Chapter 122 I Wasn't The Killer “Penelope.” I turned to her, anger flickering under my ribs. “Enough. Don’t speak about Savannah that way. Keep her out of your madness.” “No, it’s not enough!” she snapped. “You owe her the truth. You owe me the truth. What happened that morning? Why did my sister leave that house? Why was she driving alone when she was terrified of the highway?” I stared at her, unable to breathe for a second. “You think I know?” I asked quietly. “You think I didn’t ask myself that a thousand times? She wasn’t supposed to be driving that morning. I didn’t even know she’d left. I was at work!” “Convenient,” she said bitterly. “The husband doesn’t know. The family doesn’t ask. And somehow the brakes just… fail. Must be a miracle.” I laughed once under my breath, though nothing about it was funny. “You want a villain, don’t you? Someone to hang your grief on. And I’m the easiest choice.” “You were her husband.” “I was also the man she lied to.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. “The man she betrayed.” Penelope’s mouth opened, then closed. For the first time, her anger faltered. “She didn’t betray you.” “She did.” My tone hardened, though the crack in my chest widened. “You think I didn’t know when things changed? When her eyes started drifting away from me in the middle of a conversation? I knew she was hiding something. I just didn’t want to believe it.” I turned away again, pacing, unable to stay still. “I kept telling myself she was just tired, or distant, or lost in her thoughts,” I said quietly. “But then the calls started. The messages. She’d step out to the balcony late at night, whispering into her phone, pretending it was her sister or a friend. She thought I was asleep.” Penelope shook her head violently. “You’re lying.” “I wish I were.” The silence between us was unbearable now. The kind of silence that filled your ears until you could hear your own pulse. “I confronted her,” I continued, voice rough. “She cried. She swore it was nothing. And then she told me she was pregnant.”Penelope’s breath caught. “I didn’t say anything for a long time,” I said. “She thought I was happy. She thought I believed her.” I let out a breath that felt years old. “But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when the math didn’t add up. And I wasn't as stupid as she hoped I would be.” “She would never—” “She did, Penelope.” I looked at her then, really looked. “And you can stand there and call me a liar all you want, but I know what I saw. I saw the fear in her eyes when I asked her who the father was.” Her face crumpled, but the fury didn’t leave. “You didn’t love her enough. That’s why she left that morning. You pushed her away with your anger and bitterness.” “Maybe I did,” I said, voice quieter now. “Maybe that’s my punishment. But don’t you dare tell me I didn’t love her because I fucking cherished that woman!” She took a shaky breath. “Then why erase her? Why pretend she never existed? You hide her pictures, her name, everything. You buried her twice—once in the ground and once in your heart.” Her words hit home harder than I wanted to admit. I pressed a hand to my forehead, feeling the pressure build behind my eyes. “Because I couldn’t breathe,” I whispered. “Because every room she touched felt haunted. Every time I saw her name, I remembered the way her hand slipped out of mine the night before. The way she looked at me like she wanted to say something that morning before I left but didn’t. And then she was gone. I couldn’t carry that. So, yes, I buried her memory. Because I had to survive.” Penelope’s eyes softened for just a moment, but then hardened again. “And what about Naomi?” I hesitated. “What about her?” “She was the last thing of Dahlia left in this world. And you couldn’t even look at her.” The accusation sliced deep. That was not the truth. But I wasn't ready to let her know. “I couldn’t look at her,” I said slowly, “because she wasn’t mine.” She shook her head. “You keep saying that. But what proof do you have?” I gave a humorless laugh. “Proof? What proof does anyone ever have in this family? Secrets and silence—that’s all we ever trade in. But I knew. You can feel it when something that was supposed to be yours isn’t. You can feel it in your bones.”Her voice trembled, small now. “Then you think my sister was a liar?” “I know she was human,” I said. “She made a mistake. And I paid for it.” “You think losing her was your punishment?” Penelope asked bitterly. “No,” I said. “Living without her was.” That finally silenced her. For a while, the only sound in the room was the soft drip of water from the faucet and the sound of our breaths. She turned away, her shoulders shaking, but I couldn’t tell if it was anger or grief. Maybe both. “You really believe that, don’t you?” she said, her back to me. “That she was unfaithful. That you’re the victim in all this.” “I never said I was the victim,” I muttered. “I just said I wasn’t the killer.” She spun back around. “But you killed her spirit long before that car did. You made her small, Roman. You made her hate herself.” Her words struck like small stones. “You think she didn’t call me crying some nights?” Penelope said, voice rising. “You think I didn’t hear it in her voice when she said she was fine? You broke her, Roman. You broke my sister.” I swallowed hard, the weight of every unspoken thing pressing down on me. “Then maybe you should hate me,” I said softly. “Because I already do.” The confession hung there like smoke. Penelope blinked, thrown off for the first time all night. “What did you say?” “I hate myself,” I said simply. “For every word I didn’t say, every time I turned away. For not holding her that morning. For not asking why. For still breathing when she’s not.” The silence that followed was suffocating. I wished she’d scream again, throw something—anything—but she just stared at me with wide, wet eyes. Then her expression hardened again. “You can hate yourself all you want. It doesn’t change what you did. Or what you’re doing now—pretending you can just move on, pretending you didn’t help destroy her.” “Enough, Penelope.” My tone sharpened again, the wall snapping back into place. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Yes, I do,” she said quietly. “Because I saw the look on your face the day of her funeral. You weren’t mourning her—you were angry. Angry she left you first.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ve never forgiven her for dying before you could punish her.” I felt the air leave my lungs. She’d hit the one truth I could never say aloud. I looked at her, at the face that finally mirrored Dahlia’s too closely, and for a second I didn’t know who I was talking to anymore. Penelope or Dahlia? My pulse pounded against my ribs. “Get out,” I said. “No.” “Penelope. Do not force me to throw you out.” She took a step closer, tears trembling on her lashes. “You can bury her all you want, Roman. But you can’t erase her from me. I still see her every time I look in the mirror. And I see the man who destroyed her standing in front of me.” I felt something inside me snap. Quietly, invisibly. I took a step toward her, close enough to see the faint red rim around her eyes. My voice was calm when I spoke, too calm.“If your innocent sister hadn’t fucked my brother,” I said, each word deliberate, venom wrapped in restraint, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”