The Capo’s Daughter Needs No Permission Chapter 40
On the day the system officially launched, Ava emailed me again.
The attachment wasn’t an apology letter.
It was proof of transfer from when she sold the Gucci bag.
The money had been sent back to the education fund.
It wasn’t five thousand dollars.
The bag, used for years, had sold for only a fraction of its original price.
She wrote:
*Aunt Maria already repaid your five thousand dollars.*
*This isn’t for you, and it isn’t to trade for forgiveness.*
*I’m just finally getting rid of something I never should have kept.*
I checked the receiving account number.
It was indeed the education fund’s.
I didn’t treat the notice as new evidence.
The investigation had ended four years ago, and responsibility had already been assigned.
I replied only:
*Received.*
Ava sent another message almost immediately.
*When I apply for internships, could you look over my materials for me?*
I looked at the screen and didn’t say yes.
*The public application guide is on Westbridge’s website.*
*You can use it the same as anyone else.*
A few minutes later, she replied:
*Okay.*
There was no crying emoji, and she didn’t say I had been luckier than her.
For the first time, she didn’t ask me to do more for her than I would for anyone else.
Marco later told me that Ava revised her applications three times by herself.
She didn’t use my father’s connections, and she didn’t ask my mother to make calls for her.
As for whether she got in anywhere in the end, I didn’t ask.
That was her road to walk.
Not my responsibility.
When my mother received the fund’s receipt for the returned money, she didn’t use it to prove to me that Ava had changed.
She only added the original purchase record for the bag to her own file of responsibility.
My father signed it.
Marco witnessed it.
Once, they had used a private group chat to shut me out and decide for me what constituted family property.
Now, each of them was writing down what they had done, under their own names.
I didn’t have to push them.
It was the record—one that could no longer be deleted—that forced each of them to face their own part in it.Â