chapter 24
“But I won’t do it the way you did.”
I handed the envelope to Gideon.
“File the fraud. Protect the witness. Turn over the corporate evidence to counsel. Leave the rest.”
Ethan stared at me. “That’s mercy?”
“No,” I said. “It’s refusal.”
He flinched harder than if I had struck him.
Rose sank into a chair behind him, sobbing into both hands.
The legal fallout was ugly, public, and fast.
The Song family disowned Rose in every way that mattered. Shaw Capital bled under investigation. My father severed every tentative business tie and emerged from the wreckage angrier, healthier, and far harder to manipulate. Peter Lawson flipped before charges could touch him. Half the rot came to light in a month.
Ethan resigned from three boards in six weeks.
He never fought the evidence.
He never came near my family again.
Once, only once, a letter arrived in his handwriting.
I burned it unopened.