Page 23 of The Vows He Buried

The world burned, and I watched it on a sixty-inch screen from my throne in the sky.

Vale Global’s stock hadn’t just plummeted; it had ceased to exist. Trading was halted indefinitely within an hour of the raid.

The company’s accounts were frozen, its assets seized pending the federal investigation.

The headlines were brutal, a daily barrage of corporate malfeasance laid bare for the world to see.

VALE OF LIES: Inside the Decade of Deceit at a Wall Street Giant.

PROJECT NIGHTINGALE: The Secret Slush Fund That Bought Politicians and Silenced Victims. EVELYN VALE: The Iron Matriarch’s Criminal Empire.

Lucian’s file had been a nuclear weapon, and its fallout was contaminating everything the Vales had ever touched.

The bribery scandal in Dubai had triggered an international incident.

The tax evasion scheme was being called one of the largest in corporate history.

And my own story, the one Sienna had tried to use as blackmail, had been woven into the larger narrative with devastating skill.

I was not the scorned wife; I was Patient Zero, the first and most intimate victim of the Vales’ systemic corruption, a conspiracy that included the paid-for termination of my pregnancy.

Deedee’s evidence, Dr. Finch’s records, and the wire transfer receipt were now exhibits in a federal case.

I watched it all unfold with a strange, detached calm. There was no triumph, no glee. The rage that had fueled me had done its job; it had burned the world clean. Now, in its place, was a quiet, hollow sense of finality. I had won. The war was over. All that was left was to survey the wreckage.

My days were spent in creation, an antidote to the destruction I had wrought.

The penthouse was a vibrant hub of activity for Heirloom Reclaimed.

Fabrics in rich, defiant jewel tones replaced the cold, minimalist aesthetic.

The air was filled with the scent of fresh coffee, the hum of my creative team, and the sound of my own laughter—a sound that still surprised me with its authenticity.

We were building something beautiful from the ashes of something ugly. We were creating a legacy.

Evelyn Vale was in federal custody, denied bail due to being a flight risk with access to billions in hidden offshore accounts.

Sienna Ward had been arrested and charged with extortion, conspiracy, and a litany of other crimes, her pathetic attempt at blackmail now a key piece of the prosecution's evidence against the Vales.

Maddox, however, had been released. He was out on a ten-million-dollar bond, his passport surrendered, his assets frozen.

He was, for all intents and purposes, under house arrest in the silent, empty tomb of the Vale mansion.

He was a king with no kingdom, a CEO with no company, a man with no future.

I hadn’t heard from him. I hadn’t expected to. There was nothing left to say.

I was wrong.

The call came not to my private line, but to my lawyer, Mark Jennings. Mark then called me.

“Savannah,” he said, his voice cautious. “I’ve just had a rather unusual call from Maddox Vale’s legal counsel. It seems his client is… insistent. He’s begging to see you.”

“The answer is no,” I said immediately, my voice hard. “All communication goes through you. That’s the rule.”

“I told him as much,” Mark said. “But he was… desperate. He said it wasn’t about the case. He said he knows it’s over. He just needs to speak to you, face to face. One last time. His lawyer said he’s… unwell. Unstable.”

A flicker of the old Savannah, the caretaker, the woman who had tried to soothe his demons, stirred within me. I quickly extinguished it. “His stability is not my concern.”

“I know,” Mark said gently. “But Savannah, from a strategic perspective… a man this desperate is a man who is unpredictable. Hearing him out, on your own terms, in a controlled environment, might be the final move that ensures he causes no further trouble. Let him have his final say, and then he is truly finished.”

I was silent for a long moment. Mark was right. This wasn't about pity. It was about control. It was about closing the last door so tightly it could never be reopened.

“Fine,” I said finally. “But on my terms. Not my home. Not his. Somewhere public, but private. Neutral ground.”

I chose the location: a small, secluded sculpture garden at the Frick Collection, a place of quiet beauty and old-world elegance. It was a place I had gone to sketch when I first moved to the city, a place that held no memories of him.

I arrived first, choosing a stone bench in a quiet alcove, surrounded by weathered statues and the rustling of autumn leaves. I wore a simple black dress and a camel-colored coat. I was not here as a warrior or a queen. I was simply here to witness the end.

He arrived exactly on time, walking through the stone archway alone.

The sight of him stole my breath for a moment, not with longing, but with shock.

The powerful, arrogant man I had known was gone, replaced by this hollowed-out stranger.

He had lost weight. His expensive suit, which had always seemed like a second skin, now hung on his frame.

There were dark, bruised circles under his eyes, and his hair, usually so perfectly styled, was unkempt.

He looked like a man who hadn’t slept in weeks, a man who was being haunted by his own ghosts.

