Chapter 14

  Inside the elevator.

  As we ascend toward my father’s office, Selena refuses to speak. She stands rigid, her expression hard as iron. I should be angry, but something about her silence reminds me of Thomas.

  I refuse to believe what she said earlier. My father can’t be dead — and he certainly isn’t a crime boss.

  Still… she believes it. I can see it in her eyes.

  Brook will clear this up. He always does.

  I cling to that thought desperately — the last one holding my world together. A world where I’ll see my father again.

  The elevator doors open.

  “What are you waiting for, kid? An invitation?” Selena snaps, already heading toward Thomas’s office. The door is half open.

  I rush after her.

  The room is unchanged. More penthouse than office. The massive desk still anchors everything.

  But the man behind it isn’t Thomas.

  It’s Brook. He’s holding a glass of vodka.

  He quit drinking seven years ago.

  Selena moves past Brook, opening Thomas’s bottle collection and heading to the back of the room.

  She sits down on the nearest couch. No hesitation. No pause. It’s as if she had been in this room multiple times.

  “Elijah…” Brook says softly. “I’m glad you’re safe.” I sit down in front of the desk, swallowing my fear.

  Brook looks away as I sit, as if my face is causing him pain. His reaction makes Selena’s statements feel less fictional, twisting knots in my gut.

  As my mind connects the dots, Brook stretches his hand across the desk and holds mine. For the first time, he looks me in the eyes — and they are a sea of pain at a glance.

  Anyone could say tears, but there are none. They’re trapped prisoners, forced not to spill, sitting deep inside.

  “Elijah, listen. I have something I need to tell you,” Brook says, clenching my hand tighter.

  “No. I don’t want to hear it,” I respond, rejecting his words and pushing his hand away. What he’s about to say would destroy my world — withdraw my last dream, the one where I would see my father again.

  I stand up violently in a panic, rejecting his words as if that would make them untrue. But I have no choice but to accept that all the signs are leading to a world I’d rather die than live in.

  His face.

  His voice.

  The glass in his hand.

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  I can’t look away anymore.My face grows hot. My throat tightens around a question too heavy to ask. So instead, I ask the only one that lets me avoid it.

  “Brook… I thought you quit drinking.”

  He stands up slowly, sympathy written all over his face.

  My body shakes. Tears spill out before I can stop them.

  Brook pulls me into a hug.

  “Oh, Eli…” he whispers. “You’ve always been perceptive. I should’ve known today wasn’t the day to pick the bottle back up.”

  "What happened?” I choke. “Why him? Why now?” “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” I sob. “He left because of me. I shouldn’t have let him go. I shouldn’t have opened that damn window—”

  Brook tightens his grip.

  “I’m sorry, Elijah.”

  He keeps saying it.

  Over and over.

  Only when my tears finally slow…

  does his voice stop too.

  After I’ve calmed down enough to listen to reality, Brook sets me down by the hazel desk and goes to the bottle cabinet to refresh his glass.

  Feeling less like I know nothing — yet still far from understanding what happened to my father — and if what Selena said is true.

  “Brook… I need to know how my father passed away. Was it an accident, or—”

  Brook sits down on the other side of the desk.

  “We’ll get to Thomas in a moment, but I think we need to have a different kind of talk first.”

  “No,” I respond, angry and confused.

  “Elijah, I know this is a difficult time, and I’d like to wait before having this talk with you, but I’m not sure time is our friend,”

  Brook says as he pours a vintage bottle of vodka — 1904.

  “What talk could there be right now? All I want to know is what happened to my dad, because that girl right there seems to think Thomas Stone was a criminal.”

  I point toward Selena at the back of the room, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.

  “You already said something,” Brook yells. “Do you ever think before you speak, Selena? What was the point?”

  Selena glares, whiskey still in hand.

  “Bite me. The kid needs to know anyway. His fantasy died with Thomas. Dragging this out does him no good,” she yells.

  Brook sighs.

  “I know you’re hurting, but it does us no good being rash.”

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Are they really insinuating that Thomas was a criminal? Even Brook — a man who’s been with my dad longer than I’ve been alive?

  “Brook… you can’t seriously be saying she’s telling the truth.” He pauses.

  “She does look well enough to believe,” I add, pointing again at Selena, now holding a half-empty bottle.

  “I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” Brook says, “but Selena isn’t lying. Thomas never wanted you to know — but he’s dead now, and not knowing would put you in more danger than you’re already in.”

  Brook pulls a brown folder from underneath the desk and slides it toward me.

  “What danger are you talking about? Is that why Thomas is dead?” I ask as I open the thin folder.

  What?

  “Why does this say I’m inheriting Oceans Bank?

  How?”

  “What?” Selena drops her bottle and stands in shock. I didn’t think she could make a face that wasn’t cold or scary-adjacent.

  “It’s just as it says,” Brook responds. “You’re going to be the new owner of this bank. The bank your father built.”

  “Own?”

  “Yes. Own. Listen — I know you thought Thomas was a manager, and technically that’s true. He managed and owned the bank.”

  I’m even more confused now than before. How does this relate to anything? Why did he never tell me we owned a bank?

  “Elijah,” Brook continues, “this is not an ordinary bank. It’s a machine for laundering money for the rich and powerful — all orchestrated by your father.

  This is what you’ve truly inherited. Not money. Not status. Power. Dangerous power. And that’s why you’re in danger.”

  His hard gaze sends shivers down my spine. Each word feels like a warning.

  “Fuck you mean this kid’s inheriting power, Brook?” Selena yells, throwing a glass at his head.

  “Selena, calm down and sit,” Brook commands in a cold, authoritative voice.

  Surprisingly, she does. Arms folded.

  Gaze fixed on me.

  “Let me finish,” Brook says. “It was always intended for both of you to inherit this bank. Thomas never wanted Elijah involved in the darker side — he was meant to be the face. You were meant to run it.”

  Brook pauses.

  “I don’t know what to do right now. But as it stands, both of you will inherit this.”

  This is too much.

  Money laundering. Ownership. Sharing it with a stranger.

  “Brook, this is too fast. What do you mean it was always the plan to inherit this with her?

  Who is she?.Brook moves toward Selena.

  “I didn’t want to be the one explaining this mess. It was always supposed to be Thomas’s job.” He gestures toward her. “Elijah… meet your cousin.”

  “Selena Stone.”