“Mom, no. Don’t leave me.”
“Someone has to take care of the situation. Your father’s in the hospital. I’m all there is.”
Is this truly my mother? Showing strength like this? My mother who begged me to come home because my father was having a biopsy on a tumor that’s most likely benign?
I see her through new eyes now.
My strength. I need to find my strength once more.
I inhale. “I’m coming with you, Mom.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. And then I swallow the lump in my throat. “I apologize. I’m sorry I went kind of catatonic on you. This probably has something to do with me.”
“Who would want to harm you?”
“Probably a lot of people. Remember, I was held captive on that island for ten years.”
My mom’s jaw drops open. “But Katelyn, that wasn’t your fault.”
“I know, Mom. I know.”
“Why would you have any enemies?”
“The men. I mean, I didn’t know any of their names, but I gave information to the authorities.”
“Those men all deserve to die.”
“They’re not all in prison, Mom.”
She gasps. “They’re not?”
“No,” I say, my mind finally clearing. “In fact, I ran into one. In Manhattan.”
31
LUKE
“So that’s what you’ve got, huh?” Dad says. “Some derelict named Pollack said I was there?”
“Why would he lie to me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. To cast your old man in a bad light?”
“He told me you were there before he knew who I was.”
“If I had been there, on that island, do you think I would’ve been able to get the deal I got for you with the Feds?”
“Dad, I have no fucking clue. I don’t presume to know how this all works. But I do know this. I had information that the Feds wanted, and I gave it to them. You had money. They also got a hell of a lot of my money.”
“They confiscated your money, Trey. Because your money was made illegally.”
“I made half a billion dollars doing what I did,” I say. “I’m not proud of it, but the Feds took that money, so they’re not hurting.”
“Trey—”
“Just be honest with me for once, Dad. Please. Were you on that island?”
He doesn’t reply.
“Look, I’m sure you got some kind of deal with the Feds. For God’s sake, don’t lie to me. Were you on the fucking island?”
After another eternity of silence, he finally nods. “I was there, Trey.”
“Damn you.” I shake my head.
“I didn’t harm anyone.”
“Oh?”
“Not everyone who went there hurt those women.”
“Then what the fuck were you doing there?”
Silence again as he pauses. “I can’t tell you.”
I shake my head and scoff. “Just as I thought.”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t tell you. I’m under a nondisclosure agreement.”
“With whom? Derek Wolfe? He’s dead, so it no longer applies.”
“Of course not with Derek Wolfe. I couldn’t stand the bastard.”
“With whom, then?”
“If I told you, I would break my agreement. Surely, son, after all the criminal activity you’ve been involved in, you understand the significance of a nondisclosure agreement.”
Low blow, Dad. I don’t say this, of course, because he’s right. I was involved in criminal activity. I regret every minute of it…except for the one thing it led me to.
Katelyn.
If I had to be a drug kingpin, if I had to be King’s right-hand man in order to meet Katelyn, then it was all worth it.
It’s even worth my death. Even if I never see her again, I at least remember what it felt like to truly love and be loved in return.
“All right, Dad,” I say. “Tell me what you can, then.”
“I have, Trey.”
I inhale and let out a breath slowly. He’s not going to budge on this. I know my old man. He’s a man of his word if nothing else.
“All I can tell you,” he goes on, “is that I never harmed anyone while I was there.”
I hope to God my father’s definition of harm is the same as mine. “If you can’t tell me anything else, why did you admit that you were there?”
“Because I was there, Trey. That’s not a secret. You can find my name on any of the flight manifests.”
“I see.”
“If I had hurt anyone, do you think I would be walking around as a free man?”
“They’re all free, Dad. All except that poor sap of a prince from Cordova.”
“The principality of Cordova has different laws than the United States.”
“Yeah, the US lets criminals go free for information.”
“You really want to go there, Trey? It’s because of the system here in our country that you’re a free man as well.”
I flatten my lips into a line. My father is not wrong, and I would do well to remember that.
“Why, then? So you can’t tell me what you did on the island, why did you go?”
“Trey…” He gives me that “I’m your father and don’t question me any further” look.
Though he gave up his right to claim fatherhood over me a long time ago.
“I’m not proud of everything I’ve done in my life. I wasn’t the greatest father to you and your brother and sister. I know that, and I own it. But there are a few things I’m good at.”
“Yeah, making money.”
Dad scoffs. “Are you kidding me? I never had to lift a finger to make a dime. Our money was made two generations before me.”
I nod. I know all this.
“I don’t do any of the real work for the company. Producing is what I do, but I’m hardly on the A-list.”
I say nothing. He’s right.
“But there are a few things I’m good at,” he continues. “One of those things is, I found out recently, helping the federal government.”
A canary. My father’s a fucking canary. Hell, I guess the apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree after all.
“That’s all I’m going tell you, Trey. I shouldn’t have said as much as I have. The subject has got to be closed at this point.”
“I get it now,” I say. “You wanted me to squeal. Because you’re a squealer.”
“I wouldn’t exactly put it in those terms.”
“Then what kind of terms would you put it in?”
“Helping law enforcement get justice, Trey. That is exactly how I’d put it.”
All this time, I’ve been hating myself for being a fucking narc.
But I’ll give it to my old man. He just helped me see myself in a brand-new light.
One difference, though. If what he tells me is true, he was more of a plant. He wasn’t a canary who turned on his friends like I was.
Still, I did help save a lot of people from drugs.