Chapter Twenty-Four. Room 412

Ethan was in room 412.

I went to the hospital. There were two police officers standing outside his door. They looked at me. I looked back at them. Then Ms Adu, the lawyer that Mr Osei had called, stepped forward. I talked to them quietly. They let me through after that.

I opened the door and went inside.

Ethan was sitting up in his bed. He had a dressing on the side of his head and a cut above his eyebrow that had been closed with stitches. 

He stared at me when I walked in.

For a moment his face was tight and controlled. Then it relaxed a little.

"You filed the documents, " he said.

"I filed them two hours ago, " I said. "The injunction has been stayed. The shares are now in my name."

He nodded, like he had known I would do it. 

I sat down  beside his bed.

We looked at each other for a moment. There was a lot to say, but neither of us said anything.

Then I said, "The article."

"I know, " he said.

I said, "Tell me about the deal, seven years. Tell me yourself before someone else does."

He was quiet for a moment looking then he said,

"I was twenty-six " he said. "My father had just given me the company. I was trying to prove I could run it. There was a deal on the table for land acquisition in another country. It was a way to make a lot of money fast, the kind that fills balance sheets and impresses boards. I knew the money was not clean, I knew where it came from. I took the deal anyway."

I said nothing.

Ethan said, "People were displaced, families, a community. Their land was taken through officials who had been paid with the same dirty money I had used to close the deal. I did not do the worst of it. I helped make it happen and I knew it."

The room was very quiet.

"What did you do after that?" I asked.

"I spent three years trying to fix it anonymously. I set up resettlement funds. Gave legal support to the families. It did not undo what happened, nothing can. I tried to make it less bad than it was."

 "Does anyone know about the resettlement funds?" I asked.

 "No, I kept it separate. If people knew it was me it would look like I was trying to buy silence rather than trying to make it right." he said.

I looked at Ethan, this man who had made a decision when he was twenty-six and had spent years trying to quietly repair it without anyone knowing. He had carried it alone just like I had carried everything alone.

 "The article only has half the story." I said.

"The half that destroys me is enough." He said.

"Not if we tell the other half first."

He looked at me.

"The resettlement funds, the support, the three years of trying to fix it. We tell that story first before the narrative sets. We do not hide from the story, we complete it."

He stared at me then said, "You would do that standing next to me publicly while I am the story."

"I have been standing next to you since the beginning." I said.

Then he reached out and took my hand.

It was not dramatic, it was a natural thing so I let him.

We sat like that for a while, his hand around mine, the city outside the window, the police in the corridor. Everything was still unfinished and dangerous and unresolved.

But for that moment none of it existed.

Then Ms Adu knocked and opened the door.

"I am sorry to interrupt, " she said. ". There has been a development. Your uncle has called a press conference for tomorrow morning. He is going to make a statement, about the trust, the shares and Ethan's past.. He has invited your father to attend."

I looked at Ethan. He looked at me.

I said, "Then we call one first tonight."

Ethan looked at Ms Adu and said, "Can you make that happen?"

Ms Adu said, "Yes, by morning."

I squeezed Ethan's hand once then I stood up.

My uncle had spent twenty years being patient and careful and ten steps ahead. Tomorrow morning that will end.

As I reached the door Ms Adu said one more thing.

"Ms Wren, your uncle's press conference, he is not coming alone. He’s coming with a witness who will testify that your grandfather's trust was set up fraudulently. Someone who was there when the documents were originally created."

I turned around. Said, "Who?"

Ms Adu looked at her file and said, "The witness is listed as Victoria Voss."

Ethan went still.

I looked at him. 

His mother. 

The woman who had appeared from nowhere and knew my grandmother and looked at me like she recognised something. She was going to stand beside my uncle tomorrow and help him destroy everything.