I picked up his letter again, tracing the familiar loops of his signature. Even now, he was still protecting me. Still teaching me how to fight.
“One more thing,” Chloe said softly. “Ethan called me on my way over. He needs to see you tonight. He says there’s something else you need to be aware of before tomorrow.”
I looked through the study window at the brilliant colors of the setting sun, my thoughts a whirlwind of my brother’s deception, Jessica’s smug face in the garden, and all the intricate pieces my father had so carefully arranged on the board.
“Tell him to come,” I said. “It’s about time we had a proper family meeting.”
Ethan arrived well after nightfall, and he looked nothing like the self-assured man who had stood beside Mark at our father’s funeral. His expensive suit was creased and rumpled, and dark circles shadowed his exhausted eyes. He paused in the doorway of the study, clutching a leather portfolio as if it were a shield.
“You look like hell,” I said, choosing to break the tension with blunt honesty.
“Yeah, well, it turns out being a double agent is a lot less glamorous than it looks in the movies.” He tried to muster a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Can I come in?”
I gestured to the chair opposite my father’s desk. Chloe had departed an hour earlier, but the damning evidence we had reviewed was still arrayed across its surface.
“I see you found Dad’s insurance policy,” Ethan said, his gaze sweeping over the photographs.
“Why, Ethan? Why didn’t you just tell me what you were doing?” The question emerged sharper than I had intended.
He sank heavily into the chair. “Because I had to make it right. After the divorce, with Mark… the way I treated you through all of that. I was a complete fool, Maddie.”
“You were my brother,” I corrected him softly. “You were supposed to be on my team.”
“I know.” He opened his portfolio and slid a cashier’s check across the desk. “This is what Jessica offered me. Half a million dollars to provide a sworn statement that Dad wasn’t of sound mind when he finalized his will.”
I stared at the check, then at my brother’s tired face. “But you didn’t take it.”
“No. I took it straight to Dad,” Ethan’s voice cracked with emotion. “You should have seen his face, Maddie. He wasn’t angry, just… disappointed. That’s when he told me about his plan, and he asked me to help.”
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed nine, each sonorous bell echoing in the strained silence of the room.
“There’s more,” Ethan continued, taking out his phone. “I recorded every conversation. Every single offer, every veiled threat. Jessica has been orchestrating this for months, Maddie. Long before Dad even got sick.”
He pressed play. Jessica’s voice, smug and conspiratorial, filled the study.
“Once the old man finally kicks it, we move to contest the will. With your testimony about his deteriorating mental state and Mark’s long, close relationship with him, the court will have to side with us. That bitch Madeline won’t know what hit her.”
My hands curled into tight fists under the desk. “When was that recorded?”
“Two months ago. But it gets worse.” He skipped forward in the recording. This time, it was Mark’s voice.
“We’ll sell the house immediately, liquidate all the assets. Madeline can crawl back to that tiny apartment and her pathetic little flower business. She never deserved any of this anyway.”
“Turn it off,” I whispered.
Ethan silenced the phone, then produced one last document from his portfolio. “This is the real reason I had to come tonight. Jessica didn’t just want the money, Maddie. For her, this was about revenge.”
“Revenge for what?”
“For making Mark feel guilty. For the alimony he had to pay. For…” He hesitated. “For embarrassing him when you caught them together.”
The memory, which I had tried so hard to bury, surfaced with the force of a physical blow. The shock of walking into my own bedroom and finding them. The look of cold triumph on Jessica’s face as my world shattered.
“She was his secretary for three years,” Ethan said quietly. “She planned all of it. She systematically worked her way into his life, and then into Dad’s social circle. This document… it proves she started embezzling from Dad’s company six months before you caught them.”
I snatched the paper from his hand, my eyes scanning the columns of fraudulent bank transfers and unfamiliar account numbers. “Dad knew about this?”
“He found out right before his diagnosis. He was already building a criminal case against her, but then the cancer…” Ethan’s voice trailed off. “That’s when he changed tactics. He said that sometimes, justice needs to find a different path.”
“The codicil,” I murmured.
“Yeah. Tomorrow is going to be a bloodbath, Maddie. They are so confident they’ve thought of everything. Jessica has even hired a professional camera crew to document the ‘historic moment’ when they take possession of the estate.”
Despite the cold fury churning inside me, I let out a short, bitter laugh. “She hired cameras? To film her own downfall? Dad would have loved the irony.”
For the first time that night, a genuine smile touched Ethan’s lips. “Listen, I know that one night of explanations can’t undo the last three years, but I need you to know that I’m with you now. Whatever happens tomorrow, I’ve got your back.”
I rose and walked to the study window, looking out at my father’s garden, bathed in the silver light of the moon. “Do you remember when we were kids, and Dad caught us fighting over that red toy Corvette?”
Ethan came to stand beside me. “He made us spend the entire day washing every window in this house. Said we needed to learn how to see things clearly.”
I turned to face my brother. “I see things very clearly now, Ethan. I finally understand what Dad was trying to teach us, right up to the very end.”
He nodded, a look of profound understanding in his eyes. “That the greatest victory doesn’t always come from winning the fight…”
“It comes from allowing your enemies to defeat themselves,” I finished.
The clock in the hall chimed the quarter-hour, a steady reminder that tomorrow was drawing closer with every tick.
“You should try to get some sleep,” Ethan said, gathering his documents. “It’s going to be one hell of a show.”
As I watched him leave, I placed my hand on the cool glass of the windowpane. My father had always loved these windows. He said they were the eyes of the house, always watching over his family. Tomorrow, they would bear witness to justice, served cold, and precisely as he had planned.
