Chapter 60 - THE FINAL RECORDING
We copied every file.
Then the courthouse alarm sounded.
Someone had discovered us.
Footsteps approached.
Julian grabbed my hand.
“Run.”
We reached the staircase.
But someone was waiting at the top.
Andrew Cole.
He smiled.
“You've been very difficult.”
Julian stepped in front of me.
“You're finished.”
Cole laughed.
“Am I?”
Michael raised his weapon.
“Drop it.”
Cole didn't move.
“You still think evidence matters?”
He looked at me.
“People believe whatever they are told.”
I held up the USB drive.
“Not anymore.”
His expression changed.
“We have everything.”
“Do you?”
I pressed the final file.
A recording played through the hallway speakers.
Cole's own voice.
“Destroy the evidence.”
Then Eleanor's voice.
“Make Emily look guilty.”
Then Julian's father's voice.
“I'll handle the wedding.”
The hallway went silent.
Cole's face changed.
Police officers rushed in.
He was arrested.
But before they took him away, he looked at me.
“You think you've won.”
I didn't answer.
He smiled.
“You haven't opened the last file.”
I froze.
“What last file?”
Cole looked at Julian.
Then back at me.
“The one your father has been hiding.”
Michael's face went pale.
I turned toward him.
“Dad?”
He looked at me.
For the first time since I had found him, he looked truly afraid.
Cole was taken away.
The police disappeared around the corner.
I walked toward my father.
“What is in the last file?”
He didn't answer.
“Dad.”
He closed his eyes.
“It contains the truth about your birth.”
I froze.
“My birth?”
He nodded.
“The truth about who your real mother was.”
I looked at my mother.
She was crying.
Then my father whispered:
“Your mother isn't the woman you thought she was.”
And suddenly, after everything we had survived—
May you like
the biggest secret of my life
was still waiting to be opened.
