Thomas’s eyes lowered.
“Where is it?”
He inhaled.
“Safe.”
“Whose?”
“Mine.”
“Why?”
Silence.
Victoria stepped closer.
“Why?”
Thomas looked up.
His eyes were wet.
“I needed money.”
She laughed once.
There was no humor.
“You needed money.”
“Yes.”
“You have a salary of two hundred forty thousand dollars.”
“I know.”
“A pension.”
“I know.”
“A house you bought with a loan my father gave you interest-free.”
“Yes.”
“What amount of money did you need badly enough to steal my mother’s bracelet?”
Thomas looked away.
“Eight hundred thousand.”
Victoria stared.
“For what?”
He did not answer.
Aaron spoke.
“Gambling?”
Thomas closed his eyes.
Victoria felt something inside her break.
“Gambling?”
Thomas whispered:
“It began years ago.”
“How many?”
“Victoria—”
“How many years?”
“Twelve.”
She stepped backward.
Twelve.
The watch.
The earrings.
Elena Ruiz.
Andre Coleman.
Maybe others.
Victoria’s voice went flat.
“How much have you stolen?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Aaron cursed quietly.
Victoria stared at him.
“You don’t know?”
“I kept records at first.”
“Then stopped.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
Thomas suddenly looked angry.
“Yes.”
“I hear myself.”
“You think I don’t?”
“You think I haven’t spent every day understanding what I became?”
Victoria almost laughed again.
“What you became?”
Thomas stood despite her command.
Aaron moved.
Victoria raised one hand.
Thomas’s voice cracked.
“I gave that family thirty-one years.”
“I drove your father while he built his empire.”
“I slept in cars outside meetings.”
“I missed my own daughter’s school plays because your father decided his schedule mattered more.”
“I carried your mother into the house when chemo made her too weak to walk.”
“I held you while you screamed after she died.”
“I did the things he should have done.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“Do not use my mother.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“You want truth?”
She stepped closer.
“You were paid to work.”
“I loved you like a daughter.”
“And I loved you like family.”
Thomas’s eyes filled.
“Family.”
He spat the word almost bitterly.
“When your father died, do you know what he left me?”
Victoria stared.
“A watch.”
Thomas laughed.
“One watch.”
“Thirty-one years.”