Page 177 of Gathered Sparkle

That she’d hand me the evidence on a gold platter, asking me to trust her, to keep her trust.

And the fact that guilt spreads through my chest, making me feel nauseous, is not a good-fucking-sign.

“Want me to frame it for you? Or maybe I should sign it in blood.” She laughs, but it’s jagged. “I killed him. I killed Oscar Lane. For you. Forus.For this legacy. For the Harrington name.”

I glance at the note again before folding it carefully and tucking it into my pocket. The note alone could be dismissed as a dramatic outburst, something her lawyers would twist into a misunderstanding. But the recording? The way her voice cracked, the jagged way she laughed? That’s harder to spin.

This isn’t just a smoking gun. It’s a fucking cannon.

But she’s Veronica Harrington. Her legal team could turn a murder confession into a bedtime story.

Still, this is a crack in the foundation. Enough to make them dig. Enough to make them start looking for every skeleton she’s buried.

And that has to be enough.

God, I hope it’s enough.

“Thanks.” I’m not able to keep the sarcasm out of my words. “I’ll be sure to hang it somewhere meaningful.”

The shift in my tone catches her off guard. She flinches. Just a tiny movement, but I see it. She looks away for a second, collecting herself. When she turns back, her face is cold again, but her eyes are still wild.

“Can you stop acting like a brat now? I don’t have time for this. And you shouldn’t either. Have you read over the reports I sent you?”

She’s grasping for control, for normalcy. Acting like she didn’t just confess to murder. Acting like she didn’t just burn down any chance of redemption.

You’re trying to pretend this didn’t happen.But it did.

You lost the second you tried to make this about me.

“I will, Mother.”

She presses her lips together, nodding, satisfied, but her fingers are trembling as she adjusts the papers on her desk. “Good. Leave. I’ll await an apology tomorrow.”

The audacity almost makes me laugh.

“As you wish.”

I start toward the door, pausing only to glance back once. She doesn’t move. She stands there, staring down at her desk.

For the first time ever,she’s the one who has to hope for my love.

Or at least my loyalty.

But if she thinks she ever had even that, she’s more deluded than I thought.

She never did.

I only stayed because I had nowhere else to go.

Walking out of the office and toward the elevator, I press the stop button on the recorder hidden in my pocket and pull out my phone to text Koen.

I’ve got what we need. Meet up at the mansion in twenty.

She thinks she’s still in control, that I’ll come crawling back like I always do, tail between my legs, ready to play my part. But not this time.

The sticky note is a gravestone for everything I once believed. I always thought Oscar was the one unshakable truth in her life. The one person she couldn’t ruin.

But she did. She chose ambition over love. And in doing so, she buried herself.

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