“Derek, no,” Olivia protested. “You can’t just give up everything you’ve ever known.”
“Everything I’ve ever known was a lie,” Derek replied firmly. “I won’t build my life on a foundation of murder. I won’t profit from stolen land or sleep peacefully over an unmarked grave.”
Elena studied Derek’s face carefully. “You understand that walking away from this property means giving up considerable wealth? This land is valuable, beyond just the silver.”
“I understand that keeping it means becoming part of the crime,” Derek answered. “And I refuse to do that.”
Three days later, Derek stood in the lawyer’s office in the county seat, signing the papers that would transfer ownership of his family’s land to Elena Vasquez. His hand was steady as he wrote his name, even though he was signing away the only life he had ever known.
Elena had insisted on paying him a fair price for the property, money that Derek planned to use to start over somewhere far, far away from the shadow of his grandfather’s crimes.
Marcus Cross and his sons had made the same decision, signing over their claim without argument. Only Olivia had hesitated, but in the end, she too had chosen to walk away from the blood money.
“Roberto will finally have a proper burial,” Elena said quietly, as Derek handed her the completed deed. “After fifty years in an unmarked grave, he’ll rest in consecrated ground with a headstone bearing his real name.”
Derek nodded, feeling a profound weight lift from his shoulders. A weight he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying for thirty-five years. He had lived with the constant pressure of maintaining his grandfather’s legacy, preserving what he thought was an honorable inheritance. Now he understood that the heaviness he’d felt wasn’t responsibility; it was guilt, passed down through generations like a family curse.
“What will you do now?” Olivia asked as they walked out of the lawyer’s office together.
“Head west,” Derek replied. “Find work with someone who needs an extra hand. Build something honest from the ground up.”
He looked back at the building that held the documents officially ending his connection to the Langston family land. “For the first time in my life, I’ll know that everything I own was earned honestly.”
Marcus Cross was waiting by their horses, his own expression showing the same strange mixture of loss and relief that Derek felt. “I never thanked you, Langston. For making the right choice. For not fighting to keep what wasn’t ours.”
“We all made the right choice,” Derek said. “It just took us fifty years longer than it should have.”
Elena appeared in the doorway behind them, holding the deed and the payment drafts. “Roberto would have wanted his discovery to bring people together, not tear them apart. Maybe now, it finally can.”
Derek mounted his horse and took one last look at the town where he had always been known as Samuel Langston’s grandson. Tomorrow, he would ride into a new territory where no one knew his name or his family’s history.
He would introduce himself simply as Derek, a man looking for honest work and a chance to build something real. The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating.
He had spent his entire life living in the shadow of a legacy that turned out to be a lie. Now, he had the chance to create a legacy of his own, one based on truth rather than deception, and justice rather than greed.
As he rode away from everything he had ever known, Derek understood that he would indeed never come back the same. The man who had discovered that tunnel three days ago was gone forever, replaced by someone who chose principle over profit, and integrity over inheritance. And for the first time in his thirty-five years, Derek Langston felt truly free.
