The wife he left behind
“And housekeepers don’t usually turn out to be cousins.”
Charles put both hands over his face.
“My whole life,” he said, voice muffled. “Everything I’ve done. Every share I’ve bought, every quiet arrangement I’ve protected, all of it was supposed to be about keeping the family safe. Keeping what we have.” He lowered his hands, and his eyes were wet now, raw in a way Cloe suspected nobody had seen in a very long time. “And the whole time, part of my family was living forty feet from my back door, and I never knew, because the people who built this whole careful system made absolutely sure I never would.”
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