Chapter 15 - EVERYTHING WE LOST
By the time we reached the garden, Calloway was already driving away.
We waited in the shadows. Minutes later, Arthur and Edward stumbled out of the house. They were shouting at each other, bloodied, breathless, terrified.
“He burned everything!” Edward cried. “The wills! The deeds! Every record!”
“Calloway set us up!” Arthur roared. “Every step! Every plan! He meant to destroy us all!”
Edward sank onto the porch steps, burying his face in his hands. “We are ruined. Even if we survive… he has made sure nothing can be proven.”
Arthur paced furiously. “And Margaret? If she is alive… she has nothing. No documents. No proof. No company. Calloway has erased every trace.”
Margaret stood beside me in the darkness. Her face was pale, but her voice remained steady.
“He believes burning the paper destroys the truth,” she said quietly. “He is wrong. The truth is not kept in documents. It is kept in people. In memory. In conscience.”
She turned to me.
“Calloway thinks he has won. He thinks he has erased everything. But he made one mistake.”
Margaret touched her chest.
“He told us his plan. He told us the truth about my father. He told us everything. And while he may burn every paper… he cannot burn what we heard tonight.”
Smoke billowed from the study windows. Flames began licking at the woodwork. Our home. Our history. Every record and memory.
Sophie stepped close to me, her voice trembling.
“Grandma… everything is gone.”
Margaret looked at the burning house. At the flames consuming everything we had ever known. Then she looked at her granddaughter.
“The house can be rebuilt,” Margaret said. “The documents can be reclaimed. But what Calloway does not know… is that I kept a copy of everything. Hidden in a bank vault. Months ago. Before Julian was arrested. Before the list was found. Before any of this began.”
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Margaret looked toward the road where Calloway had vanished.
“He thinks he has won. But he has merely shown his hand. And now… we know exactly who we are fighting.”
