“She would have sent you to prison knowing you were innocent?”
“Worse,” Elias whispered, his head dropping in shame. “She told me she had enough power and money to make sure I never saw you again. She said a criminal father was a stain on your future and she would use her connections to make sure you were taken by the state if I tried to fight her.”
Elias opened the box, revealing a stack of papers that had been yellowed by time.
“I became a beggar so you could stay a Cole. I stayed in the gutters so you could grow up in the clouds.”
Nathan reached out with trembling fingers and took the stack of papers. They were not legal documents or money.
They were birthday cards.
Every single one was addressed to him in his father’s careful, slanted handwriting.
Happy 11th birthday, Nathan.
Happy 15th birthday, Nathan.
To my son on his 21st year.
None of them had stamps or postmarks.
Elias had written them every single year for two decades, but he had been too terrified of Patricia’s reach to ever mail them.
Nathan looked at the cards, then at the man who had eaten scraps and slept on a dirt floor just to protect a son who had spent 20 years hating him.
The woman who had tucked Nathan into bed and taught him to be ruthless to maintain their legacy had built her entire empire on a foundation of lies and the broken spirit of the man she claimed to have survived.
“She told everyone she was the one who saved the family name,” Nathan said, his voice rising with cold, sharp anger.
Elias looked at his son with a sad, knowing expression.
“She didn’t save it, Nathan. She took it, and she made sure the only person who knew the truth was too scared to ever speak again.”
Nathan stood up, his jaw tight and his eyes blazing with a new purpose.
He reached out and took his father’s hand, the one with the silver ring.
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