Chapter 7
The drive to the warehouse took forty minutes.
Nathan drove. His security team followed in three black SUVs, far enough back that my father wouldn’t see them, close enough to move in fast if they needed to.
I watched the city go by through the window.
Houston looked different today.
The same streets I had driven a thousand times seemed sharper, clearer, like I was seeing them for the first time. I passed the high school I had graduated from—alone, because my parents had been at a country club luncheon. I passed the community college I had enrolled in and then dropped out of when my father said the company needed me. I passed the grocery store where I had bought Thanksgiving dinner every year for the past decade.
All of it was part of the old life.
The life I was never going back to.
“Nathan,” I said. “When this is over... whatever happens today... what happens to us?”
He took my hand.
“Whatever you want,” he said. “If you want to sell your shares and move to Italy and never think about the Whitmore name again, we’ll do that. If you want to take over the company and turn it into something good, something honest, I’ll help you do that. If you want to stay in Houston or move to New York or buy an island in the Pacific... it’s all yours. Whatever you want. Whenever you want it.”
I smiled.
“Even if I want to buy a little farm in the country and raise goats?” I asked.
Nathan laughed. The sound was warm and real, cutting through the tension in the car.
“Even then,” he said. “I’ll learn to milk them. Though I reserve the right to complain about it.”
We turned onto Harrisburg.
The neighborhood had seen better days. The streets were lined with abandoned buildings, overgrown lots, broken glass. The warehouse was at the end of the street—a huge, brick building with broken windows and a “NO TRESPASSING” sign that had been there so long it was barely legible.
I remembered coming here with my father when I was seven or eight.
Back then, the warehouse had been full of life. Men in hard hats moving lumber. The smell of sawdust and fresh paint. My father would lift me up onto a stack of two-by-fours and tell me, “Someday, all of this will be yours, Emily. You’re going to run this company better than I ever did.”
I had believed him.
For a long time, I had believed him.
Nathan pulled up across the street.
“Remember,” he said. “The wire is on. We can hear everything. My men are already inside. They’re in the rafters, in the offices, everywhere. He won’t see them, but they’ll see him. If he reaches for anything—anything at all—they move. You don’t try to be a hero. You just keep him talking. Understand?”
I nodded.
“I understand.”
I leaned over and kissed him.
“For luck,” I said.
He kissed me back, harder.
“For everything,” he said.
I got out of the car.
The air smelled like rain and rust and regret.
I walked across the street.
The big metal door to the warehouse was slightly ajar.
I pushed it open.
“Dad?” I called.
My voice echoed in the huge empty space.
Sunlight streamed through the broken windows, making long stripes across the concrete floor. Dust motes danced in the light. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
“Dad?” I said again.
“Over here, Emily.”
His voice came from the back of the warehouse, from the old office area that had been his when the building was still in use.
I walked toward it.
My heels clicked on the concrete.
Every step felt like it was echoing in my chest.
I passed old machinery covered with tarps. Stacks of rotting wood. A wall covered with old company photos—my father, younger, smiling, standing beside men I didn’t recognize.
One of the photos was of Nathan’s father.
I stopped and looked at it.
He was tall, like Nathan. Same dark hair. Same eyes. He was smiling, his arm around my father’s shoulder. They looked like friends. They looked like brothers.
How had it all gone so wrong?
“Emily.”
I turned.
My father was standing in the doorway of the office.
He looked terrible.
His shirt was unbuttoned. His tie was loose. His hair was sticking up like he had been running his hands through it. There were dark circles under his eyes. He was holding a glass of whiskey in one hand.
And in the other...
He wasn’t holding a gun.
He was holding an envelope.
“Come in,” he said. “Sit. We need to talk.”
I followed him into the office.
It was exactly as I remembered it. Big oak desk. Leather chair. Bookshelves lined with construction manuals he had never read. A picture of the family on the desk—my parents, Claire, Logan... and me, cut out of the frame.
He saw me looking at it.
“Your mother did that,” he said. “After you left last night. She said if you weren’t part of the family anymore, you shouldn’t be in the picture.”
He sat down behind the desk and gestured to the chair across from him.
I sat.
I kept my hands in my lap. I knew the microphones would pick up everything.
“Why are we here, Dad?” I asked. “You said you wanted to fix things. So fix them.”
He took a drink of whiskey.
“You always were direct,” he said. “Just like your grandmother. I used to think that was a good thing. Now I see it’s going to be the death of me.”
He leaned forward.
