Kolade was waiting in the conference room when Amara returned. He took one look at her and stood.
“Do you want to sit?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
He waited.
Amara placed the seventh letter on the table between them.
“My father was Matteo Greco.”
Kolade did not react immediately. Not because he did not understand. Because he did. His face emptied. Amara continued before he could speak.
“Chiara Greco is my biological mother. Dante is my brother. He found me four years ago and arranged my placement on this audit without disclosing the relationship to me or to you.”
Kolade sat slowly. He seemed unable to find language.
“My father killed your father.”
The sentence was barely audible.
“We do not yet have proof sufficient for that statement.”
He looked at her.
“You are still doing that?”
“What?”
“Being the auditor.”
“Yes.”
“Amara.”
“I have to.”
The words came harder than she expected.
“If I stop being precise now, then everything Dante did to put me here becomes justified by the result.”
Kolade looked at the letter.
“You should withdraw.”
The anger was immediate.
“No.”
His eyes lifted.
“You cannot tell me that.”
“I’m not ordering you.”
“You are deciding what is best for me.”
“I am saying no professional should be expected to investigate her own father’s murder.”
“And I am saying I will decide what I can do.”
The room went quiet.
Kolade’s voice softened. “I’m scared for you.”
“That does not give you authority over me.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“No.”
A fraction of the tension in Amara eased, though she was not ready to admit it.
“I drafted a conflict disclosure,” she said. “The audit committee needs to know. We will need independent review of every conclusion I reach from this point forward. Possibly a second forensic partner.”
Kolade nodded.
“And Dante’s role goes into the engagement history.”
“Yes.”
“That may compromise the report.”
“Yes.”
“And expose him.”
“Yes.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“You would do that to your brother?”
“Blood is not permission.”
Kolade’s expression locked. The sentence seemed to belong to more than Dante. Amara heard Matteo in it only afterward. She looked away.
“I need you to do something too.”
“What?”
“Stop trying to protect me from your father’s name.”
His jaw tightened.
“I don’t know how.”
“Learn.”
He gave a quiet, humourless laugh.
“You make everything sound possible if it can be written as an instruction.”
“No. I make it sound necessary.”
He looked at her then, and something passed between them that had nothing to do with the audit and everything to do with timing. Wanting him had been inconvenient before. Now it felt almost obscene. Kolade seemed to feel it too. He stepped back first.
“Send the disclosure,” he said.
Amara nodded.
Neither mentioned the distance he had just created.
They both understood why it had to remain.