Page 115 of What You left in Me

The earth tilts again. Not a tremor this time. An adjustment you don’t come back from.

I try to breathe around the dread in my lungs and the humiliation still buzzing under my skin and the love that won’t stop making stupid shapes in my chest. Hours have crawled and sprinted and folded over each other today, and all I’ve done is worry. Finn said he’d take care of it. He always says that. And then he does. Usually by burning something down.

What were we thinking?We weren’t. We were playing with fire. And now the curtains are catching.

“Please,” Richard says, and the word shreds me. “Just… someone tell me what’s happening.”

Finn lifts his chin, looks at the man who raised him and me and this whole shining lie, and opens his mouth.

I grip the table harder and brace for impact.

Chapter 35 – Finn – Receipts of Blood

The dining room is a stage. And tonight, I’m ripping the set to shreds.

The chandelier hums above us, gold light catching the silver in Dad’s hair, the gleam of Eleanor’s pearls, the glassy shine of Ariane’s wide eyes. The air tastes like iron and varnish, like something perfected for show but rotten underneath.

And me? I’m the executioner.

Ariane’s eyes snap to me, lips parting like she’s choking on air. Richard jerks in his chair, fork clattering to his plate, soup sloshing like blood in a basin. The maid by the sideboard goes rigid, hands trembling so hard she nearly drops the silver.

Eleanor doesn’t blink. Her mouth tightens, and then, God help me, she laughs. A brittle, glassy sound. “Oh, Finn. Always the dramatist. Always desperate for an audience. Do you really think this is appropriate?”

“Appropriate?” My hands flatten against the wood. The shiny surface creaks under the pressure. “Youmurderedmy mother.”

Dad gasps like a man sucker-punched. “What?” His voice cracks.

Ariane whispers, “No…” shaking her head, once, then again, faster, as if that might erase the words hanging between us.

“Stop it,” Eleanor snaps. Her fingers twitch around her napkin. She folds it precisely in half, then again, like control is a shield. “That is a filthy accusation, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Accusation?” My laugh is hollow, jagged. “No, Eleanor. Let me show you receipts.”

I pull my phone from my jacket, thumb swiping to the folder I’ve been carrying like a loaded gun. I toss it onto the table. The glow spills across the linen like floodlights at a crime scene.

“Waren. Rhode Island. Gallery ledgers. Cash transfers. Witness testimony. You thought you could bury it. But ghosts don’t stay buried when you pay them in cash.”

Dad leans forward, squinting at the screen. His lips move soundlessly as he reads the numbers, the dates, the names. His hand trembles when he reaches for his glass, missing it entirely.

Ariane’s gaze darts between me and the phone. “Finn,” she breathes, voice trembling. “What are you talking about? What is this?”

I want to look at her, tell her I’ll explain, soften it somehow. But Eleanor’s still alive, and I can’t take my eyes off the monster who’s smiling at me like I’m a child who lost his toy.

“I’m talking about your mother,” I say, voice flat, “hiring a drunk named Waren to poison mine. Pills in her drinks. Night after night, until one morning run became her last.”

Dad surges half out of his chair, face red, eyes bulging. “No. That’s… that’s impossible.”

“Is it?” I swipe again, shoving the screen closer. “Those transfers? Same weeks mom started stumbling. Same week she complained of fatigue. Same week she collapsed in the middle of a run and never got up again.”

The memory shoves into me before I can stop it, my mother’s breath, sharp and ragged beside me on the path, the sudden sound of her body hitting gravel. My hands shaking as I screamed into the phone for help. The white coats later tellingme there were drugs in her system. She didn’t take pills. She didn’t drink herself to death.And Eleanor fucking knew it.

Eleanor rises slowly, palms braced against the table, pearls catching the light like a snare. “You are twisting this. Making grief into paranoia. I will not sit here and…”

“I met Waren and Selena.” My words slice through hers. “The woman laughed when she told me how you smiled while Dad swore he’d never leave his wife. You wanted a clean slate, Eleanor, and my mother’s blood bought it for you.”

Ariane covers her mouth with both hands, eyes shining, head shaking violently. “No, no, no…”

Eleanor turns toward her, voice softening like poisoned honey. “Darling, don’t listen to him. He’s always hated me. He wants to tear us apart.”