He exhaled slowly.

“That’s what I’ll tell her.”

Then he added, “She doesn’t want an apology from you right now.

She wants the truth where people can verify it.”

After the call, I sat at my desk and wrote a complete timeline of my decisions: every warning, every financial document, every missed chance to tell Hannah what was happening.

I gave it to Celeste, even the passages that made me look worst.

The next morning, she said, “Now we have something worth checking.”