Every mistake of my life pressed down on my shoulders at once. “I was blind. I was weak. I let people around me make decisions I never questioned. I failed you and I failed your mother. But I am here now. I will not leave again.”
Tentatively, Brielle stepped forward. Then she broke. She crashed into me and sobbed as I held her like she was the only tether left to my sanity. The boy lingered by the door, watching with guarded caution.
“Are you the one who protected her,” I asked.
He nodded. “Name’s Jace Romero. She would not have made it without me. We escaped the compound four months ago.”
Compound. The word curdled inside me. That meant my brother, Grayson Vale, had turned my business empire into something monstrous. Drug laundering. Kidnapping. Human trafficking. All under the veil of philanthropy and urban development. I had seen whispers of trouble years ago and chose not to look deeper. The guilt was a poison I deserved to swallow.
We relocated to a tiny apartment in rural Colorado. It had mismatched furniture and a faulty heater but for the first time in years there was peace. I cooked pasta with the little money I had left. Brielle slept with her head on Jace’s shoulder. I spent nights hunched over legal documents, preparing for what was coming.
One evening the prepaid phone rang. I picked up.
“You ruined everything,” Grayson snarled. His voice was slick with venom. “You could have stayed quiet. We could have ruled the world together. Instead you chose betrayal.”
“I chose my family,” I answered. “And I would choose them again.”
“Do you think you can hide behind that girl and that alley rat. I will find you. I will burn what is left of your dignity to ash.”
“No,” I said calmly. “You already did. I am building something new.”
I hung up and smashed the phone in the sink.
The next months were a blur of courtrooms, camera flashes, and interrogations. I walked into the federal courthouse in Denver with no lawyer and handed over every shred of evidence I had. I described how I looked the other way when the numbers did not add up. How shipments were being moved through construction sites. How families disappeared from neighborhoods I supposedly revitalized.