Orla folded her hands. “You all want a moral ending. I want my father back—home, breathing, with his name cleared and his business running. Do you fault me for wanting the practical return of the life the Carters took?”
Her eyes landed on me then—sharp, like a scalpel. “You stand between me and that practicality, Brie Carter. You can make this simple.”
The room tightened around me. Dad’s face had turned something like old paper: valuable and fragile. If Orla accepted Julian’s offer, her father would have a house, capital to restart, and an official apology on paper. But Julian’s offer came with the quiet: no public confession of who bought what, no ledger aired wider than necessary. In short, the market would survive. The buyers would keep buying.
I could see the equation forming in my
