Page 96 of The Quiet After The Fall

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m scared for you…being with Knox. And I need you to understand why.”

She brings the mug to her lips with a shaky hand, sipping slow. A part of me wants to ask for the letter and leave. I don’t want details about her affair. My God. Does my father know? Did Owen? Knox? I can’t deal with this right now along with everything else.

“I did it to hurt your father. I know that’s true now. But that wasn’t the whole reason. I was so tired of feeling small next to Victoria. Not just her, but that whole family, that whole town, looking at us like we were nothing after everything we’d built together. I thought if I could have some piece of what they had, I’d stop feeling like less than them.”

“Did it work?”

“No.” She finally looks up, eyes wet. “It made me feel so much worse. Smaller and broken. I’d given up a piece of myself I could never get back.”

“Mom, I’m not you and Knox isn’t his father. This isn’t the same thing.”

“I know that. I do, but that family has a way of making the people around them feel like they have to shrink themselves just to survive being close to them. I need you to promise me you won’t let loving Knox cost you the parts of yourself that make you you. Not the way it cost me.”

I get up and slide in next to her, wrapping my arm around her slim shoulder in a side hug. “I promise.”

As she hugs me back, I replay her words, wondering if I already have let Knox take pieces of me, or maybe it started with Owen. Mom is so strong yet so broken, and holding her in my arms right now, I tell myself I’ll never get to this. I refuse to let an Aldrich break me again.

An hour or so later, I’m back in an Uber, envelope in hand. Mom kept her word and didn’t open it, although I had to field a ton of questions about what it is. With the affair bombshell dropped she was much easier to placate though, probably too drained and lost in her own regrets to put up a fight.

I try to hold off until I’m back at the guesthouse, but this thing is like a weight in my lap. I break the seal carefully, and pull out the contents.

There’s a check in my name from some company called A.M. Holdings. I gasp when I see the amount. That’s a lot of zeroes.

The only other item is a letter. I unfold it and read.

Miss Thorne,

Enclosed is a full and final settlement. Deposit it and this is over. No lawsuits, no press, no digging into matters that don’t concern you. This is more than enough to change your life.

I’m also aware you and my son continue to see each other, against every warning already given. Consider this the last one. Whatever you think you’re doing with him ends now, or I promise you’ll regret it.

You’re a smart girl. Take the money and walk away.

Richard Aldrich

I fold it and shove it back in the envelope with shaking hands, taking one more look at the check. He’s right, this is more than enough to change my life. I could move anywhere, go to any school I wanted, start a new life. Leave Ashford and the glares and whispers. Never see another of those assholes again.

I could let him win.

My father’s sitting in a cell, carrying the blame for a crime that wasn’t fully his. Owen and so many others are dead because he cared more about lining his own pockets than doing his damn job. And Mom, she spent years hating my father, holding Richard on some pedestal when he’s been fooling us all.

Everyone in this town crossed the street when they saw us coming. Acted like we had a contagious disease.

And Knox…every bruise on his ribs, every lie he’s had to tell just to survive one more day under that roof.

Richard thinks he can toss around his money to buy my silence, that I’ll fold and go quietly. That he’s already won.

He has no idea who he’s dealing with.

I rip the check in half, then tear those pieces again, satisfaction blooming in my chest. He can keep his dirty money. I’m not the scared girl he saw crying after her father in a courtroom. And I’m not the weak one in a hospital bed, grieving his son who spent years lying to me.

I’ve got the truth now, real evidence—my father who’s finally ready to talk, and Knox beside me who’s not afraid to defy his father anymore.

Richard Aldrich is about to learn that some things don’t stay buried just because you’re rich enough to buy the world.

I’m riding the high, pieces of paper scattered across my lap like confetti, when the driver breaks hard, jolting me forward.