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Chapter2
Brice
Present Day
It’sall over the news. Daddy’s going to prison for a very long time.
I sit alone in the dark of my childhood bedroom, knees pulled to my chest. I haven’t been back in Rowe Manor in a few months—I’ve been too busy having my own life in Dallas—but the second Grandpa called and told me something very bad was about to happen and I had to come home, I jumped in my car and drove fast.
I didn’t drive fast enough though. My father’s arrest was everywhere by the time I pulled down the manicured driveway and greeted the staff at the door.
My childhood home looks so much smaller than it used to. It feels tiny now, even though it’s a massive, sprawling complex of wings and floors and subfloors and terraces. Maybe I’ve gotten bigger, or maybe I’m seeing the place with fresh eyes. The lace around my four-poster bed is going off-white with age and sun damage, and the fading color makes my spine squirm. The carpets are pristine, the mantel is dusted, the paintings and pictures are all as I left them—perfectly level and aligned—but something feels off.
Probably because Daddy’s never coming back.
My phone buzzes. It’s Robyn texting, checking to see how I’m feeling. Earlier, on my drive, Sara sent me a few dozen messages, and Cassidy called a few times and left a message checking in, but I haven’t responded to anyone.
I can’t bring myself to face it, not yet.
There’s a soft knock at the door. It opens and Louisa pokes her head inside. She smiles at me and I smile back, shimmying myself off the bed. “How are you doing?” the head of the household says as she steps into the room. She’s small, round, with dark hair turning gray along her temples, and her lined face crinkles with a smile that makes me feel warm. “Your grandmother sent me to make sure you’re okay with all this craziness.”
“I’m all right, just keeping it together.” I give her a tight smile and refrain from telling her how I’m actually doing. My world’s falling apart in the span of a few hours and I’m swinging wildly between emotional states: numb, angry, grieving. “How’s Grandpa been handling it?”
“About how you’d think.” She frowns and glances at the door and her tone quiets. “He wants to see you in the study.”
The study. The heart of the manor. I have lots of memories of that study, but none of them good. Daddy never called me to the study when things were good—only when I’d done something wrong, like made a mess in the foyer, or stained a new dress. Something like that. He taught me from a young age: everything in its right place. Order from the chaos. Otherwise, we’re no better than everyone else.
“I shouldn’t keep him waiting. Is Grandma here?”
“I was told she’s on her way. This whole situation, it’s heartbreaking. Really heartbreaking.” She clicks her tongue and shakes her head as we walk down the familiar halls, making our way to the study. “Your father has been so kind all these years. His employees love him, the house staff love him, and to hear now that he did this thing? This terrible thing? It is an awful, awful mistake. I think it is not true, but it must be true.” She seems bewildered, and for some reason that makes me feel slightly better. If Louisa didn’t see it, how could I have ever noticed?
“Thank you. I honestly have no idea what we’re going to do now. I mean, can we visit him? Will there be a trial?”
“Your Grandpa will fix it, I promise.”
I nod once, steeling myself, and quickly wipe away the tears forming in the corners of my eyes. I can’t start crying, not right now. Grandpa is a good man, a kind man, but he doesn’t have patience fordisplays of emotionas he calls it. Just like my father. “We’ll get through,” I say. “We always do.”
“That’s right, that’s right. You’ll be okay.” She nods and smiles, deposits me outside of the ornate study door, and quickly leaves.
I take a deep breath, knock, and let myself in.
Grandpa’s standing beside the desk looking out the back window. He’s holding a glass of something brown in his hand. His white hair is wizened and slicked back, and his spine is straight and narrow. He’s wearing his rancher-chic outfit: simple shirt, simple jeans, simple boots, all of it handmade and obscenely expensive. He’s a lean man, hard and boiled down to his essentials, and he turns to me with those deep, dark eyes I’ve grown to love and fear. A small smile touches his lips.
“Hello, Brice, come sit down.”
I shut the door and obey. The chair in front of the desk is uncomfortable, the seat entirely unpadded, the back at an awkward angle, and I swear they found the most nefarious seats imaginable just to make people squirm.
“How are you holding up?” I ask him.
Grandpa shakes his head and sinks down to sit across from me. “I’m holding up as well as I can.” He takes a long sip from the glass and sighs. “I retired five years ago hoping I’d never have to put out another damn fire, but here I am, back on the job.”
“Grandpa.” My eyes widen. I’ve never heard him curse before.
He doesn’t seem to notice my reaction, or he doesn’t care. “We’re in a bad position, Brice, a very bad position. I haven’t told you everything because your father wanted to keep it from you until you absolutely had to know, but the fact is, we’ve been aware of his impending arrest for weeks.”
My head feels dizzy. They’ve known about this forweeks? I saw Daddy three days ago for lunch and he seemed perfectly fine—he was joking with the waitress, not acting at all like a man about to be perp-walked into a cop car and thrown in prison for embezzling millions of dollars.
Grandpa continues, “Rowe Oil’s stock price is tumbling. Investors are panicking. The talking heads on CNN are predicting our total collapse, and you know we weren’t in great shape before all this. The damngreen energyrevolution’s been gutting our bottom line. I’ve been making calls for the past week trying to find a new lender to come in and cover some of our debts but nobody’s interested. Here I am, an eighty-year-old man, playing CEO again.” He clenches his jaw and looks at the ceiling. “I don’t know how this happened.”
