Chapter 6
The investigation moved quickly after that.
The evidence I'd provided was solid.
The recording.
The bank records.
The handwritten note.
All of it pointed directly at my father and brother.
My mother was arrested too.
Charged with being an accessory.
She'd known.
She'd always known.
And she'd helped cover it up.
Madison was the only one who walked free.
She'd been too young when it happened.
Too sheltered.
Too wrapped up in her own world to understand what was really going on.
But her life was destroyed anyway.
Her name was everywhere.
Her friends abandoned her.
Her social circle closed ranks.
She showed up at my apartment a week later.
I opened the door.
She stood there, no makeup, hair messy, wearing sweatpants.
A far cry from the polished socialite she'd always been.
"Can I come in?" she asked quietly.
I hesitated.
Then I stepped aside.
She walked in and looked around my small apartment.
"It's... cozy," she said.
I didn't say anything.
She sat on my couch.
She stared at her hands.
"I didn't know," she said finally. "About any of it. The fraud. Emily. None of it."
"I know," I said.
She looked up at me.
Her eyes were red.
Tear-streaked.
"They're terrible people," she whispered. "Our parents. Logan. They're monsters."
I sat down across from her.
"I'm sorry," I said. "That you had to find out this way."
She laughed bitterly.
"Are you? Are you really sorry?"
I nodded.
"I am. You didn't deserve this. None of it."
She started crying then.
Really crying.
"I hated you, you know," she said between sobs. "I always hated you. Because you were the smart one. The responsible one. The one everyone said I should be more like. I thought you were cold. I thought you didn't care about anyone but yourself."
She looked at me.
"I was wrong," she said. "You're the bravest person I know."
I didn't know what to say.
For years, Madison had been my tormentor.
The spoiled little sister who'd gotten everything while I got nothing.
Who'd joined in when our parents and brother abused me.
But sitting there, watching her break, I couldn't find it in me to hate her anymore.
She was just another victim of our family's sickness.
"They're going to prison, aren't they?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Good," she whispered. "They deserve it."
She stood up to leave.
At the door, she turned.
"Claire?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you," she said. "For telling the truth. Even when it cost you everything."
She left.
I closed the door.
And for the first time in my life, I cried.
Not for my parents.
Not for Logan.
Not for the empire that was crumbling.
I cried for the little girl I'd been.
For the sister I'd lost.
For the family that never was.
May you like
And I cried for Emily Chen.
Who would never get to go home.
