No flowers for the dead - Chapter 50: Chapter 50
You are reading No flowers for the dead, Chapter 50: Chapter 50. Read more chapters of No flowers for the dead.
The sun was rising over Geneva, pale gold streaking across the sky like a quiet promise.
Rae stood alone on the balcony of the summit hall, fingers wrapped around a cooling cup of coffee, the city humming beneath her. For the first time in her life, her name wasn’t followed by questions. Not whispered, not doubted. Just Rae.
Not Elias’s mistake.
Not someone’s hidden daughter.
Just a woman standing in her own story.
She took a slow breath and smiled.
⸻
Elara was on the phone, pacing the marble floors of the hotel lobby.
“Hold the press release,” she said into the receiver. “The board won’t decide until the vote’s cast. And no, we’re not pushing a legacy pitch. This isn’t about my father. It’s about us.”
When she hung up, she looked at her reflection in the window.
The sharpness was still there, but something softer, too. She had always known how to lead, how to win—but now she was learning how to stay. How to make space for others to rise alongside her, not beneath her.
She didn’t need to burn the past down anymore.
She was simply walking out of its shadow.
⸻
Alina wasn’t in the city anymore.
She had slipped away before dawn, notebook tucked under her arm, passport in her coat pocket. A train ticket in her hand—no assistants, no final goodbyes.
She’d booked a cabin in southern France, a place with a wide garden and no cell service. The memoir had opened the door; now she wanted to write something else.
Something quieter.
Maybe fiction.
Maybe poetry.
Maybe just the truth in another shape.
But she wasn’t running.
She was choosing.
For the first time.
⸻
A month later, in a small bookstore in Seoul, sat on a modest wooden table beside a handwritten sign that read:
“For the women who stayed. For the women who left. For the women who lived.”
A girl with dark eyes and chipped nail polish picked it up, held it close, and didn’t put it down.
⸻
This wasn’t a happy ending in the fairytale sense.
But it was real.
Three women, once entangled in the gravity of one man’s ambition, had untangled themselves.
Not to forget him.
But to remember themselves.
Not as widow.
Not as daughter.
Not as collateral.
But as women who led.
Who survived.
Who loved.
And who now walked forward—separately, yet forever entwined—into futures with their names written clearly at the top.
Rae stood alone on the balcony of the summit hall, fingers wrapped around a cooling cup of coffee, the city humming beneath her. For the first time in her life, her name wasn’t followed by questions. Not whispered, not doubted. Just Rae.
Not Elias’s mistake.
Not someone’s hidden daughter.
Just a woman standing in her own story.
She took a slow breath and smiled.
⸻
Elara was on the phone, pacing the marble floors of the hotel lobby.
“Hold the press release,” she said into the receiver. “The board won’t decide until the vote’s cast. And no, we’re not pushing a legacy pitch. This isn’t about my father. It’s about us.”
When she hung up, she looked at her reflection in the window.
The sharpness was still there, but something softer, too. She had always known how to lead, how to win—but now she was learning how to stay. How to make space for others to rise alongside her, not beneath her.
She didn’t need to burn the past down anymore.
She was simply walking out of its shadow.
⸻
Alina wasn’t in the city anymore.
She had slipped away before dawn, notebook tucked under her arm, passport in her coat pocket. A train ticket in her hand—no assistants, no final goodbyes.
She’d booked a cabin in southern France, a place with a wide garden and no cell service. The memoir had opened the door; now she wanted to write something else.
Something quieter.
Maybe fiction.
Maybe poetry.
Maybe just the truth in another shape.
But she wasn’t running.
She was choosing.
For the first time.
⸻
A month later, in a small bookstore in Seoul, sat on a modest wooden table beside a handwritten sign that read:
“For the women who stayed. For the women who left. For the women who lived.”
A girl with dark eyes and chipped nail polish picked it up, held it close, and didn’t put it down.
⸻
This wasn’t a happy ending in the fairytale sense.
But it was real.
Three women, once entangled in the gravity of one man’s ambition, had untangled themselves.
Not to forget him.
But to remember themselves.
Not as widow.
Not as daughter.
Not as collateral.
But as women who led.
Who survived.
Who loved.
And who now walked forward—separately, yet forever entwined—into futures with their names written clearly at the top.
End of No flowers for the dead Chapter 50. Continue reading Chapter 51 or return to No flowers for the dead book page.