16: The Truth Buried With Veronica
1183 Words
The drive back from the conservatory was silent, the kind of silence that carved wounds.
Sebastian’s jaw flexed as he drove, but his eyes stayed fixed on the road. The rain had returned — light, persistent, like the world wanted to wash itself clean of their sins.
Amara sat with her arms folded tightly across her chest, staring out the window. Every raindrop seemed to echo Celeste’s words. He buried the truth.
Finally, she spoke. “How long were you planning to lie to me?”
Sebastian’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “Don’t start this now.”
“Now is the only time we have.” Her voice trembled but didn’t break. “Celeste said you helped Eduardo cover Veronica’s death. That you erased records — destroyed evidence.”
He exhaled sharply, turning onto a quieter street. “Celeste says what serves her.”
“Did you?” she pressed. “Did you destroy those files?”
Silence.
The kind of silence that meant yes.
Amara’s breath hitched. “Why?”
He finally pulled over beside an abandoned pier, cutting the engine. For a moment, he just sat there, rain sliding down the windshield in silver lines. Then he said, softly, “Because if I hadn’t, Eduardo would have buried me next to her.”
She turned to him, heart pounding. “So you chose survival over justice?”
“I chose strategy,” he said quietly. “Veronica’s death wasn’t supposed to happen. She threatened to expose him — she went to the press. Eduardo intercepted the story, and she… she never came home. The official report said heart failure. I saw the body. It was staged.”
Amara swallowed. “And you didn’t stop him.”
His eyes lifted, haunted. “I couldn’t. By the time I found out, it was done. He made me clean the trail — to prove my loyalty. I burned the files. I buried the evidence in a vault so deep even he couldn’t reach it. I thought if I waited, I could strike when the time was right.”
She stared at him, disbelief and grief tangled together. “Years passed, Sebastian. Veronica’s name turned into a whisper, and you did nothing.”
“I was building an empire of my own,” he said, his voice rising. “You think vengeance is instant? You think you can destroy a man like Eduardo without patience? I needed power. I needed leverage. And now, with you, I have both.”
Amara recoiled. “With me?”
His tone softened instantly. “Amara, listen—”
“No,” she cut him off. “You talk about leverage, not love. You talk about me like I’m another weapon in your arsenal.”
He turned toward her, desperation flickering across his face. “You’re not a weapon. You’re the only reason I still remember why I started this.”
She looked away. “Then why does it feel like I’ve become part of your revenge?”
He didn’t answer. The rain intensified, drowning the world outside the car. For a long moment, the only sound was the storm — a raw, relentless confession of nature itself.
Finally, Amara whispered, “What really happened to her?”
Sebastian’s voice was barely audible. “She was pregnant.”
Amara froze.
“She found out Eduardo had been using the foundation to move black money — laundering o***************g profits through charity fronts. She wanted to take it public. She called me the night before she died — said she’d hidden copies of the ledgers. When I got to the house, she was gone.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
“Pregnant?” Amara echoed. “With whose child?”
Sebastian’s eyes were shadowed. “Mine.”
The world tilted.
For a moment, Amara couldn’t breathe. The rain vanished from sound; everything went still. She turned toward him slowly, disbelief splintering her chest.
“What?”
“I loved her,” he said, voice cracking. “Long before Eduardo knew. She was the light in that cursed house. We were going to leave. We planned to disappear after she published the files. But he found out. He killed her — and our child.”
Amara’s eyes burned. “You—” She shook her head, words failing. “You married me because—”
“Because you reminded me of her,” he finished quietly. “At first. But it isn’t like that anymore. You need to believe that.”
Tears blurred her vision. “So I’m her ghost.”
“No!” His voice broke, raw and pleading. “You’re everything she wanted to become — brave, defiant, alive. You’re what I couldn’t save.”
Amara pushed open the door, stumbling out into the rain. The cold hit her like a slap, grounding her, punishing her. She could hear him call her name, but she kept walking toward the edge of the pier.
“Amara!” His footsteps splashed behind her.
She turned on him, tears mixing with rain. “You buried her, Sebastian. You buried the truth — and now you’re trying to resurrect yourself through me.”
His expression twisted. “I’m trying to make it right!”
“By lying again?” Her voice broke. “By marrying the woman your lover’s killer tried to destroy? Tell me, Sebastian — what’s left of truth in your world?”
For once, the mighty Sebastian Cruz looked small. A man stripped of armor, soaked and silent.
He stepped closer, rain dripping from his hair, his voice hoarse. “You think I don’t live with it every day? That I sleep at night? I see her in every mirror, Amara. Every decision I make is a grave I dig for redemption.”
Amara’s voice trembled. “Then stop digging.”
He closed his eyes. “I can’t.”
The honesty in his tone — quiet, broken — shattered something inside her. Because for all the lies and blood, he meant it. He was trapped in the same cage he’d built around her.
Amara took a step back, the pier slick beneath her heels. “You say you want redemption. Then start with truth. All of it. No more secrets.”
Sebastian nodded slowly, rain running down his face like tears. “Then you should know — Veronica didn’t hide the ledgers where Eduardo thought.”
Amara frowned. “What do you mean?”
He looked at her, something unreadable in his gaze. “She hid them inside the Hollingsworth Foundation.”
Her heart lurched. “In Celeste’s empire?”
He nodded. “And if Celeste finds out we know… she’ll finish what Eduardo started.”
⸻
A sudden c***k of thunder rolled across the sky, drowning the last of his words. Amara stared at him, soaked and shaking, realizing that the woman she’d met that morning — serene, elegant, venomous — wasn’t just an accomplice.
She was the new queen of the empire Veronica died trying to destroy.
And Amara had just declared war on her.
- Writer
