Chapter 6 - The Truth Thomas Had Been Hiding
Thomas sat down on the abandoned platform.
For once, he had nothing clever to say.
Larkin stood over him.
"Talk."
Thomas rubbed both hands over his face.
"My mother told me two years ago."
"Told you what?"
Thomas looked at me.
"Alexander wasn't my uncle."
Silence.
"He was my father."
Larkin stared at him.
Thomas continued.
"My mother had an affair with Alexander. I was born eleven months before Larkin."
Larkin took a step backward.
"Cousins," Thomas said bitterly. "That's what everyone was told."
"You're my brother."
"Half brother."
Nobody spoke.
I looked at the DNA report again.
It confirmed Thomas's relationship to Alexander.
It had nothing to do with me.
Carbone had presented it deliberately to destabilize the room.
I looked at him.
"You wanted us suspicious of each other."
Carbone smiled faintly.
"You're smarter than you pretend."
"So I've been told."
Larkin looked at Thomas.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I spent my whole life watching everyone compare us. You were disciplined. I was reckless. You were Alexander's legacy without even knowing half of it."
"You thought I'd care?"
"I didn't know."
Larkin laughed once.
Not happily.
"You idiot."
Thomas looked up.
"Probably."
"You're still my family."
Something in Thomas's expression cracked.
He looked away.
Carbone interrupted.
"Touching."
I turned toward him.
"Now your turn."
"My turn?"
"Tell us what happened to Nathan."
Carbone's expression changed.
"He survived."
"We know."
"He came to me twelve years later."
My mother gasped.
"Why?"
"Because he'd discovered something."
"What?"
Carbone looked at Larkin.
"Alexander's death wasn't natural."
Larkin became perfectly still.
Carbone continued.
"Your uncle discovered Alexander planned to remove him from power. Their argument became permanent."
Larkin's face showed no dramatic rage.
Only grief.
Quiet.
Controlled.
Human.
"Why should we believe you?" I asked.
"You shouldn't."
Carbone nodded toward the case.
"But Nathan recorded everything."
We searched.
Near the bottom was another tape.
Larkin inserted it.
Nathan's voice returned.
This recording was newer.
He explained that Carbone had indeed stolen money decades earlier.
But after Alexander's death, Carbone had discovered the extent of Larkin's uncle's corruption.
The two men turned against each other.
The truth wasn't simple.
Nobody was innocent.
Carbone had stolen.
Larkin's uncle had covered up worse crimes.
Alexander had tried to expose both.
Nathan had spent years collecting evidence.
And my mother had spent years protecting the key.
The final portion of the tape changed everything.
"If Penelope ever hears this, I'm sorry."
My breath caught.
"I wanted to come home. Elizabeth and I disagreed. I believed the danger had passed. She believed it never would."
Mom began crying.
"She was right."
Nathan's voice continued.
"Someone found me every time I tried to return. Eventually I understood that the safest thing I could do for my daughter was remain dead."
I closed my eyes.
Then:
"But if Penelope is listening, the old system has already collapsed. That means she deserves the truth."
The tape ended with coordinates and a phone number.
I immediately called.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
"Hello?"
His voice.
My father's.
"Dad."
Silence.
Then he exhaled.
"Penny."
"Where are you?"
"Safe."
"That's not enough anymore."
He didn't answer.
"I'm not five years old."
"I know."
"Mom isn't alone."
"I know."
"Carbone is standing ten feet from me."
Long silence.
"Then Vincent finally grew a conscience."
Carbone rolled his eyes.
"Tell him that's debatable."
Despite everything, I laughed.
My father heard it.
He became quiet.
"I haven't heard you laugh since you were a baby."
My throat tightened.
"Then come hear it in person."
Silence.
"Please."
Twenty-eight years hung between us.
Finally:
"There's a diner near Bear Mountain."
He gave me the address.
"Tomorrow. Noon."
I looked at Mom.
She was crying openly now.
"We'll be there."
After the call, Larkin turned to Carbone.
"This ends."
Carbone nodded.
"Yes."
The evidence in the case was enough to dismantle decades of hidden financial structures.
But Larkin didn't destroy it.
He didn't bury it.
He called his attorneys.
Then outside counsel.
Then federal financial investigators through an intermediary.
Thomas stared at him.
"You're really doing this?"
"My father died trying to clean up what his family built."
Larkin looked at the boxes.
"I'm finishing it."
That decision would cost him millions.
Possibly hundreds of millions.
But much of Steves Consolidated was legitimate now.
Larkin had spent three years making it that way.
The old syndicate could die without destroying the entire company.
Carbone agreed to cooperate.
Not from goodness.
From survival.
My mother provided testimony.
Thomas turned over his investigation.
And I?
I provided spreadsheets.
Thousands of them.
Turns out three years of being invisible had made me the most informed person in the company.
By midnight, the ballroom humiliation that had started everything felt like another lifetime.
I stood on the balcony of Larkin's townhouse wearing one of his oversized white shirts because my crimson gown had finally surrendered after twenty-four hours.
He came outside carrying two coffees.
He handed me one.
Black.
I looked at it.
"You've got the wrong order."
He frowned.
Then realization dawned.
For three years, I had brought him black coffee.
He had no idea how I took mine.
"Two sugars," I said.
"That's embarrassing."
"For you?"
"Deeply."
I laughed.
He leaned against the railing.
"Penelope."
"Yes?"
"I owe you an apology."
"Several."
"For the gala."
I waited.
"I shouldn't have allowed Thomas to turn you into entertainment."
"No."
"And I shouldn't have used Carbone's interest in you to test him."
"No."
"I was wrong."
I studied him.
There was no excuse attached.
No justification.
Just responsibility.
"Accepted."
He looked surprised.
"That easy?"
"Don't get excited. There are conditions."
"Naturally."
"I don't return as your secretary."
His expression changed.
"What do you want?"
"Director of financial compliance."
He almost smiled.
"That's ambitious."
"I have twenty-eight years of organized financial misconduct sitting downstairs and three years of your books memorized."
"Vice president."
I blinked.
"What?"
"Vice president of financial compliance."
"Are you negotiating against yourself?"
"Apparently."
I held out my hand.
"Deal."
He took it.
Neither of us let go immediately.
Something changed.
Quietly.
His thumb brushed once across my knuckles.
Then his phone rang.
Thomas.
Larkin answered.
His expression darkened.
"What?"
Pause.
"When?"
He looked at me.
"Send it."
He ended the call.
"What happened?"
He turned his phone toward me.
Security footage.
A man had entered my mother's apartment twenty minutes earlier.
Gray hair.
Older face.
The same face from the photograph.
My father.
But according to our phone call, Nathan was supposed to be hours away near Bear Mountain.
I stared at Larkin.
"Why is he at Mom's apartment?"
My phone rang.
Mom.
I answered.
Her voice was trembling.
"Penelope."
"Mom?"
"Your father is here."
I looked at the footage again.
Then Mom whispered:
May you like
"But he says the man you've been talking to isn't Nathan."
Somebody had spent the entire night pretending to be my father—and tomorrow at noon, that stranger expected me to meet him alone.
