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Chapter 263
Chapter 263
DEREK
I didn’t move.
Didn’t nod. Didn’t speak.
I just stood there, letting her see it in my face. Because yeah–it was me.
+25 BONUS
Every call, every closed–door meeting, every favor I cashed in to fast–track the permits they needed before anyone could find a reason to stall or block it. I’d done all of it. Quietly. Without asking for credit. Because it wasn’t about that.
It was about her.
And what she was building.
“I didn’t want credit,” I said. “I don’t need it.”
Jacob looked at me, dumbfounded. Finally, he shook his head, scoffed.
“Take the credit, man,” he said. “Take the win.”
I shook my head, a small, bitter smile tugging at my mouth.
“It wasn’t about taking credit. I just… I didn’t want to make it about me. This place, this foundation, it was Elena’s dream. Not mine.”
Jacob rolled his eyes and let out a low whistle. “Man. The two of you… you really are just alike.”
That made me blink. “What do you mean?”
Jacob gave Elena a look–one I couldn’t quite decipher, but she clearly could. Her head snapped toward him, her voice quick and sharp.
“Jacob, don’t-”
He ignored her. Still looking at me. “Neither of you wants to take credit for the big, important things.”
Elena went still, her spine locking up like someone had turned her to stone.
My stomach dropped. Whatever it was he was talking about, it was big.
I turned toward her. Something in her face–the tightness around her eyes, the way her mouth parted but no sound came out- looked familiar. It was the same look she’d had when I picked her up from Dr. Voss’s office. Like something was caught in her throat she didn’t know how to swallow.
“What do you mean?” I asked again, a little more firmly.
Jacob stepped back, hands up in mock surrender. “Elena. You have to tell him.”
“Tell me what?” I pressed, stepping in, my voice low, tight.
She didn’t answer.
Just stood there, staring at the floor like the truth was carved into the grain of the wood and she was trying to summon the nerve to speak it out loud. Her hands were clenched at her s sides. Her shoulders were rigid, braced as if she expected to be struck by
what she was about to say–or by how I might react.
“Did you remember something?” I asked, quieter this time. Steadier.
She nodded once, barely more than a twitch.
Her voice was almost a whisper. “I remembered everything.”
Chapter 263
+25 BONUS
The room tilted. My pulse kicked hard in my chest, thudding in my ears.
I’d waited months to hear her say those words. I should have felt relief.
But instead, all I felt was dread.
“Then what is it?” I asked. My voice didn’t sound like mine anymore. “What did you remember?”
She didn’t look at me. Not right away. She looked at Jacob.
Something passed between them–unspoken, but clear. A shared weight. A decision that hadn’t yet been made.
Jacob gave her a small nod. Quiet encouragement. And then, to his credit, he stepped back and turned away, giving us the space.
Finally, finally, Elena turned to me.
Her eyes found mine, steady and unreadable, and for a moment I thought she was going to say it right there. But instead she gave me a small, tight smile–fragile and brave.
“Can we talk outside?”
We stepped through the glass doors onto the balcony. The air was cooler here, the sounds of the party muffled behind the thick walls. The river sparkled below us in the moonlight, silver and silent.
Elena walked to the edge, her hands resting lightly on the railing. She looked out at the vastness, her gaze steadily ahead.
“When you were attacked by rogues as a kid,” she said, voice even and controlled, “the scrap of fabric that was tied around your head wound… was it pink with little blue flowers on it?”
My brows furrowed. That memory was faint, fragmented. But the details… I saw flashes. Blood. Pain. A bow. And that scrap of fabric, tied hastily around my scalp. A strange contrast to the violence around it.
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Chapter 264
