Page 176 of Gathered Sparkle

I take a step forward. “Oscar loved you. Do you even know what that means?”

Something flickers in her eyes—annoyance, maybe. Or maybe I imagined it. She smiles, twisting the knife deeper. “Oscar knew exactly who I was.”

“No. He thought you could be better. That’s the difference.”

“You’re such a disappointment.” Veronica turns to pour herself a drink. “Do you really think coming in here with some holier-than-thou attitude changes anything?” She takes a sip, her eyes flicking to me over the rim.

“Change what? What the fuck is this, Mother?”

“A game you don’t understand. With your emotions and melodramatics.”

“I only want the truth. Why?”

She sighs, setting the glass down. “Why what,honey?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Why did you do it? Why did you have him killed?”

Veronica’s expression freezes for half a second before she laughs, a sharp, bitter sound. “You’ve always been obsessed with that man. You want the truth, Nicholas? Fine. He wanted to rat me out after years together and was supposed to rot in jail for that. But no, he came back out. And I let him live, didn’t I? For three years, I let him stay in his little circle of misery, wasting away in that house and doing his stupid little magic shows.”

Her words dig into me like nails.

“But then…” She pauses, tilting her head. “Then he started poking around where he shouldn’t. He wrote his own deathsentence. And you know what is the funny part of this? Why I found out that he was scheming against me in the first place?” Veronica’s eyes flicker with cold amusement. “He slippedbecause of you. Because he wanted to make sure you wouldn’t get caught in the fallout.”

What?

“You’re lying.”

“Wake up, Nicholas!” Her hand slams onto the desk. “He wanted to shield you, but there was no way. No way for you to get out of this mess and not sink with me. And when he understood that, he was okay with sacrificing you. He would have come for me. For you.I did this for you,Nicholas! To save all of this.” She gestures around the office, at the framed empire she’s built, at the life I’ve never wanted. “For you.”

I feel like I’m breathing shards of glass. “Don’t put this on me.”

“Everything I do is for you. Don’t you see it?”

I scoff. “Everything you do is foryourself.”

She stares at me, eyes darkening, and the mask slips. I see the raw, desperate thing beneath, hungry for control, for legacy, for proof that all of this wasn’t meaningless. But it was.

It always was.

“What do you want from me, Nicholas? What do I have to do to show you that I’m on your side? That this is us against the world and not me against you, the way you always seem to believe.”

“Tell me the truth. Give mesomething. Show me that you trust me. Give me a fraction of trust, and I’ll give it to you in return. I want to be in this with you, Mother, but if so, I want to know everything. Be involved ineverything.”

She freezes with a flicker in her eyes that I can’t place.

Fear? Guilt? I can’t be sure.

Then she turns suddenly, snatches a sticky note from the desk, and grabs a pen. I watch, frozen, as she scribbles with long, furious strokes. When she’s done, she turns and slams it against my chest with enough force to sting.

“There,” she spits. “Is this what you wanted?”

I pick it off my shirt and turn it over to read.

I killed Oscar Lane.

Signed.

I was bluffing, pushing her, testing the limits of her self-control. Trying to see if she’d give me anything to prove where her loyalty lies. I never thought her wish to have me involved was so earnest that she’d share this secret with me.

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