Chapter 17 Archer
Archer
I stood in my empty office after she left and couldn’t remember how to move.
The documents were still scattered across my desk where she’d thrown them. Evidence of everything I’d destroyed, everyone I’d hurt—especially the woman I loved most of all. My phone sat beside them, silent and accusing.
I’d sent those documents myself.
Not through some anonymous leak or convenient accident. I’d uploaded them directly to the legal aid clinic’s secure portal, sitting in this same office at two in the morning with my finger hovering over the submit button for twenty minutes.
That day at Mary’s house had been the best day of my life. Waking up with her, pretending to be married like it was the most natural thing in the world. And lying there with her afterward, watching her sleep with complete trust on her face, I’d realized I couldn’t keep lying anymore.
I’d told myself I was going to tell her. Face to face. Over dinner or coffee or just sitting in her apartment where I could explain everything properly. Where I could make her understand that I’d been trying to fix things, that I loved her, that I was different now because of her.
But every time I tried to form the words, my throat closed up with fear. Fear of watching her face shift from warmth to horror. Fear of losing her. Fear of becoming exactly what I’d been running from—someone who hurt people and didn’t have the courage to face it.
So instead, I’d taken the coward’s way out. Sent the documents anonymously so she’d discover the truth without me having to say it out loud. Told myself it was better this way, cleaner, that at least she’d have all the evidence instead of just my word.
I’d known exactly what would happen when she found them. Had spent hours waiting for the moment she’d walk through that door with betrayal written across her face.
And still, seeing it had destroyed me completely.
My assistant knocked on the door. “Mr. Devlin? Are you alright? Should I—”
“Get out.” The words came out flat. “Everyone get out. Close the office for the day. I don’t care about the meetings.”
She left without another word.
I tried calling her immediately. The phone rang five times before going to voicemail. I hung up and called again. Same result. Again. Again. Twenty times over two hours until finally her voicemail box was full and wouldn’t accept any more messages.
I’d left her everything in those messages. Apologies that sounded hollow even to me. Explanations that explained nothing. Begging that made me hate myself more with every word.
None of it mattered. She wasn’t going to answer.
Three days passed like that.
I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her face in my office, saw the moment she’d realized who I really was, saw the disgust written across her features when she’d said she couldn’t even look at me.
On the third night, I gave up trying to sleep. Got in my car without thinking about where I was going, just needing to move, to do something other than sit in my apartment destroying myself with memories.
I ended up outside her building in Washington Heights.
I didn’t plan it. Didn’t consciously decide to drive here. But my car knew where she lived, even if my brain was too wrecked to function properly.
I sat in the parking spot across the street for twenty minutes, staring up at her window. Light showed around the edges of her curtains. She was awake too, or had fallen asleep with the lights on.
The thought of her lying in bed unable to sleep because of what I’d done made my chest feel like it was caving in.
I got out of the car.
Walked to her building on legs that felt disconnected from my body. The door was locked but someone was leaving and I caught it before it closed, slipping inside before I could talk myself out of this.
Her apartment was on the third floor. I took the stairs two at a time, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might actually give out.
And then I was standing outside her door.
I knocked—gentle at first. “Gianna? Please. I just need to talk to you.”
Nothing.
I knocked harder. “Gianna, I know you’re awake. I can see your light. Please just open the door. Let me explain.”
Still nothing.
I knocked until my knuckles were raw. Until a door opened down the hall and an older man in a bathrobe told me to shut up or he’d call the cops.
“Gianna, please,” I said, ignoring him. “Just let me apologize properly. Let me explain. Please.”
Light showed under her door. I could see her shadow moving inside, hear the floorboards creak. She was right there. Close enough to touch if there wasn’t a door between us.
She never opened it.
I sat in the hallway with my back against her door until three in the morning. Fell asleep there and woke up at dawn with my neck screaming and my suit wrinkled beyond repair. The super found me and told me to leave or he’d have me arrested for trespassing.
I left. What else could I do?
Sam cornered me on the fourth day outside Gianna’s building. I’d been sitting in my car across the street like a stalker, watching her windows for any sign of her. Pathetic didn’t begin to cover it.
He rapped on my window hard enough that I thought he might break it.
I rolled it down. “Is she okay?”
“No.” His voice was cold. “She’s not okay. And you sitting out here like some creep isn’t helping.”
“I just need to talk to her. If she’d just let me explain—”
“Explain what?” Sam leaned down to look me in the eye. “That you killed her father? That you lied to her from the beginning? What explanation makes that okay, Archer Devlin?”
The use of my full name felt like a slap. Hearing my actual name was a reminder of my sins.
“I love her,” I said, and my voice broke on the words. “I know I don’t deserve her. I know I destroyed any right I had to her. But I love her and I need her to know that it is real. That’s the only thing that is real.”
“She knows.” Sam straightened up. “And it’s making everything worse. Because loving you means she has to hate herself for it.”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long until she’ll talk to me? Until she’ll let me apologize properly?” I was begging now, past caring about dignity. “How much space does she need?”
Sam looked at me with something close to pity. “I don’t know. Maybe never. Some things don’t get forgiven, Archer. They get survived. And Gianna’s still trying to figure out how to survive what you did to her.”
“Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”
“Honestly?” He stepped back from the car. “Probably not. What you did doesn’t just get forgiven. You don’t come back from destroying someone’s entire life and then lying about it. You just don’t.”
He walked away before I could respond. Left me sitting in my car with those words echoing in my head until they were all I could hear.
Some things don’t get forgiven. They get survived.
My apartment was dark, bottles everywhere. I’d been sitting on the floor drafting messages to her that I never sent because what was the point? She’d blocked my number anyway. Blocked me on everything. Erased me like I’d never existed.
