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Upon arrival in Zurich, the concierge service continues its magic. The seamless transition from the aircraft to the awaiting service on the ground is orchestrated with precision. People, seemingly eager to fulfill my every need, ensure that my experience transcends the ordinary. The concierge service on the Zurich side proves to be the final touch, turning a mere trip into a testament to the extraordinary power of wealth and the limitless possibilities it affords.
Liam must have decided against coming to meet me at the airport to avoid any awkwardness between us, as we still don’t know if we are friends or foes. Knowing what I know now; did he ever feel like that at any point—friend vs foe, or was that all in my head.
Every time I insulted him, called him the devil to his face, threw a stiletto at him, or a bowl of soup. How did that make him feel, knowing he was innocent all along?
I cannot take responsibility for how he felt. This is on him. For whatever reason, he took this on upon himself. What I want to know is the reason why. Why would he agree to give away twelveyears of his life as if it meant nothing? Who does that, and why? Why did my father have to die?
Chapter thirty-nine
BACK IN ZURICH AGAIN.
TONY
The car stops at a very familiar address, and I am suddenly crippled by the memories that assault my brain as I stand there just outside the door remembering the last time I was here. The last time I was here, my mother was alive, in various stages of cancer. This house holds some very good memories for me and not so good ones too.
I place my travel bag on the ground and sit on it, unable to bring myself to knock on the door even though I still have the key. In our mad rush to get out of here last time, under the gun Dick held to our heads with the stupid private plane he hired, I’d completely forgotten to give Liam back the key, but the fact that I have the key does not mean I can use it. It is not my house, and the owner is in.
I sit outside in the blistering cold, the cold weather making my bones feel brittle, but I sit there embracing the pain. I am here. The minute this door opens, I am going to have to sit throughsome painful experiences about my father’s last days, maybe his last minutes, and it will be like he is dying all over again, fresh and debilitating, and so soon after my mother . . . how much pain can a human vessel take?
No matter how painful this minus-five-degree Celsius weather is on my skin and bones, it pales to what is awaiting me on the other side of this door, and now that I am here, I’m not sure that I am—
“Tony . . . what the fuck. What in God’s name are you doing? Get in here. What are you doing? I got the text almost ten minutes ago that the driver had dropped you off. When I didn’t see you, I just assumed you had decided to go to a hotel, so the drop off —”
Liam stops his tirade mid-sentence to pick me up like a father picks up his toddler from a sitting position. That required him to probably bare down and lift, hence no talking.
“Tony, please tell me what is happening,” Liam pleads as he steps over the threshold, kicking the door shut behind him and leaving my duffel bag outside collecting snow.
“Tony . . . please speak. What was that? Death by snowflakes? Why didn’t you knock?”
“I didn’t know where to start.”
“A knock would have been good. We need to bring back up your body temperature. Stay here. Don’t move. I will run a warm bath for you. That should do it.”
“Please, Liam. You don’t need to go to all that trouble. The fireplace is working just fine.”
“No . . . not fast enough. Stay here. I’ll be right back.
Forty-five minutes later, my body, blood, and bones are toasty warm, condolences expressed, and my belly well fed, and we are ready to talk, but where do I start? I thought. Turns out, I thought it out loud, and Liam’s response is,
“Why not start at the beginning . . . so we are both on the same page.”
“Butwhereis the beginning? Where exactly do I start? Fifteen years ago, or two weeks ago, at my mother’s funeral where I was approached by someone who told me that you did not kill my father; Noah did. Where do you want me to start?”
Liam's face crumples, the lines of shock etching deep into his forehead as I drop the truth about Noah like a lead weight between us. His blue eyes, usually so clear and steady, now flicker with the erratic dance of disbelief. He blinks rapidly as if to clear away the revelation from his vision. The skin under those eyes pale to sickly ash, veins rising subtly at his temples in tandem with his accelerated pulse.
"Tony, you have no idea what you've stumbled into," he breathes out, his voice barely above a whisper. He is struggling to breathe now, each inhale seeming to catch, held hostage by fear as the airflow rattles through his nostrils. "You're a target now," he continues, voice gaining an edge of urgency. "You, and anyone you tell . . . "
I look at this man now, seemingly mesmerized by the trembling of his lips—the way they quiver with each syllable as he forces them out and wonder. Did something happen to him while in prison?
Liam was always the strong one, the fearless, the daredevil, the one who never faltered. Compared to Noah, his older brother, and James, his younger, Liam was always the tough one . . . the unbreakable one, the lion in a den of pussycats.
Before me today stands a man with shoulders hunched, hands fidgeting aimlessly, a mere echo of his former self. He looks small and breakable.
Prison took a Simba and turned him into a fragile creature, a wounded sparrow in a world of soaring eagles. What a tragedy.
“I understand that you are trying to protect me, but I didn’t fly all this way for your protection, Liam. I want answers . . . I need answers.”
“I am sorry you found out about this, T. I could kill—arrrrgh. What a poor choice of words. I wish I could lay my hands on the person that told you about this. I was prepared to go to my grave, having you hate me, thinking I killed your father if that meant protecting you," Liam says, his face a portrait of sorrow, his voice icy.
