Chapter 414
[ 485 words ]
Chapter 414:
Then Donovan’s eyes filled with a lifetime of regret, and his voice dropped even lower. “There’s something else you need to know. About Caroline’s mother. About how she really died.”
Jarrod leaned closer, every nerve on alert.
“Your stepmother,” Donovan rasped. “Cornelia. She ordered the hit on Vivian. I have proof. Documents. Financial records. Witness statements. I’ve been tracking her for years, but I could never get close enough to act. You can.”
The name hit Jarrod like a blade between the ribs. Cornelia. The woman who had raised him alongside his father, who had smiled at family dinners and poured wine at Christmas, had murdered Caroline’s mother. The same woman who had tried to bribe Caroline in that tea room, who had threatened her family, who would stop at nothing to destroy his wife.
His vision went red at the edges, then cold—the ice-cold clarity of a man who had just been handed a mission.
“That’s why you have to finish this,” Donovan said, his voice cracking. “I’m dying. I can’t protect her. But you can. And please… when the time is right… help her find a way to forgive me. I made a terrible mistake walking away from her mother all those years ago, but I have always loved Caroline. Every day. From a distance. That’s all I’ve ever been allowed to do.”
Jarrod looked at the dying man before him. With his last breaths, Donovan was clearing a path for his daughter, arming her protector with the truth. Jarrod was no longer just a husband; he was the executor of a final, desperate mission—a mission for justice that now carried the weight of two dead parents, not just one.
𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗅𝗼𝖺𝗱a𝗯𝘭𝘦 𝗣𝘋𝖥s о𝗻 𝗴𝖺𝘭n𝗈𝗏𝘦𝗅𝗌.𝘤𝗈𝘮
He had nodded, his voice thick with the gravity of the oath. “I give you my word.”
The flashback dissolved. He was back in the hallway, the weight of those secrets pressing down on him. In his arms, Caroline had stopped struggling. Her fight had collapsed into quiet, exhausted sobs. He looked down at the top of her head, a wave of profound, protective love washing over her. She knew Donovan was her biological father—she had told him that herself, weeks ago, in a moment of raw confession. But she had no idea that Cornelia, the woman who had smiled at her across the dining table of the Romero estate, had ordered the hit that killed her mother. And she had no idea her adoptive father, the man who had raised her with such unwavering love, had been murdered for secrets he took to his grave.
He couldn’t tell her. Not now. The truth would utterly destroy her.
At that exact moment, the door to Donovan’s room swung open, and the man himself emerged. He looked pale and fragile, the hospital gown hanging loosely on his frame, his eyes red-rimmed and ashen. He looked ten years older than he had when Caroline had first confronted him on her porch.
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