Max's jaw tightened, old grief and new fury warring behind his eyes. "Twenty-three years," he said quietly. "Twenty-three years believing I killed my own father."
"You didn't," Ruby said, firm and certain. "You never did. You don't have to carry that anymore, Max. Not one more day."
He looked at her for a long moment, something raw and unguarded passing over his face, and then, quietly, he asked the question that had been sitting underneath every conversation they'd had for months.
"How do you know all of this so clearly? The way Violet worked. The way she thought."
Ruby held his gaze, and for the first time, let every wall she'd been carefully maintaining fall away completely.
"Because my memory came back months ago," she said. "All of it. I let you believe I still didn't remember everything, because I needed to see how this would play out who would come for us, who would show their hand, who I could trust completely once the dust settled."
