There was pain. There was the resignation of someone used to being trampled on by the world because no one believes him anymore.
“It wasn’t me, sir. Please believe me.”
His words echoed in Lucas’s head, now laden with the weight of absolute truth.
“I’m an idiot,” Lucas whispered. His voice sounded strange in the empty, broken room.
She stood up from the chair so abruptly that it fell backward, hitting the floor with a clatter. She didn’t bother to pick it up.
He looked at the glass of whiskey on the table. He picked it up and, in a fit of self-loathing, threw it against the fireplace. The glass shattered and the alcohol fanned the flames for a second, a flash of blue and orange that reflected the chaos within him.
I had to leave. I had to fix it.
He ran toward the studio door, but stopped. He went back to the desk and ripped the USB drive out of the computer. He put it in his pants pocket like a loaded gun. That was his proof. That was Elena’s death sentence at work. But Elena could wait ten more minutes.
Maya no.
She stepped out into the main hallway. The house was silent, that luxurious, air-conditioned silence that now seemed obscene to her. She passed the spot where the vase had stood.
The glass was gone. Elena had been efficient, as always. She had erased the physical evidence, leaving only the empty space and the lie.
Lucas arrived at the lobby. He saw his reflection in the Venetian mirror: a tall, powerful man, master of all that he saw… and completely blind.
He grabbed the large golf umbrella that was by the door, but didn’t even stop to open it before leaving.
He opened the heavy wooden door and the storm greeted him again, roaring like a hungry beast. The wind nearly ripped the door from his hands. The cold was instant, sharp, piercing his shirt and chilling him to the bone.
But this time, the cold seemed deserved.
He went down the stone steps two at a time, not caring that his leather-soled shoes slipped in the water.
“Maya!” he shouted, his voice tearing against the wind.
He walked toward the oak tree. The rain fell in curtains so thick he could barely see two meters ahead. The garden security lights flickered, battling the storm, creating ghostly shadows that danced across the flooded lawn.
And there she was.
He hadn’t moved.
She was still in the same place where he had left her, sitting on the roots, curled up in a ball. But now her posture was different. She was no longer trying to protect the food. She wasn’t even trembling anymore. She was motionless, her head resting on her knees, as if she had given up, as if she had accepted that this storm was going to be her end.
Lucas’s heart stopped for a second. What if he was…?
—Maya! —he ran the last few meters, splashing through the mud that stained his pants up to his knees.