Chapter 510

Brandon White was startled back half a step by Albert Sullivan's sudden, wrenching sobs.

"Big brother?" he ventured cautiously. "Have you... remembered something?"

Albert raised a hand to wipe his face, his knuckles white with tension.

He took a deep breath, his voice rasping like sandpaper.

"An old friend," he said, pausing. "Someone I haven't dared to think about for many years."

A flicker of understanding passed through Brandon's eyes.

He didn't truly know Albert's past, only catching fragments years ago from his parents' heated arguments.

His mother's shrill voice still echoed in his ears—

"That face, no matter how pretty, was made by surgery! If you'd seen the ghastly mess she was right after they pulled her from that wreck, could you still have held her every night?"

Another empty bottle joined the others.

Two men, each lost in their own thoughts, drank in heavy silence until their vision blurred and words slurred.

Neither knew this hotel was part of Ethan Roscente's holdings.

And at that moment, Ethan stood in the surveillance room, his fingertips tapping lightly on the edge of the console.

"Uncle Albert Sullivan?" He raised an eyebrow. "With that White family bastard?"

His assistant quietly reported the situation in the private dining room.

Ethan pondered for a moment, then suddenly smiled.

"Open two suites. Let them stay."

He paused. "Remember, take a photo of that old picture in Albert Sullivan's wallet for me."

Late at night.

Liam Sullivan's phone screen lit up.

He looked down at the photo Ethan had sent—a damaged group photo, its edges yellowed as if scorched by fire.

The woman in his arms slept soundly, her breathing even.

Liam's gaze shifted between her peaceful profile and the phone screen, his eyes darkening.

Morning light stabbed at his eyelids, and Albert jolted upright in bed.

An unfamiliar room. An unfamiliar scent.

Barefoot on the carpet, he swiftly scanned his surroundings—a luxurious hotel suite, so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat.

Memories flooded back in fragments: the alcohol, Brandon White, and... Amelia Sullivan's disfigured face.

"Agh—"

He suddenly fell to his knees, forehead pressed against the cold floor, a trapped animal's whimper escaping his throat.

Over twenty years.

That rainy night had finally returned to him in its entirety.

The cemetery wind was cold.

Albert stood before the gravestone for a long time, a bouquet of violets in his arms.

The woman in the photo smiled gently, a trace of her former grace still visible in her eyes.

He slowly bent forward, bowing three times.

"Amelia." His voice trembled uncontrollably as he spoke. "I failed you... I failed all of you."

The wind stirred his graying temples.

"I only remembered everything last night... Why was I so many years late?"

He knelt down, his trembling fingers touching the cold name carved into the stone.

"If I had driven slower that day... If I hadn't insisted on taking that road..."

Rain, the screech of brakes, the shattering roar of glass—

Memory engulfed him like a tide.

He suddenly froze.

A question he had never considered in detail surfaced in his mind—

That car was brand new. All performance checks had passed.

How could it have suddenly lost control?

Albert slowly rose to his feet, the grief in his eyes gradually replaced by a cold, sharp intensity.

He took one last look at the gravestone.

"Wait until I find out the truth," he said quietly. "Wait until I find where he is buried... I will get to the bottom of this."

The wind swept up fallen leaves from the ground, swirling them upward into the gray sky.