“Get this to Fox,” he instructed. “He can crack the code and tell us what trades they were executing.”

Alfred took the USB and left the cave. Bruce changed into his civilian garb and followed him up to the manor. He found the butler in the main hall, at the foot of the grand stairway. He was already on his way out.

“I’ll get this to Fox,” Alfred said gravely. “But no more.” Something in the older man’s tone got Bruce’s attention. He turned away from the stairs and looked toward Alfred.

“I’ve sewn you up and set your bones,” the butler continued, “but I won’t bury you.

“I’ve buried enough members of the Wayne family.”

Is he serious? Bruce wondered. Alfred was the one person who had never given up on him. “You’d abandon me?” he said quietly.

“You see only one end to your story,” Alfred said. “Leaving is all I have left to make you understand. You aren’t Batman anymore. You have to find another way.”

There is no other way, Bruce thought. Not for me. Not anymore.

“You used to talking about finishing,” Alfred reminded him. “About life beyond that awful cave.”

Bruce shook his head. That dream had ended eight years ago.

“Rachel died knowing that we’d decided to be together,” he said bitterly. “That was my life beyond the cave, so I can’t just move on. She didn’t. She couldn’t.”

Because Batman failed to save her.

“What if she had?” Alfred asked. “What if she wasn’t intending to make a life with you?”

Bruce didn’t see the point in speculating.

“She was,” he said. “I can’t change that.”

Alfred shifted uncomfortably, and a strange look came over his face, as if he was wrestling with something.

“What if,” he said finally, “she’d written a letter? Explaining that she’d chosen Harvey Dent over you.” Alfred sighed wearily, as though releasing a heavy load. “And what if, to spare you pain, I’d burnt that letter?” Realization dawned, and Bruce stared in shock. He felt his entire world—everything he’d believed for the last eight years—come apart beneath him.

“Why would you say such a thing?” he asked.

“Because I have to make you understand,” Alfred said. “Because you’re as precious to me as you were to your own mother and father, and I swore to them that I would protect you…and I haven’t.”

“You’re lying,” Bruce accused him.

“I’ve never lied to you,” he replied. “Except when I burned Rachel’s letter.”

The hell of it was, Bruce believed him.

A cold fury erupted inside him, very different from the righteous anger he had directed at crime and criminals for so long. This was much more personal.

“How dare you use Rachel to stop me?” he growled.

“I’m using the truth, Master Bruce. Maybe it’s time we all stopped trying to outsmart the truth, and just let it have its day.” He gazed at Bruce sadly. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Bruce rasped. “You expect to destroy my world, then shake hands?”