He saw me on the bench and stopped, his steps hesitant. He looked like a supplicant approaching a goddess he was no longer sure would hear his prayers.

“Savannah,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly whisper.

I didn’t reply. I simply gestured to the empty space beside me on the bench. He walked over and sat, leaving a careful, respectful distance between us.

We sat in silence for a long time, the only sound the gentle splash of a nearby fountain and the distant murmur of city traffic. He stared at his hands, his long, elegant fingers twisting together in his lap.

“Thank you for coming,” he said finally, his voice raw.

I remained silent. I was not here to make this easy for him.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’ve spent the last two weeks alone in that house,” he began, his gaze still fixed on his hands. “With the ghosts. My father’s. My grandfather’s. All the men who built the name I have destroyed. And your ghost, Savannah. Your ghost is the loudest of them all.”

He looked up then, his eyes meeting mine. The cool gray was now a turbulent sea of pain. “I had so much time to think. With no company to run, no meetings to attend, no fires to put out. Just… silence. And the truth. And I finally understood.”

“Understood what, Maddox?” I asked, my voice flat, devoid of emotion.

“Everything,” he whispered. “Everything I did wrong. Every choice I made that led us here. It wasn’t one thing. It was all of it. Every day. For three years.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his face a mask of profound self-loathing. “I was a coward. I see that now. I was terrified of my mother, of her disappointment, of her power over me. But I was also terrified of you.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Terrified of me?”

“Yes,” he said, a bitter, humorless smile touching his lips.

“I was terrified of your light. Your talent. Your fire. You were so alive, so real, in a world that was built on artifice and lies. And I knew, deep down, that I wasn’t worthy of it.

I knew that my world, the Vale world, would try to crush it. So I made a choice.”

He looked at me, his eyes pleading for understanding.

“I thought I was protecting you. I thought that by controlling you, by dimming your light, I was keeping you safe from her, from all of it. I thought if I could just make you fit into the box my mother had designed, she would leave you alone. I told myself it was for your own good.”

He shook his head, a look of disgust on his face. “But that was a lie I told myself so I wouldn’t have to admit the truth: that I was too weak to stand up to her. Too weak to protect you the right way. So I joined her. I became your jailer, convincing myself it was for your own protection.”

His confession was a river, and now the dam had broken. The words poured out of him, a torrent of long-buried truths.

“And the baby…” he choked, his voice breaking.

“I didn’t know about the money, Vannah, I swear I didn’t.

But I knew something was wrong. I saw how my mother was with you.

I saw how sick you were. And I did nothing.

I chose to believe the lie because it was easier than facing the monstrous truth of what my own mother was capable of.

It was the ultimate act of cowardice. And I have to live with that for the rest of my life. ”

He finally broke, his shoulders shaking with silent, wracking sobs. He didn’t try to hide his tears. The proud, untouchable CEO was gone, replaced by this broken, weeping man.

I watched him, and the strangest thing happened. I felt nothing. The rage was gone. The pain was gone. It was like watching a film of a man I had once known, a tragedy playing out on a screen. His pain was real, I could see that. But it couldn’t touch me anymore.

He finally regained some semblance of control, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked at me, his face stripped bare of all artifice.

“I tried to protect you by burying the truth, Savannah,” he whispered, and in that moment, I knew he had finally reached the core of his own personal hell. “I buried the truth about my mother, about Sienna, about my own weakness. But all I did… was bury myself.”

He slid off the bench and knelt before me on the cold, stone ground. He didn’t try to touch me. He simply knelt, his head bowed, a king who had willingly abdicated his throne and was now begging for absolution from the queen he had wronged.

“I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he said, his voice thick with unshed tears. “I don’t deserve anything from you. Not your pity, not your anger, not another moment of your time. I just… I needed you to hear it. I needed you to know that I see it all now. That I know what I lost.”

He looked up at me, his eyes swimming with a love that was so full of pain and regret it was almost unbearable to look at. It was not the possessive, controlling love he had shown before. It was the pure, agonizing love of a man who knows he has destroyed the only good thing in his life.

“I didn’t deserve your love,” he whispered, his voice breaking completely. “But I still dream of it. Every night.”

He remained there, kneeling before me in the autumn sunlight, a fallen king in a garden of stone, offering me the broken pieces of his heart.

I looked down at him, at the man who had been my world, my greatest love and my deepest pain. And I felt a profound, quiet sadness. Not for me. But for him. For the man he could have been. For the love we could have had, in another life, in another world.

I stood up from the bench.

He looked up at me, a flicker of desperate, terrified hope in his eyes.

I didn’t offer him a hand. I didn’t offer him a word. I simply looked at him one last time, a silent, final farewell.

Then, I turned and walked away, leaving him kneeling in the ruins of the world he had built and the love he had buried.