“Jesus Christ.” Jake flipped on the lights and I flinched. “How long have you been like this?”
“Don’t know. What day is it?”
“Thursday. You’ve missed three board meetings. Your assistant called me asking if you were dead.” He started picking up bottles, his face doing that thing it did when he was worried but trying not to show it. “What happened? You said you had it handled. You said everything was fine.”
“I lied.” I laughed, and the sound came out broken. “I’m good at that. Lying. Destroying things. Being the worst possible version of myself.”
“Archer—”
“Her name is Gianna Pearson.” The words came out slurred but clear enough.
“Ten years ago I displaced her family. Signed the authorization that led to her father’s death.
Then I fell in love with her without telling her the truth.
She found out and now she’s gone and I can’t fix it and I don’t know how to breathe without her. ”
Jake sat down slowly on the couch. “The Brooklyn case. That’s her?”
“That was her family. And I destroyed them.” I tilted my head back against the wall.
“I’m the monster she’s been fighting against. I’m the reason she became a lawyer.
And I let her fall in love with me anyway because I’m selfish and weak and I thought maybe if I just loved her enough it would make up for what I did. ”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“I know.” My voice cracked. “I know it doesn’t. But I can’t let her go, Jake. I can’t stop thinking about her. About us. About that day in the rain when we were stranded and it was perfect. About waking up with her at Mary’s house and thinking maybe I could be the person she thought I was.”
Jake was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “Maybe you need to let her go. Stop torturing yourself and let her heal.”
“If I let her go, I have nothing left.”
“Then you figure out how to have something else.” His voice was gentle but firm. “Because holding on when she doesn’t want you is cruel. To both of you.”
I knew he was right. Knew that clinging to her was selfish when I was the reason she was hurting. That every attempt to reach her was just twisting the knife deeper.
But letting her go felt like dying.
I stopped going to her building after that. Gave her the space Sam said she needed, even though it was destroying me.
My days crawled by in a haze of alcohol and insomnia. The board sent increasingly aggressive emails demanding I return to work or face consequences. I ignored all of them.
Then I called an emergency board meeting.
They filed in looking annoyed and concerned in equal measure. Richard especially looked ready to tear into me—for my absence, for the Brooklyn case falling apart, for everything going wrong under my absent leadership.
I waited until everyone was seated. Then I stood at the head of the table one last time.
“I’m resigning, effective immediately.”
Silence. Then chaos. Everyone was talking at once, demanding explanations, asking what I meant, telling me I couldn’t just resign without proper transition planning.
I waited for them to quiet down.
“I leaked the internal documents to the legal aid clinic working the Brooklyn case.” I said it matter-of-factly, like announcing quarterly results.
“I sabotaged our legal strategy deliberately. I created delays and procedural obstacles designed to help the opposition win. And I did it because I finally understood what displacement actually costs. Not in financial terms. In human ones.”
Richard stood up so fast his chair fell over. “You did what?”
“I destroyed our case from the inside. Everything you’ve been wondering about for the past two months—the missing documents, the timeline delays, the compliance issues—that was me. I did that.”
Margaret’s face had gone pale. “Why would you do that?”
“Because ten years ago, I signed off on a displacement project that killed someone. A man named Carlos Pearson who worked in warehouses and had a daughter who wanted to be a lawyer. The stress of losing his home gave him a heart attack. He died in a stairwell and I never knew his name until two months ago.”
I looked at each of them, these people who’d questioned my leadership, my vision, my commitment to profit over everything else.
“I can’t lead a company built on that kind of harm anymore.”
“You’re destroying us,” Richard said, his voice shaking with rage. “Do you understand that? Without your shares, without your leadership, Devlin Holdings won’t survive. You’re killing everything your father built.”
“I know.” And I did. My shares were the majority stake. Without me, without my name, the company would collapse within a year. Investors would flee, projects would stall, everything would fall apart. “But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep pretending profit justifies pain. So I’m done.”
“You can’t just walk away,” Jeff protested. “You have responsibilities. Contracts. People depending on you.”
“Watch me.”
I pulled out the resignation letter I’d drafted the night before. Set it on the table. “You don’t need to vote me out. I’m leaving on my own. Find someone else to run things. I don’t care anymore.”
I walked out of that building and didn’t look back. Didn’t feel the relief I’d expected. Just felt empty.
That night, I sat in my apartment and drafted one final message to Gianna. Not to send—I’d learned that much at least—but to write for myself. To prove I finally understood what I’d taken from her.
I destroyed your family before I knew your name. I fell in love with you anyway. I’ve lost my company, my reputation, everything that used to define me. And it’s still not enough. It will never be enough.
But I needed you to know that I finally understood what Sunset Park cost. Not in financial terms but in human ones. Your father. Your mother’s health. Seven years of your life. Your ability to trust anyone who says they care about you.
I did that. And I’m so sorry.
You deserved honesty from the start. You deserved better than me. You deserved everything I couldn’t give you because I was too afraid and too selfish.
I sent those documents myself. Chose the coward’s way out because I couldn’t face you and admit what I’d done.
That day at Mary’s house was the best day of my life and I knew I couldn’t keep lying to you.
But I couldn’t make myself tell you face to face either.
So I sent them anonymously and waited for you to discover the truth without me having to say it out loud.
That makes everything worse, I know. Cowardice on top of betrayal.
I hope someday you find someone who gives you everything I couldn’t. Someone brave enough to be honest. Someone who doesn’t destroy you before learning to love you.
I hope you’re happy. That’s all I want now. Just for you to be happy.
Even if I’m not part of it.
I saved it in a folder I’d never open again.
I needed to figure out how to rebuild something from the ruins I’d created.
Not for redemption. Not to earn her forgiveness. Those things were impossible now and I’d finally accepted that.
Just because it was the only thing left to do.