Chapter 3 - The Weight of Unopened Letters
Meera stood motionless in the doorway for a long moment before stepping aside. Her apartment was small, spotless, and filled with light. A tiny pair of yellow sneakers sat neat by the mat. On the wall hung a wooden frame containing a single faded photograph of Adrien from a newspaper clipping—the face Lena had learned to recognize.
“She’s sleeping,” Meera whispered, taking the coffee and setting it on the counter. “Her oxygen levels dipped slightly last night. The humidity always makes her asthma worse.”
Adrien sat on the edge of the small sofa, feeling entirely too large for the modest living room. “I went to see my mother last night. She admitted it, Meera. She admitted to intercepting everything—the letters, the ultrasound, the hospital bracelet.”
Meera let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for half a decade. Tears welled in her eyes, but she brushed them away with the back of her wrist before they could fall.
“I didn’t write those letters to trap you, Adrien,” Meera said, her voice steady despite her trembling hands. “I wrote them because a child deserves a father. When you never answered, I forced myself to stop hoping. I told myself that the man I married died the night he handed me those divorce papers in front of two hundred people.”
Adrien winced as if struck. “The medical report... Lucas gave it to me right before I stepped into the ballroom. He swore it was confidential, that he had verified it himself.”
“Lucas Mercer,” Meera said with a bitter edge. “Did you ever stop to ask yourself why Lucas was so eager to pull you away from me? Did you ever look into his dealings with Hail Enterprises?”
Adrien frowned. Lucas had been his college roommate, his trusted partner. “What are you saying?”
Meera walked over to a small desk in the corner and unlocked a tin box. She pulled out a thick stack of papers—copies of the letters she had sent, alongside financial records and certified letters sent by her late brother, Julian.
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“Lucas wasn't protecting you, Adrien,” Meera said, placing the documents in front of him. “He was embezzling from your joint tech firm. Julian discovered it right before our third anniversary. The day those photos were taken, Julian had called me to a hotel to hand over the evidence. Lucas paid a photographer to follow us, made it look like an affair, and forged that medical report with your mother’s help to destroy my credibility before I could tell you the truth.”
Adrien stared at the papers. The pieces of the puzzle began falling into place with terrifying speed. He hadn't been betrayed by his wife; he had been orchestrated by his best friend and his own mother.
