The Unheard Truth

Kael

Baden Lawson’s voice faded into silence as Banjo ended the call, sliding the phone into his pocket. I watched him, he looked absolutely shocked with a hint of anger as he looked up at me.

"His secret partner," Banjo murmured, still in a daze, the words coming out in a low, shallow tone. "He was talking about your father's old contacts, wasn't he? You didn't do this alone. You brought your family's rot straight into my house."

"Listen to yourself, Banjo," I shouted, my throat tight as I forced myself to stand up my legs were trembling, but I refused to stay seated while he looked down at me like a disgraced criminal. "Look at the paper in your hand. Look at the digital trail you're so eager to believe."

"The trail is clean," he spat. "It leads straight to this room. Straight to your device."

"It's too clean!" I stepped toward him, pointing at the scattered sheets on the bed. "Look at the timestamps on those bank transfers! Eight fifteen AM yesterday. The email sent to Baden Lawson was routed through an internal gateway at eight seventeen. Do you really believe I sat at a laptop in this building, executed a fifty million dollar wire, composed a three page corporate disclosure, and then walked into your penthouse office at eight-thirty looking like nothing happened?"

Banjo didn't look at the papers. He didn't even blink. "You've had three years to prepare this, Merinda. You knew every blind spot in our secondary network because I was foolish enough to let you live here."

"I didn't need three years to break your secondary network, Banjo I could have dismantled it in three minutes if I wanted to!" The truth nearly spilled out right then, the full weight of the Kael Syndicate pressing against the back of my teeth. I forced it down, swallowing rage of my own anger. "Look at the routing header on page three! The master transfer didn't use an external proxy. It used an internal administrative clearance token that was generated from the main villa's private study at midnight two days ago."

Banjo’s jaw clenched. "The private study is locked. Only three people have the biometric key."

"Exactly," I said, my voice dropping into a desperate tone. "You, Jarrah, and Tahlia."

"Shut your dirty mouth," Banjo growled, taking a step forward, "I warned you about bringing her into your lies."

"Why won't you just look at the evidence?!", tears spilling through my eyes as I tried not to break down. "Tahlia was in that study at midnight! Jarrah was with her! I heard them through the stone vents in this very room! They were discussing the master transfer while I was lying here suffering from the reaction of that cream!"

"Tahlia was in her room all night!" Banjo roared back. "She was hooked to an oxygen line because her lungs were failing! She couldn't even walk across the hallway without gasping for air, and you stand here accusing her of secretly entering a secure server?!"

"She is fainting for your benefit!" I screamed back, three years of accumulated humiliation burning through me. "She has been playing you since the day I arrived! Every tear, every sudden relapse, every sweet word it's all calculated to keep you blind! She doesn't love you, Banjo! She loves the shield you give her, and right now she is using your obsession with protecting her to hand your entire legacy to Baden Lawson!"

Banjo grabbed my shoulders, his fingers digging into my skin, his face was inches from mine, his eyes wild with a terrifying mixture of devotion and denial.

"Tahlia is innocent," he whispered, his voice shaking with a fanatic, desperate certainty that made me loose all hope. "She has always been innocent. She is the only pure thing in my life, Merinda. I promised my mother on her deathbed that I would protect her from the filth of this world, and I will tear down anyone who tries to stain her name including you."

I looked into his eyes and finally saw the absolute truth, it didn't matter if I showed him a signed confession from Baden Lawson himself, it didn't matter if the server logs had Tahlia's name written across every line in bright red ink. Banjo had built his entire identity around being Tahlia's savior. To admit she was a monster would mean admitting his entire life was a lie.

He couldn't handle that truth. So he chose to destroy me instead.

Slowly, the tension left my shoulders. My hands dropped to my sides. The desperate need to explain, to prove my innocence, to make him see it all vanished, leaving behind an empty, freezing cold, calm heart.

"You really are hopeless," I said softly, my voice cold and flat. "You're going to lose everything, Banjo and when you finally open your eyes, there won't be anything left to save."

Banjo’s grip loosened. He looked at me, a strange, brief flicker of unease passing through his eyes at the sudden absence of fight in my voice but I couldn't care less.

Before he could answer, the footsteps of the security sounded outside in the hallway once more then door was pushed open, and Jarrah stepped in, "Master Banjo," Jarrah said, his tone entirely free of emotion. "The Zurich Federal Police inspectors have arrived at the main entrance. They have the warrant for Mrs. Vance's arrest."

Banjo didn't look back at Jarrah. He kept his eyes locked on mine, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line. "Take her down."

Two officers stepped around Jarrah, pulling my arms behind my back and snapping handcuffs around my wrists.

I didn't resist. I didn't say another word. I walked past Banjo, past Jarrah's calm, unreadable face, and went out to the hallway.

As we reached the grand floor, standing near the bottom of the staircase was Tahlia with does fake crocodile tears which I nobody would believe, she watched the police guide me toward the waiting car.

As I passed her, Tahlia leaned in slightly, her voice dropping into a tiny, whisper that only I could hear: "Thank you for the company, Merinda. The accounts cleared three minutes ago.”