Chapter 190

Chapter 190

Elizabeth's POV

I had only taken a few steps when a voice came from ahead of me. "Elizabeth?"

It was Alexander.

I rounded the corner of the hallway and saw him standing in front of a door, a large manila envelope in his hand. In the dim yellow light, I couldn't make out his expression clearly, but I could feel his eyes on me.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"You didn't answer my text."

He glanced down at his phone. The screen was still lit with the message I'd sent.

"Didn't see it," he said.

I didn't believe him, but I didn't call him out on it.

"You got it?" I looked at the envelope in his hand.

"Yeah."

"What's inside?"

He didn't answer. He slipped the envelope into the inner pocket of his coat.

"Come on." He walked over, took my hand, and laced his fingers through mine. "You shouldn't be here."

I didn't pull away. I didn't say anything either. I just followed him out.

When we passed through the front yard, the old man was still sitting in the armchair. When he saw us come out, his gaze rested on Alexander for a moment, then shifted to me, and finally to our joined hands.

"Alexander," the old man said.

Alexander stopped.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I'm sure."

"Even if the Windsor Family falls apart?"

Alexander was silent for a second.

"Whether the Windsor Family falls apart or not isn't up to me," he said. "That was Uncle Franklin's decision."

The old man closed his eyes and said nothing more.

Alexander led me out of the old house.

The night wind cut through me, cold and sharp, and I shivered. Alexander let go of my hand, took off his coat, and draped it over my shoulders.

"Get in," he said.

I didn't move.

"Alexander, who was that old man?"

"My grandfather."

I froze for a second.

So that was Gray.

His eightieth birthday banquet. The eighteenth of next month. Everyone would be there. Franklin too.

And he had just said that once the notebook was found, the Windsor Family would fall apart.

What was in that notebook?

The car started and pulled away from the foot of the mountain. I sat in the backseat with Alexander beside me. The envelope was still tucked inside his coat, so close to me that I could almost feel its weight.

"Alexander."

"Yeah."

"What's in that notebook?"

He was quiet for a long time.

"Everything," he said at last. "Everything Franklin ever did."

"Including what happened to my father?" I asked.

"Including that."

I turned my head and looked out into the night.

The shadow of the mountain grew farther and farther away, fading into the dark until it disappeared completely.

But the things inside me didn't disappear.

By the time we got back to the villa, it was deep into the night.

Alexander hadn't spoken the whole drive.

He sat beside me with one hand on his knee, gripping that manila envelope the entire way. The corners were wrinkled now.

I knew he was thinking. I didn't disturb him.

The car pulled into the garage and shut off, but neither of us moved.

"Alexander," I said.

"Yeah."

"Your grandfather said that once the notebook was found, the Windsor Family would fall apart."

His fingers paused on the envelope.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"He's right." Alexander's voice was flat, so flat it sounded like he was talking about something that had nothing to do with him. "What's in this is too powerful. More than the Windsor Family can survive."

I looked at him and waited for him to go on.

He was silent for a moment, then pushed open the door and got out. I followed him into the villa.

Warm golden light spilled across the floor, stretching our shadows long behind us.

Alexander sat down on the couch and set the envelope on the coffee table in front of him. He didn't open it. He just stared at it.

I sat beside him.

"What are you thinking?" I asked.

"I'm thinking," he said after a pause, "about what happens after I open it."

"Are you afraid?"

He turned to look at me.

The light fell across his face, softening his features in a way I wasn't used to seeing, but there was something in his eyes I had never seen before. It wasn't fear. It wasn't hesitation. It was exhaustion, deep and heavy, like it had settled into his bones.

"Elizabeth, I told you about Franklin. But I never told you how my parents died."

My heart jolted.

"Your parents—"

"A car accident," he said. "Fifteen years ago. I was seventeen."

I looked at him and said nothing.

He rarely talked about his parents, and I had never asked.

I thought it was because he didn't want to talk about them. Now I understood. It was because he couldn't.

"It was my father's birthday. They were driving home after dinner when a truck ran a red light and hit their car."

His voice was quiet, so quiet it felt like he was afraid of waking something up.

"The driver died at the scene. My mother was still conscious when they got her to the hospital. She held my hand and said one last thing."

"What did she say?" My voice trembled.

"She said, 'Be careful of Franklin.'"

The air in the living room seemed to go still.

I looked at him. His expression hadn't changed. He was still calm, still composed, as if he were telling someone else's story. But his eyes were different.

Those eyes, always so controlled, looked as if something violent was churning beneath a sheet of ice, unable to break through and unable to sink.

"You think Franklin did it?" I asked.

"I've been investigating for fifteen years," he said. "A month before the crash, money showed up in the truck driver's account. It came from an overseas account routed through seven layers, so the source couldn't be traced. But where the money eventually flowed from pointed to the overseas accounts tied to the part of the business Franklin managed back then."

The same thing Julia had found.

The same account. The same method. The same man.

"You didn't tell your grandfather?"

"I did. He said there wasn't enough evidence and that I couldn't accuse anyone without proof."

"So you kept looking for it?"

"Yeah."

"And that notebook—"

"Is the last piece?" he said. "Aiden did a lot of things for Franklin, and he wrote down every single one in that notebook. Including the truck driver."

Tears slid down my face.

Not for me. For him.

He was seventeen when he lost both of his parents in one night. He had carried all of this alone until now. He had spent fifteen years searching alone, holding all of it by himself.

And I had been angry at him for hiding things from me, angry that he kept me locked away, angry that he wouldn't tell me the truth.

He hid it because he knew how heavy the truth was. So heavy that even he could barely carry it. He was afraid I wouldn't be able to carry it either.

"Alexander." My voice shook when I said his name.

He looked at me.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Because I didn't want you to think I got close to you because of what happened to my parents."

His voice dropped lower.

"I've been investigating Franklin for fifteen years."

He paused. "Meeting you was an accident. But later, I found out that what was between him and me had something to do with you too."