Chapter 13 - Marina Chose the Only Truth That Could Still Help Her
Once the will evidence hardened, Marina requested another meeting.
This time she did not cry first.
She looked exhausted, stripped of all the polished reserve she used to wear like part of her uniform.
“I’ll tell you everything I know,” she said.
And mostly, she did.
She admitted Edmund had planted her in our household three years earlier under the pretense of standard employment.
At first, all he wanted was information—who came and went, whether my father spoke privately to me, whether Isabella ever mentioned estate documents.
Later, after my father died, Edmund’s instructions became more aggressive.
Search the study.
Watch Isabella.
Report unusual calls.
Note where she kept papers.
Marina swore she had never harmed Isabella physically and had no role in the accident. There was no evidence yet to contradict that.
But she confessed something else that mattered deeply.
The night Isabella hid the envelope in the armor, Marina had offered to help her.
Why?
Because by then Isabella had figured out Edmund’s role and confronted Marina privately.
Instead of exposing her immediately, Isabella gave her a choice.
Help me protect Olivia and the evidence.
Or keep helping him destroy this family.
Marina had promised to help.
Then lost her nerve.
That betrayal was why Isabella no longer trusted her.
That was why the notebook listed Marina’s name under Never Trust.
Marina lowered her head and whispered the only apology I believed from her:
May you like
“She was braver than all of us.”
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