Chương 14
I stopped breathing.
“What did it say?”
“That the records Selina gave him were likely manipulated.”
The room went silent.
Nora whispered, “Oh my God.”
I looked down at Flynn’s declaration.
He knew.
Not everything.
Not enough.
But he knew enough to doubt her before she entered our house.
“He had the report that morning.”
“Yes.”
“And then she arrived accusing me.”
“Yes.”
“And he still believed her.”
Caroline did not soften it.
“Yes.”
Something inside me settled.
Not shattered.
That had already happened.
Settled.
For days, I had allowed one question to stay alive because some weak part of me wanted an answer that might reduce the horror.
What if he had been completely deceived?
What if Selina’s performance had been flawless?
What if anyone could have believed her?
Now there was no refuge left in ignorance.
Flynn had evidence telling him she was lying about me.
Then she cried.
And he chose her anyway.
I folded the declaration carefully.
“Where is he?”
Nora looked alarmed.
“No.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Caroline watched me.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I want to speak to him.”
“No,” Nora said again.
Caroline ignored her.
“About what?”
“The report.”
“Mabel.”
Nora came around the table.
“He stabbed you.”
“I remember.”
“You don’t owe him a conversation.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
I looked at the declaration.
Because I no longer wanted an apology.
I wanted the truth stripped of excuses.
“I need to hear what he thought he was doing.”
Caroline studied me for a long moment.
Then she said, “If there is a conversation, it happens through counsel, in a controlled setting, and Detective Ruiz knows first.”
Nora stared at her.
“You’re encouraging this?”
“No.”
Caroline folded her hands.
“I’m preventing a worse version.”
Three days later, Flynn sat across from me in a private conference room at Caroline’s office.
His criminal attorney sat beside him.
Caroline sat beside me.
Detective Ruiz was not present, but she knew.
The meeting was being recorded by agreement.
Flynn looked thinner.
His beard had grown in unevenly.
There was a healing cut across his palm.
I noticed it immediately.
The shirt.
The garage.
The blood.
He looked at my abdomen before forcing himself to look at my face.
“Mabel.”
“Did you read the accountant’s report before Selina came to the house?”
His attorney shifted.
Flynn did not.
“Yes.”
“Did it say her evidence against me was likely false?”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe the report?”
He swallowed.
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I believed enough of it to confront her.”
“When?”
“That morning.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Before she came to the house?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Flynn looked down.
“She cried.”
Of course she did.
“She said you were manipulating the accountants.”
I almost laughed.
“And you believed that?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
He rubbed his injured palm with his thumb.
“She said she would prove it.”
“How?”
“She left.”
“What time?”
“Around eleven.”
My body went cold.
“You saw her that morning?”
“Yes.”
“At our house?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“My office.”
Caroline wrote something.
I leaned forward despite the pain.
“Then when she arrived at the house less than two hours later saying I attacked her, you already knew she had been with you that morning.”
Flynn closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You knew her financial evidence might be fabricated.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she was desperate to prove I was dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“And you still stabbed me.”
His face collapsed.
“Yes.”
There it was.
No mystery.
No conspiracy.
No excuse.
Just a man making one catastrophic choice after years of smaller ones.
I sat back.
For the first time since the knife entered my body, I no longer needed anything from Flynn Vance.
That did not mean I was finished with him.
It meant I was finally finished waiting for him to become someone else.
Flynn stared at the conference table.
His attorney whispered something, but he shook his head.
“I need to say this.”
His lawyer leaned back with the resigned expression of a man watching a client walk voluntarily toward damage.
Flynn looked at me.
“I thought she was afraid of you.”
“You had evidence she was lying.”
“I know.”
“You had evidence before she walked into our house.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
He pressed his injured hand flat against the table.
For once, he did not answer immediately.
“I was angry with you.”
The simplicity surprised me.
“For what?”
“For leaving me before you actually left.”
I stared at him.
“You thought I was leaving?”
“I thought you had decided I wasn’t enough.”
“You never asked.”
“I tried.”
“No, you investigated me.”
His eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
“That is not asking.”
“I know.”
Caroline glanced at me but did not interrupt.
Flynn swallowed.
“When Selina said you attacked her, it felt like proof that I had been wrong about everything except the part where you hated what my life had become.”
“I didn’t hate your life.”
“You hated her.”
“I hated what you became around her.”
He flinched.
I continued.
“You needed me to be cruel because then you didn’t have to admit you had spent three years making me feel like a guest in my own marriage.”
His attorney shifted again.
Flynn’s face tightened.
“I loved you.”
“That was never the question.”
“What was?”
“Whether you respected me when loving me became inconvenient.”
He closed his eyes.
I had imagined this confrontation dozens of times in the hospital.
In every version, I said something devastating.
Something perfect.
Something he would carry forever.
Real life gave me no perfect line.
Only exhaustion.
I pushed the chair back carefully.
Pain tugged beneath my ribs.
Caroline stood with me.
Flynn looked up.
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“Mabel, please.”
I paused.
He spoke quickly.
“I won’t fight you over the house, the money, anything.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do.”
He stood.
May you like
His lawyer caught his sleeve.
Flynn stopped but remained standing.
