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“No, she didn’t tell me that.”
“Ah… well I did. I always worked hard. I got a scholarship to go to the academy where I first met your father. People like me and mine don’t have your kind of money. We rely on scholarships and kindness, but then assholes like your father come along.”
“Has he done something more to you recently?” I harden my stare because I want him to get to the point.
“No, but I just found out the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. It turns out the son isn’t that much different from the father.”
The moment he says that I know in my gut that he’s found something out that he shouldn’t have. Something secret about me.
Shit.Thisis all I need now, for Neil St. James to have me by the balls, seething under his thumb.
“I’m not like my father,” I say, even though I know it’s pointless.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
He reaches into the envelope and pulls out a document. I recognize it straightaway to be the contract of marriage between River and me.
My breath stills in my lungs like a wall has been placed before it, blocking the air from escaping.
I’m the one who’s used to digging up dirt on people. Now I’m seeing what it feels like to be on the receiving end of an expose.
“Now tell me if this isn’t just the sort of thing Tobias Grayson would do. I knew something was fishy about the whole marriage thing. I argued with my daughter, but I drew a line, you know why?”
I stare at him, not wanting to answer, but feeling forced to. “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t do better. I couldn’t save her and I couldn’t save Gina. Those who can’t do better, should shut up. But now I know the truth I can do something about it.”
“How did you find out?” This is too odd for words. How the hell did he find out about the agreement? The contract was scanned on to my files and locked away under the security of tight firewalls that should have alerted me if someone hacked my system.
So how did he?
“Let me worry about that. You have one more important question to ask me.”
And I know what it is? “What do you want?”
“Divorce my daughter by the end of the month. Leave her be once and for all. That is what I want. here’s a little more encouragement.” He reaches into the envelope, pulls out a piece of note paper and tosses it to me. It lands on the floor. “Pick it up.”
He wants to see me crawl like a dog before him.
With my gaze trained on him, I retrieve the paper.
It has the number and letter combination XY67XQ93 in the center.
It takes me seconds to realize what it is.
The sequence is a hacking code I used to use back in college.
It’s the hacking code I used to create the device those hackers used to steal Neil’s designs.
“I know what you did,” he declares, confirming my worst fears.
Neil found outthe truth.
The truth I’ve been hiding for the last eight years.
All the blood in my veins turns solid and stops flowing, creating a heaviness throughout my body and deep inside my soul. It pushes against my heart and it clenches so tight I fear it may never beat again.
“I know everything Jericho Grayson.” His voice sounds like an echo on the walls of my mind. “I know it was your fault why I lost everything. You created some device hackers used to steal my designs and sell them to the competition. You cost me to lose my job, you ripped a hole in the relationship I had with my business partner and now he’s dead and I will never walk again. You did that and you stand there telling me you’re not like your father.”
