Chương 2
He hated how easy violence still felt.
That was the part of himself he never admitted out loud.
He could control his anger.
He just could not pretend it was gone.
Margaret touched his arm.
“Dominic.”
He turned toward her.
The disappointment in her voice hurt more than any accusation.
“I’m fine,” she said.
He knew she was not talking about the fall.
He knew she was talking about him.
“I had it under control,” he said.
His mother gave him a tired look.
“You always say that after something goes wrong.”
Before he could answer, Valeria moved.
She crossed the room quickly and reached for the handbag.
Dominic caught her wrist before her fingers touched it.
“Don’t.”
She stared at him.
The calm expression she usually wore was gone.
“You think you’re protecting her.”
“I am.”
“No.”
Her voice dropped.
“You’re protecting the version of yourself you created after your father died.”
The words landed harder because they sounded partly true.
Dominic released her wrist slowly.
Valeria stepped back.
She rubbed her hand and looked at Margaret.
“I tried to help you.”
Margaret laughed quietly.
It was a sad sound.
“No, dear.”
Everyone looked at her.
“You tried to help yourself.”
Valeria’s face changed.
For years, people had accepted her explanations because she delivered them beautifully.
Margaret had never been impressed by beautiful explanations.
She had spent too many years listening to people hide behind them.
Lucian pushed himself up from the broken display.
Blood ran from a small cut near his eyebrow.
His expensive suit was covered in dust and wine.
“You have no idea what your father was involved in,” he said.
Dominic held the envelope tighter.
“Maybe.”
He looked at Margaret.
“But she does.”
Margaret looked toward the fallen wine bottles.
Then toward Lucian.
“I found the documents because I was cleaning out old storage after the estate review.”
Lucian’s expression changed again.
“What documents?”
Margaret did not answer immediately.
That silence bothered him more than any accusation could have.
Dominic noticed.
His mother was afraid.
But she was no longer backing away.
“There were accounts,” she said.
“Old ones.”
Lucian swallowed.
“Impossible.”
“You keep saying that whenever something becomes inconvenient.”
Dominic opened the envelope carefully.
Inside was a single letter and several copies of documents.
The paper was old.
The ink had faded slightly.
But his father’s signature was clear.
Dominic read the first few lines.
His breathing slowed.
The words did not make sense together.
Not at first.
His father had written about money being moved without authorization.
About names being hidden.
About someone inside the family using the company as protection.
And at the bottom of the letter was one sentence that made Dominic stop reading.
“Trust Margaret before anyone who tells you I was the problem.”
He looked at his mother.
She looked back at him.
For the first time that night, Dominic saw something he had never seen before.
Not fear.
Not guilt.
Relief.
As if she had been carrying the truth alone for years and was finally too tired to carry it anymore.
Lucian took a step forward.
“Your father was not a good man.”
Dominic folded the letter.
“I know.”
The answer surprised him.
Lucian stopped.
Dominic looked around the mansion where he had spent years attending family dinners, business meetings, and celebrations built on a foundation he never questioned.
“I know exactly what kind of man he was.”
The silence returned.
“But I also know my mother.”
Margaret lowered her eyes.
She had never liked being the center of attention.
Even now, with everything exposed, she looked uncomfortable.
Ava walked over and wrapped her arms around Margaret’s leg.
The small movement reminded everyone in the room that this was not only about money or power.
It was about a family that had been damaged long before anyone admitted it.
Dominic placed the envelope inside his jacket.
Lucian watched him carefully.
“This changes nothing.”
Dominic looked at him.
“No.”
His voice remained calm.
“It changes everything.”
Outside the mansion windows, cars continued passing on the road.
People walked their dogs.
Someone laughed on the sidewalk.
The world continued as if nothing had happened.
Inside the house, Dominic realized the fight had only just started.
Dominic realized the fight had only just started.
The letter in his jacket felt heavier with every step he took away from the entrance gallery.
It was only paper, but it carried the weight of years of silence, missing conversations, and the uncomfortable possibility that the family story he had accepted was built around a lie.
Margaret sat on the edge of a nearby chair while Ava leaned against her side, still holding the sleeve of her cardigan.
The little girl had stopped crying, but she kept looking toward Lucian as if she was trying to understand why an adult would hurt someone she loved.
Dominic hated that she had learned that lesson so early.
A servant quietly brought a towel and began cleaning the broken glass, but nobody spoke to him.
The mansion employees had spent years perfecting the art of disappearing during uncomfortable moments.
Tonight, they were failing.
Everyone had seen too much.
Lucian stood beside the damaged wine display, pressing a folded cloth against his eyebrow.
“You think finding a letter means you know the truth?”
Dominic did not answer immediately.
He looked at the broken shelves behind Lucian.
The expensive bottles were scattered across the floor, some still intact, some leaking slowly into the cracks between the marble tiles.
It reminded him of the kind of damage that looked small until someone tried to repair it.
“I think my father knew something was wrong,” Dominic said.
Lucian gave a bitter smile.
“Your father knew a lot of things.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
Lucian dropped the cloth onto the floor.
“It isn’t.”
Valeria moved closer to him.
“Lucian, stop.”
He ignored her.
For the first time Dominic saw the cracks in the relationship between them.
May you like
They were not standing together.
They were standing near each other because neither one wanted to stand alone.
