Every face in the room changed.
Luke’s voice was barely audible. “Confession?”
Rosalie’s lips parted.
Charles went to the sideboard and opened the drawer beneath the silverware. He removed a small audio recorder and set it on the table.
Rosalie stared at it.
“I recorded our last conversation,” Charles said.
“You said you were not recording.”
“I said I wanted you to speak honestly.”
“You deceived me.”
“I learned from you.”
He pressed a button.
Rosalie’s own voice filled the room, older but unmistakable.
Lucía Vale has no idea what she signed. She will never fight us. She is too proud to beg, and too sick to spend her last years in court. When she dies, the matter is finished.
A chair scraped against the floor.
Gemma began to cry silently.
The recording continued.
Charles, you owe me. I stayed beside you when the bank was ready to take the company. You wanted a respectable family, and I gave you one. That girl can scrub floors until she understands her place.
The audio stopped.
Rosalie lunged for the recorder.
Charles pushed it out of her reach.
Luke looked at his mother as though he had never seen her before. “You knew she was sick.”
Rosalie’s face twisted. “I knew she was weak.”
“She was dying.”
“She was a businesswoman who made a bad decision.”
“She was Hannah’s mother.”
“And I was your mother.”
The sentence hung between them.
Luke’s hands curled at his sides. “You used that word every time you wanted me to obey you.”
Rosalie stared at him.
He took out his phone. “I called the attorney.”
