CHAPTER 12: FIFTEEN YEARS OF SILENCE

Emma didn't move after Damien said it was Richard.

She just sat there, processing. Richard. The kind man. The one who'd been nothing but gentle to her. The one who'd helped Damien investigate. The one who'd brought the necklace back.

"Are you sure?" she asked quietly.

"No," Damien said. His voice was hollow. "But it sounds like him. The way he speaks. The authority in his voice."

He closed the laptop without listening to the rest.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Emma asked. "When you first gave me the necklace. Why didn't you just say Richard had it? Why hide that part?"

Damien stood and walked to the window. It was raining now, the kind of heavy rain that made the world look grey and washed out.

"Because I needed time," he said finally. "To process it. To understand what having the necklace back meant."

"Explain," Emma said.

Damien took a breath. "When Richard gave me the necklace that day at the antique shop, I felt like I was holding a bomb. Because having it meant I couldn't pretend anymore. I couldn't pretend my mother's death was what everyone said it was. I couldn't pretend the past was finished."

He turned to face her.

"So I hid it. I kept it locked away. Not in a safe. In my mind. I pretended it didn't exist. I pretended the necklace was just a piece of jewelry that Richard had found and given me out of sentiment."

"But it wasn't sentiment," Emma said.

"No," Damien agreed. "It was evidence. It was proof. It was a responsibility I wasn't ready to carry."

He moved back to the bed and sat down, suddenly looking exhausted.

"For fifteen years, I had that necklace," he continued. "I kept it in a safe deposit box at the bank. I never looked at it. Never thought about it if I could help it. I told myself I was protecting my family. That if I didn't acknowledge what the necklace meant, then no one else would have to either."

Emma listened without interrupting.

"But that's a lie," Damien said. "I was protecting myself. I was afraid of what would happen if I opened that box. If I looked at what my mother had been wearing when she died. If I admitted that someone I trusted, someone I'd known my entire life, had murdered her."

His hands were clenched into fists.

"Richard came to see me sometimes over those fifteen years," Damien said. "He'd ask if I was ready to talk about it. If I was ready to reopen the investigation. And I'd tell him no. I'd tell him to let it go. That some things were better left alone."

"But you couldn't let it go," Emma said.

"No," Damien admitted. "I couldn't. Every year it got worse. The guilt of knowing and doing nothing. The anger at whoever had done it. The confusion about why Richard had helped cover it up, because that's what it felt like. Like he was helping me hide from the truth instead of facing it."

He looked at Emma.

"Then you came into my life. The contract marriage. The girl I was supposed to keep at a distance. The girl who I was supposed to feel nothing for."

Emma's chest tightened.

"But you were different," Damien continued. "You didn't care about protecting my family. You didn't know the history. You just saw things clearly. You called me emotionally bankrupt at a dinner party. You threw an apron at my feet. You refused to be invisible in my house even when everyone was against you."

He stood and walked to the dresser where the necklace sat.

"And I realized I needed someone like that. Someone who could hold this necklace and not be afraid to ask the hard questions. Someone who could look at my family and see them clearly instead of the way I see them—through years of loyalty and fear and complicated love."

Damien picked up the necklace.

"So I gave it to you. Not as insurance. Not as some calculated move. But because I needed you to have it. Because I needed someone I trusted to know the truth about my mother. Because I was finally ready to stop hiding."

Emma stood and moved to him. She took the necklace from his hands and looked at it. The sapphire caught the light, throwing blue shadows across her skin.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" she asked. "Instead of hiding it in the necklace?"

"Because I wasn't ready to talk about it," Damien said honestly. "Because I needed to see if you'd discover it on your own. Because some part of me wanted you to choose to know, rather than me forcing the truth on you."

"That's manipulative," Emma said quietly.

"Yes," Damien agreed. "It is. I'm sorry."

Emma set the necklace down. "You kept it hidden for fifteen years because you were afraid. Not of your family. Of yourself. Of what you'd have to do if you admitted the truth."

"Yes."

"And now that I know," Emma said, "now that we've heard the recording, you think it's time to act."

"I think it's past time," Damien said. "But I was waiting for the right person. And then you showed up, covered in paint stains and refusing to apologize for spilling wine on a billionaire's date."

Emma almost smiled despite everything.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

Damien looked at the necklace. At the sapphire that had survived twenty years of lies and silence.

"Now we find out what Richard was really doing that night," he said. "Now we listen to the rest of the recording. Now we figure out if the man I heard was really him, or if my trauma-damaged brain is making connections that aren't there."

"And if it was him?" Emma asked.

"Then I destroy him," Damien said simply. "Family or not. Godfather or not. If he killed my mother, I'm going to make sure he pays for it."

Emma picked up the necklace again and fastened it around her neck. The sapphire rested against her skin, heavy and cold.

"Then let's listen," she said.

Damien pulled up the audio file again. This time, he was ready to hear it.

This time, he was ready to know the truth.