Chapter 9 - THE NIGHT MY OWN MEN CHOSE SIDES
My father had been dead eleven years.
Apparently that did not prevent him from ruining one more evening.
Marco arrived at the estate shortly after midnight with Lila Salerno.
She was pale, exhausted, and furious.
I recognized Victor in the shape of her eyes.
Nothing else.
Where her father filled rooms, Lila seemed to reduce herself inside them.
A survival technique.
Marco stayed near her.
Not touching.
Watching.
Hannah noticed before I did.
“He loves her,” she whispered.
Nicholas heard.
“He always did.”
Lila looked at her father’s recorded arrest on the television.
Then at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“All of it.”
“That’s a large category.”
“I know.”
I brought them into the study.
Nicholas limped in despite Hannah’s objections.
Sophie was asleep.
The twins were upstairs with a nurse.
For once, every adult problem remained far away from children.
Lila placed a leather ledger on my desk.
Old.
My father’s handwriting appeared on the first page.
ROBERT WHITAKER.
My stomach tightened.
“He knew Victor was stealing?” I asked.
Lila shook her head.
“He was part of it.”
I stared.
Nicholas sat down slowly.
“Part of what?”
“The shell companies.”
Lila opened the ledger.
Payments moved from Whitaker construction contracts into entities controlled by Victor and my father.
Millions.
Then more.
Some went toward political bribery.
Some toward illegal gambling.
Some disappeared offshore.
Nothing shocking by the standards of the world I inherited.
Then Nicholas pointed.
“These dates.”
The final payments occurred after our father was diagnosed with cancer.
“He knew he was dying,” I said.
Lila nodded.
“Victor claims your father wanted the organization divided.”
“Between me and Nicholas?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“Between you and Victor.”
Nicholas laughed bitterly.
“Dad barely trusted Victor.”
“He trusted him with money.”
“That’s different.”
Lila turned pages.
“Your father suspected Nicholas had discovered the accounts.”
I looked at my brother.
He went pale.
“No.”
Lila continued.
“Victor wanted Nicholas eliminated. Your father refused at first.”
“At first?”
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
Lila looked afraid.
“Eventually, he agreed Nicholas needed to be frightened out.”
Nicholas stared.
“The warehouse.”
“Yes.”
My hands clenched.
Lila continued quickly.
“The original plan was not to kill him.”
“Explosions are unusual warning methods.”
“Victor changed it.”
That sounded like Victor.
My father authorized intimidation.
Victor turned it into murder.
May you like
Then framed me.
Our father died three years before Nicholas’s fake funeral.
