Her proud, broken father. Innocent. The word screamed in the silence, echoing through the chambers of her mind, shattering the narrative that had defined her life for ten years. All the shame, the ostracization, the slow, grinding poverty—it had all been built on a lie. A lie Alistair's father had confessed.
Her eyes lifted from the damning script, rising slowly to meet his. The rage was gone from his face, replaced by a hollow, exposed agony. He was laid bare before her, the vengeful son of a coward, the architect of a ruin based on a known falsehood.
The realization was not a gentle dawn; it was a supernova, obliterating everything in its path.
Her voice, when it found its way out, was a whisper of pure, unadulterated shock.
"You knew," she breathed, her eyes wide with the staggering, horrifying truth. "You knew your father was the guilty one all along."