Chapter 9 - Nathan's Debt
Nathan returned the following morning.
He had spent the night at a hotel, terrified of facing me.
His confession was ugly.
Six years earlier, Genevieve had asked him to watch Rosalind.
Nathan followed her to the clinic.
He photographed her.
He confirmed the pregnancy.
“Why?”
“Mom promised to pay my debts.”
I stared at him.
“How much?”
“Three hundred thousand.”
My own brother had traded information about my unborn children for money.
Nathan cried.
I didn't comfort him.
But then he revealed something else.
After the twins were born, he secretly visited Oregon.
He saw them from across a playground.
He almost told me.
Almost.
That word became unbearable.
“You had five years.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't.”
I walked away.
That afternoon, Oliver found me alone.
“Are you mad?”
“Not at you.”
“At Uncle Nathan?”
I froze.
Rosalind had apparently explained who Nathan was.
“Yes.”
Oliver thought carefully.
“Mom says people can do bad things and still do better things later.”
Five years old.
And somehow wiser than all of us.
Nathan turned over every record he possessed.
His cooperation revealed Harrison's network of shell companies.
But it also exposed Genevieve's deepest secret.
She had created educational trusts for Oliver and Elliot shortly after their birth.
She had secretly deposited money every year.
Rosalind never knew.
Neither did I.
My mother had erased the boys from my life while simultaneously preparing for their future.
It didn't absolve her.
It made her actions even harder to understand.
She had known they were real.
Known they were mine.
And every birthday, she had remembered them.
When I confronted her, she whispered:
“I couldn't undo what I'd done without losing you.”
“You lost me anyway.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
That was the first time she stopped defending herself.
But our family wasn't finished paying for Harrison's choices.
Federal investigators froze several accounts.
Employees panicked.
Investors demanded answers.
My company could collapse.
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And the only person who possessed enough information to prevent it might be the brother I no longer trusted.
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