\u201cIt is,\u201d he interrupted, voice hoarse but urgent. \u201cYou need to understand why he hates me. Why he did this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wind howled around us, carrying his words like confessions into the trees.<\/p>\n
He explained how, twenty-five years earlier, while running his small construction company, he\u2019d been caught in a financial bind. He borrowed money from a loan shark in Atlanta \u2014 money he couldn\u2019t repay. The interest ballooned. When the threats came, he panicked. Instead of protecting his family, he offered something unthinkable: his silence and cooperation in laundering money through his business.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just once,\u201d Robert muttered. \u201cIt went on for years. Cash moving in and out. The business survived, but it poisoned everything. The FBI came sniffing once, but I made a deal. I turned in partners \u2014 men who trusted me. And one of them\u2026 one of them was Emily\u2019s father.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name struck me like a hammer. \u201cEmily\u2019s father?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. I testified against him. He went to prison. He died there. Emily has never forgiven me. And Daniel\u2026\u201d Robert\u2019s voice cracked. \u201cDaniel blames me for the life he never had. The house we lost, the shame he felt at school, the nights you cried when I disappeared to \u2018business meetings.\u2019 He grew up hating me, Maggie. And when he met Emily, when she told him what happened to her father\u2026 they had a bond stronger than anything we could break.\u201d<\/p>\n
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