He poured sparkling water from a sealed bottle. “Safe this time.”
I raised my glass. “Because you spoke when silence would have been easier.”
Outside, rain turned the city silver. My house was quiet, but it was not empty. I filled it with friends and students who did not calculate love in dollars. Vale Biomedical survived under honest leadership, and the recovered funds paid for clinics that protected elderly victims of financial abuse.
Grief still arrived without warning. Revenge had not returned the daughter I believed I had raised.
But truth gave me what vengeance alone never could.