“Let’s be honest with each other, Emily. Just for a few minutes. No lies. No pretending. You hate me. You have every right to hate me. I’ve been a terrible father to you. I’ve ignored you. I’ve used you. I’ve let your mother treat you like garbage for twenty-five years and I never said a word. And last night... last night I was willing to hand you over to Nathan Cole like you were a piece of property just to get a contract. I know all of that. I’m not going to make excuses.”
He paused.
“But I’m still your father,” he said. “And you’re still my daughter. And blood is thicker than whatever Nathan Cole has been telling you. He doesn’t love you, Emily. He never has. He’s been using you. From the very beginning. To get to me. To get revenge for something that happened thirty years ago. You’re just a pawn in his game. And once he’s done with you... once he’s destroyed me and the company... he’ll throw you away like yesterday’s garbage.”
I stared at him.
“You told Logan I was the one using Nathan,” I said. “Now you’re telling me Nathan is using me. Which is it, Dad? Or does the story just change depending on who you’re talking to?”
“The truth is the truth,” he said. “Nathan Cole’s father was a weak man. He couldn’t handle business. He would have lost everything eventually, with or without me. I did what I had to do to survive. And now his son is doing what he has to do to get revenge. And you’re caught in the middle.”
He pushed the envelope across the desk toward me.
“Open it,” he said.
I looked at the envelope.
Then I looked at him.
Then I opened it.
Inside were three things.
A check. Made out to me. For five million dollars.
A deed. To a house in Aspen. The same one my family used to ski at every winter. The one I had always loved.
And a set of plane tickets. First class. To Paris. Leaving tomorrow. One way.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Your freedom,” my father said. “Five million dollars. The house in Aspen. A new life in Europe. No Whitmores. No Coles. No lawsuits. No revenge. Just you. Starting over. Clean slate.”
I stared at the check.
Five million dollars.
More money than I had ever seen in my life.
Enough to never work again. Enough to go anywhere. Do anything.
“And what do you want in return?” I asked.
My father smiled. It was the same charming smile he had used on a thousand clients, a thousand investors, a thousand politicians.
“Simple,” he said. “You drop the lawsuit. You sign over your ten percent of the company to me. You never speak to Nathan Cole again. You never tell anyone about any of this. And you leave. Tonight. And you never come back.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Think about it, Emily. Five million dollars. You could do anything. You could go to college. You could start your own business. You could help your grandmother—set her up in the best nursing home in the country, hire people to take care of her twenty-four hours a day. All you have to do is walk away. Walk away from the fight. Walk away from Nathan. Walk away from all of this.”
He was right.
Part of him was right, anyway.
Five million dollars could buy a lot of peace.
A lot of happiness.
A lot of distance from the Whitmore family and all the pain they had caused me.
But there was a catch.
There was always a catch with my father.
“And what happens to Nathan?” I asked.
My father’s smile got colder.
“Nathan Cole has made a lot of enemies over the years,” he said. “Business rivals. People he’s stepped on to get where he is. I have... information. About some of his less-than-legal business practices. If you sign the papers and walk away... I’ll use that information to destroy him. He’ll lose everything. His company. His reputation. His freedom. And then... then we’re even. He tried to use my daughter to get to me. I used my daughter to get to him. Poetic, isn’t it?”
I stood up.
The check was still in my hand.
I looked at it.
Five million dollars.
And all I had to do was betray the only man who had ever truly loved me.
All I had to do was become exactly like my father.
I put the check back in the envelope.
I slid it back across the desk.
“No,” I said.
My father’s smile vanished.
“No?” he repeated. “Emily, be reasonable. Five million dollars. That’s more than you’ll make in ten lifetimes. You’re throwing it away for what? For a man who was planning to use you? For revenge? For some stupid idea of justice?”
“I’m throwing it away because it’s not mine,” I said. “Not like this. The ten percent you’ve been hiding from me? That’s mine. Legally. And I’m going to get it. And everything else you stole from me. And if Nathan goes down with you? Then we’ll go down together. But I’m not going to betray him. Not for five million. Not for fifty million. Not for anything.”
My father stood up.
The whiskey glass shattered against the wall beside my head.
“You stupid, ungrateful little bitch,” he screamed. “I gave you life! I gave you a home! I gave you everything! And this is how you repay me? By whoring yourself out to my enemy? By trying to destroy everything I’ve built?”
He reached into his desk drawer.
May you like
And this time...
He pulled out the gun.
