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The Unfinished Promise

Penulis: Aichatou
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-03-13 01:16:29

The call came late at night. Gabriel had just stepped out of the shower when his phone rang, and the moment he answered, I knew. I saw it in his eyes. How the color drained from his face, how his grip tightened around the device as if holding onto it could somehow change what he was hearing.

His grandmother was gone.

He didn’t say a word. Just stood there, towel slung low on his hips, water still dripping from his hair. I barely had time to react before he turned on his heel and left the room, walking out as if the walls were caving in on him.

I followed him to the balcony, where he stood, hands braced against the railing, head bowed. The city lights stretched endlessly before us, but I knew he wasn’t seeing any of it. His shoulders were trembling slightly, his breath uneven. Gabriel never let his guard down—not in public, not in private. But in that moment, I saw the cracks in the armor.

“Gabriel…” I whispered, stepping closer.

He didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge me at first. Then, af
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    Gabriel’s POVWhen my grandmother died, she left everything to me. The estate, the properties, the businesses—every single thing. Not a damn cent to Ethan. Not even a piece of land to appease him.I should have expected it. I did, in some ways. She was never blind to who Ethan was, never fooled by his charm the way others were. She saw what lay beneath—the recklessness, the ambition fueled by entitlement rather than discipline. She once told me that power, when given to the wrong hands, destroys more than it builds.But even knowing all of that, I still braced myself for the fallout when the lawyer read the will aloud.I saw the disbelief flicker across the faces of those in the room. The unspoken question hanging thick in the air: Why would she do this?I didn’t need to answer. The answer was already there, written in the years of choices she made—choices that led her to place the entirety of our legacy in my hands alone.Ethan’s silence was the loudest thing in the room.For the fir

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