“The night you got arrested,” he said, “you didn’t do what they said you did. You didn’t steal that money from the company accounts.”
My stomach dropped. I knew that. I had screamed that. But no one had listened.
“I didn’t know that at first,” he admitted, looking down at his hands. “I believed the police. I believed the paperwork. And I believed Linda when she told me… things about you. That you were gambling. That you were desperate.”
He breathed out, a shaky, rattling sound.
“Then I found the missing invoices. I found the altered bank records in the trash. And I found a signed statement… from Linda’s son.”
My hands went cold. Trevor.
My father’s eyes glistened.
“He did it, Eli,” my father said. “He took the money. He moved it through the business to pay off his own debts. And when the audit started, he needed someone else to take the fall. Someone with access.”
He swallowed again.
“And Linda helped him. She gave him your passwords. She planted the evidence in your apartment.”
The air left my lungs. It wasn’t just negligence. It was a conspiracy. My own family.
My father’s voice cracked.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see it until the damage was done. And by then… you were already inside. And I was already sick.”
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, a gesture so familiar it made my chest ache.
“I tried to undo it. Quietly. I collected everything. I hid it. I transferred what I could to protect it. I didn’t confront them because… I was dying, Eli. And if I went to war in my own house, I would’ve died alone, in a room full of people who hated me. I was weak.”
He exhaled.
“So I did what I could. I became a spy in my own home.”
His gaze locked onto the camera.
