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“Like Noel.”
His eyes glint as he reaches into his jacket and draws out a manilla folder.
“Here.”
I tense when he offers it to me, déjà vu from his stunt before the board meeting heating my blood to fury.
“What the hell is this?” I seethe.
“Just open it, please.”
I grind my jaw as I tug it from his hand.
“What is it, Oliver?”
He smiles thinly.
“It’s a medical report from that night, detailing the injuries sustained in the fire.”
My lips twist furiously, sneering at him.
“Yeah, I wasthere, Oliver,” I snap. “I don’t need to read my own—”
“It’s not your accident report, Ella.”
My brow furrows. Oliver sighs slowly.
“It’s Noel’s.”
I shiver, blinking quickly, my head shaking.
“Noel wasn’t home during the fire. He stayed late at a business thing—”
“Please just open that, Ella,” Oliver says quietly. “Please.”
I swallow, dropping my gaze to the file folder in my hands. I shiver, opening it slowly and letting my eyes drag over the page inside.
It’s a medical report, from what looks like a private clinic in South London.
It has Noel’s name on it.
It has the date of the fire.
It has words like “severe burns,” “probable scarring,” and “smoke and flammable chemical inhalation.”
I stare at the page, vaguely aware that I’m going numb. Vaguely aware that everything I know, everything I’ve built over the last few months, and every part of my heart is crumbling to dust in my hands.
It says that Noel wasthere, on the night of the fire. That he was burned. That he inhaled smoke and flammable chemicals.
It says after all of this—all of my wrestled doubts, all of my choosing sides, and all of my following my heart…
That I was wrong.
It says Noel Ransom killed my mother.
The pages fall from my hands as I stagger backward.
“Ella—”
