Chapter 9 - What My Father Owed the Corsinis
I laughed.
I actually laughed.
“No.”
Martin didn’t.
Julian didn’t.
Daniel didn’t.
That made it worse.
“My father owned a construction company in Worcester.”
Martin nodded.
“Quinn & Parker.”
“He had nothing to do with your family.”
Julian opened the folder.
“Apparently he did.”
I grabbed it.
My father’s name appeared repeatedly.
Michael Quinn.
Payments.
Dates.
Contract numbers.
One notation beside his name:
REFUSED V.C. — PROTECT
“What does that mean?”
Martin sat beside me.
“We’re not sure.”
I kept reading.
My father had worked on several Corsini construction projects almost twenty years earlier.
I had been a teenager.
He never mentioned it.
Then I found another name.
David Parker.
His business partner.
The man who disappeared with company funds.
Martin pointed.
“Parker received payments from Vincent.”
My stomach turned.
“How much?”
“Over three hundred thousand dollars.”
I looked at Julian.
“You’re telling me Vincent paid the man who destroyed my father’s company?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Anger exploded.
I stood.
“So my father lost everything because of your family too?”
Julian didn’t defend himself.
“Possibly.”
“He died thinking he failed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want sorry.”
My voice broke.
That humiliated me more than anger.
“I want him back.”
Julian stood.
I stepped away.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Good.
Because if he touched me, I might have collapsed.
I walked out.
---
I drove to my father’s old house.
It had been sold years earlier.
I parked across the street.
A different family lived there now.
Children’s bicycles covered the lawn.
For twenty minutes I sat inside my car and remembered.
Dad teaching me to drive.
Dad attending dance competitions even when he didn’t understand ballet.
Dad crying when I told him I had quit school to help with bills.
He had blamed himself.
I had blamed bad luck.
Now I learned a dead Corsini might have engineered his ruin.
My phone rang.
Julian.
I ignored it.
Again.
Ignored.
Then Daniel.
Ignored.
Then Martin.
Ignored.
Finally a text arrived.
We found Parker.
I called immediately.
---
David Parker lived in Florida under his own name.
No prison.
No hiding.
Just retirement.
Federal investigators interviewed him by video that evening.
I watched from Julian’s study.
Parker had aged badly.
He admitted everything.
Vincent had approached him twenty-one years earlier.
Michael Quinn had discovered irregularities in a Corsini construction contract.
Shell companies.
Inflated invoices.
Money laundering.
My father wanted to report it.
Vincent needed him silent.
“He wouldn’t take money,” Parker said.
“So you did,” I whispered.
Parker looked at the camera.
“Yes.”
My hands shook.
Vincent paid Parker to destroy financial records and redirect liability toward my father.
When investigations began, Dad took loans trying to save the company.
Parker disappeared.
My father never recovered.
“Why didn’t Vincent kill him?” Daniel asked.
The room went silent.
Parker answered:
“Isabella.”
Julian leaned forward.
“What?”
“Your sister found out.”
Julian froze.
“She told Vincent if anything happened to Michael Quinn, she’d expose everything.”
My father had been protected by Isabella Corsini.
The woman who died twenty years ago.
Parker continued.
“After Isabella died, Vincent planned to finish Michael.”
My heart stopped.
“What does that mean?”
Parker looked away.
“But Elena intervened.”
Julian whispered, “Elena.”
“She had copies of Vincent’s records. She threatened him.”
I sat slowly.
Two women I never met had saved my father.
One died.
The other disappeared.
My entire life had unknowingly crossed theirs decades before I walked into Corsini House.
Julian looked at me.
“Sadie.”
This time I let him take my hand.
---
The remaining financial liabilities connected to my father were reviewed.
Lawyers cleared his name posthumously.
It changed nothing.
And everything.
His failure had not been failure.
His partner betrayed him.
A powerful man targeted him.
Dad had resisted.
He had been honest when dishonesty would have been easier.
That mattered.
I cried for hours.
Julian stayed.
He didn’t offer solutions.
He didn’t speak unless I did.
At some point after midnight, I fell asleep on the drawing-room sofa.
When I woke, a blanket covered me.
Julian sat nearby reading.
“You stayed?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked genuinely confused.
“Where else would I go?”
My heart did that annoying thing again.
I sat up.
“I’m not your responsibility.”
“No.”
“Then stop acting like I am.”
Julian closed the book.
“You’re right.”
“Good.”
“You’re not my responsibility.”
I waited.
He looked at me.
“You’re my choice.”
Silence.
Every clever response disappeared.
He continued.
“I have spent most of my life treating affection like leverage. Something other people could use.”
I didn’t move.
“You walked into my house because someone manipulated your debt. You danced in my drawing room because you thought nobody was watching.”
“Oh God.”
“I’m serious.”
“You had to mention the dancing.”
“I liked the dancing.”
My face warmed.
Julian leaned closer.
“I liked the woman who forgot to be afraid.”
“I’m usually afraid.”
“You hide it.”
“So do you.”
“Yes.”
We were close enough now that I could see tiny silver strands beginning near his temples.
He touched my cheek.
“Tell me to stop.”
I didn’t.
Julian kissed me.
Slowly.
No drama.
No orchestra.
No dangerous mafia theatrics.
Just a man who had forgotten how to hope and a woman who had forgotten how to dream.
When we separated, I smiled.
“You watched the video twice?”
“Three times.”
I hit his shoulder.
He laughed.
An actual laugh.
Then the study door opened.
Daniel walked in.
He stopped.
“Oh, finally.”
I covered my face.
Julian said, “Leave.”
Daniel grinned.
“Absolutely not.”
Then Martin appeared behind him.
“We have another issue.”
Julian closed his eyes.
“Does this house ever have normal mornings?”
Martin handed him a document.
“It concerns Isabella.”
Julian read it.
His expression changed.
“What?”
I asked.
Martin answered.
“The cemetery exhumed her coffin at the federal investigators’ request.”
Daniel frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Patrick claimed Vincent staged evidence after the crash.”
Julian looked at us.
Martin finished.
May you like
“The coffin was empty.”
---
