Chapter 9 - THE UNEXPECTED TRUTH
But the most devastating truth was still hidden.
While Adrian was wasting away,
I was discovering something he never knew.
He thought Julianne was his great secret.
He didn't realize that he was the secret.
I found the medical records in the back of the vault.
The ones he had hidden from everyone,
including himself.
Adrian was never the man he thought he was.
He was born with a condition,
a heart defect that he had been managing with experimental drugs.
He was living on borrowed time.
The drugs made him aggressive.
They made him erratic.
They fueled his arrogance and his need for control.
He thought he was a titan because of his talent.
In reality,
he was a titan because of a chemical cocktail.
I looked at the reports and felt a wave of coldness.
He had been killing himself to be the man he thought the world wanted.
He had sacrificed his health,
his marriage,
and his integrity for a mirage.
And now,
without the company,
he wouldn't be able to afford the drugs.
The "soon" he kept promising Julianne,
was the only "soon" that was true.
Soon he would be gone.
Not because of me.
But because of his own choices.
I sat in the dark,
the weight of the secret pressing down on me.
Should I tell him?
Should I give him the money for the treatment?
I looked at the shredder in the corner.
I thought about the years of lies.
I thought about the woman in the jasmine perfume.
I realized that I couldn't save him.
He had spent his whole life trying to escape himself.
And he had finally run out of road.
I closed the vault and locked it with the silver key.
Some truths are too heavy to carry.
Some secrets are meant to stay buried.
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I was the only one who knew.
And I would be the only one who remembered.
