Chapter 5 - WHAT ADRIAN CHOSE
Adrian listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he said:
“Fine.”
I stared.
“What?”
“My life for Owen.”
“No.”
“You just demanded I find a better plan.”
“This isn't one.”
“It is if it works.”
I stepped toward him.
“You barely know my brother.”
“I knew your father.”
“That doesn't make Owen your responsibility.”
“No.”
Adrian looked at me.
“But my family made him collateral damage before he was old enough to understand the word.”
I realized then that Adrian had been carrying guilt long before meeting me.
He told me the truth.
His father ordered Thomas Bennett to stop investigating.
Thomas refused.
Three days later, Thomas disappeared.
Adrian had been twenty-five.
He suspected his father.
He never proved it.
“And you stayed?”
“I was a coward.”
The answer shocked me.
No excuses.
No polished justification.
“I told myself I was protecting people by taking control slowly.”
He looked around his enormous house.
“Mostly I was protecting what I inherited.”
That night, we found the final clue in the music.
My father had encoded a location.
An abandoned recording studio on South Michigan Avenue.
We entered at dawn.
Behind an acoustic panel was a waterproof case.
Inside:
Financial records.
Audio tapes.
And a video.
My father appeared on-screen.
Older than I remembered.
Terrified.
Alive.
Recorded nine years after his supposed disappearance.
“Kids…”
I stopped breathing.
“If you're seeing this, I'm sorry.”
Owen's name.
My name.
My mother.
He explained everything.
Pierce ran the laundering network.
But Pierce was not the leader.
Thomas named the person above him.
Adrian stepped backward.
Vanessa covered her mouth.
I stared at the screen.
Because the person who had ordered my father's disappearance was not Adrian's father.
May you like
It was Vanessa's.
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