I Signed Away Eight Million To Leave Him Chapter 26
“I never wanted to reopen Mara’s wounds,” she said.
“But Graham waited for her until the day he died. She kept him dangling while using the Vale family’s money to buy a house, then deliberately married someone else two days before his wedding.”
A headline rolled across the bottom of the screen.
THE LIE BEHIND THE CHARITY PROJECT.
I had seen those words under Graham’s social media posts countless times.
Now he was dead, and Sloane had picked them up and handed them right back to me.
Eli reached over and covered the remote with his hand.
“Want me to turn it off?”
“No.”
I dragged the progress bar back to the beginning.
“Let it play.”
Sloane also claimed that even after my marriage, I had continued to contact Graham, used the restraining order to manipulate him, and then abandoned him completely after he went bankrupt.
She cut out the drunken calls, the harassment, the break-in at my apartment.
She left only the image of Graham collapsing at his own wedding because I had married someone else.
At the end of the program, my father looked straight into the camera and demanded the police clear his name.
“I stayed hidden all these years only because Beatrice was rich and powerful.”
“Now that her son is dead, I finally dare to tell the truth.”
The screen went dark.
I sat there for a long time before realizing my nails had dug into my palms.
Eli didn’t tell me to let it go.
He simply turned the laptop toward me and waited for me to decide what to do next.
I logged into the cloud and opened the folder I hadn’t touched in years.
Inside were Graham’s texts, records of his calls and emails, the restraining order the court had issued, and the police report from the night he broke into my apartment.
At the very top was the screenshot in which he had admitted, in his own words:
“I know the money wasn’t what you wanted, but humiliating you was the only way I could make Mother understand she couldn’t control me.”
I gave my lawyer access to the folder.
“Send the program and Sloane a litigation hold notice for all evidence.”
“I want every false allegation publicly withdrawn.”
After hanging up, I called the Palm Beach police.
The dispatcher asked what I needed to report.
I looked at my father’s aged face on the screen.
“Many years ago, you were looking for a man.”
“He fled the Vale estate with cash after his wife died.”
“He just appeared on television.”
“I know where he is.”