Chapter 8 - Sins of Protection
For two full minutes, we just stared at each other across the salt and pepper shakers. The silence stretched between us, thick with nearly four decades of shared memories that suddenly had a completely different texture.
"You gave up going to college out of state," I said, my voice steady, though raw. "You had a scholarship to Stanford. You told everyone you wanted to stay close to your mother because of her arthritis. That was a lie, wasn't it?"
Emily swallowed hard and nodded. "Stanford was too far. The syndicate's appellate trials were still active in Boston that year. I couldn't leave you unsupervised."
"And your divorce," I pressed, leaning forward. "Mark wasn't just emotionally distant. He found out about this, didn't he?"
"Mark wanted me to abandon the assignment," Emily confessed, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her sweater. "He found my father's old encrypted safe in our basement. He told me that your life wasn't my responsibility anymore, that I was obsessed, that I was playing security guard for an heiress who didn't even know she had a target on her back. He gave me an ultimatum: choose our marriage, or choose Sarah. I chose you. I will always choose you."
Hearing those words struck my heart like a physical blow. All those nights I had spent on her sofa, rubbing her back while she sobbed about her failed marriage, thinking she was mourning a lost love. In reality, she had been mourning the collateral damage of keeping me alive.
May you like
"Emily," I whispered, reaching across the table and grabbing both of her cold, trembling hands in mine. "Did Daniel love me?"
"More than life itself," Emily replied instantly, squeezing my fingers with desperate strength. "He felt guilty every single day that he couldn't tell you the truth. He wanted to confess on your tenth anniversary, but the lawyers advised that the trust was too volatile. Daniel lived for you, Sarah. He died protecting you too—that car crash wasn't an accident. A reckless driver ran a red light, and Daniel swerved his truck into the barrier to avoid letting the other vehicle smash into the passenger side where he thought you would be sitting."
