Her voice broke. “You don’t get to say my name like you know me.”
He flinched.
Good, I thought.
Let it hurt.
Samuel extended his hand.
“The ledger.”
I glanced at Daniel.
Something in his expression changed. Barely. A warning.
Then I understood.
He had not come with Samuel.
He had come trapped by him.
I looked at the ledger in my hand.
Then at the river.
Then at my father.
For the first time in my life, I saw him clearly—not as the giant from my childhood, not as the dead man whose absence shaped us, but as an old criminal who had mistaken fear for loyalty.
I smiled.
It surprised him.
“What’s funny?” Samuel asked.
“You always thought I was the clean one,” I said. “The honest one.”
Daniel’s eyes widened slightly.
I held up the ledger.
“You forgot I raised three daughters.”
June moved first.
She pulled the second ledger—the real one—from under Claire’s coat.
