Trapped in the gravitational pull of his grandmother’s stare, Caspian’s defenses crumbled into dust. The carefully constructed lies he told the world—and himself—were useless here.
“It started with Isolde,” he began, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. His voice was rough, unfamiliar. “I thought she was dying. I thought I could save her.”
The words came out in a torrent then, a flood of guilt and deception held back for months. He confessed his savior complex, the arrogant belief that he alone could grant Isolode a peaceful end. He explained the divorce, the cruelty of his words to Lyra, the willful blindness he had embraced as a virtue.
He told her everything.
He described the staged attack at the hospital, his voice cold with self-loathing as he detailed the conspiracy. “I have it on an encrypted flash drive. Security footage. Isolde, coaching her accomplice, applying her own fake bruises.”
He laid out the findings from the `Preliminary Dossier` compiled by `Hawthorne Industries`. The financial red flags, the money vanishing from `The Finch Foundation`, the deep, criminal partnership with her doctor.
“Zara Ali is helping me,” he admitted, the words feeling like a betrayal of the fragile trust they had built. “Lyra’s friend. She’s a doctor. She knew from the beginning it was a fraud.”
He watched his grandmother’s face, searching for a flicker of condemnation, of the fury he so richly deserved. But her expression remained one of deep, piercing disappointment. It was so much worse.
“My motivation has changed,” he said, the next words raw, unpracticed. It was the first time he had spoken this particular truth aloud. “This isn’t just about exposing a liar anymore. It’s about atonement. For what I did to Lyra. For the harm I’ve caused.”
Eleanora Hawthorne listened to the entire sordid tale without a single interruption. The story of his catastrophic failure hung in the air between them, ugly and complete.
When he finally fell silent, the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall was the only sound. Her expression shifted then, but not in the way he expected. The disappointment did not lessen, but it was overshadowed by something else. A glacial fury, cold and absolute, directed not at him, but through him. At Isolde.
She looked at him, her eyes seeming to weigh the sum of his foolishness. Her verdict, when it came, was simple and brutal.
“You have been a fool,” she stated, each word a perfectly cut stone. “A catastrophic, sentimental fool.”
She paused, letting the indictment settle.
“But you will not remain one,” she continued, her voice hardening with an authority that could move markets and shatter political careers. “This family will set this right.”
In that moment, he was no longer the CEO of `Hawthorne Industries`. He was a boy again, receiving orders from the only commander he had ever truly feared. He had come here expecting a sentence. Instead, he had been conscripted.
About the Author
