Chapter 8 - THE BROTHER I NEVER KNEW
For several seconds after Malcolm disconnected, nobody moved.
I looked at my father.
He looked older.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
As though a door he had kept shut for decades had just been kicked open.
“You have a grandson?”
My voice sounded distant.
My father rubbed one hand across his mouth.
“Vivienne.”
“Do I have a brother?”
He closed his eyes.
That was enough.
The shock did not arrive loudly.
It spread through me.
Slow.
Cold.
Complete.
“How old?”
“Thirty-one.”
I stared.
I was thirty-three.
My father had another child almost my age.
“His name?”
“Daniel.”
“Daniel what?”
“Daniel Sterling.”
I laughed once because my mind had run out of appropriate responses.
“Sterling.”
“Yes.”
“He uses your name?”
“Legally.”
“And I’ve never met him.”
“No.”
“Does he know about me?”
“Yes.”
That hurt.
I took one step backward.
“My brother knows I exist.”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t know he exists.”
“I can explain.”
I looked around the room.
“My husband secretly knew my identity.”
“My mother-in-law secretly worked for my family.”
“My father’s CFO has apparently been stealing for decades.”
“And now I have a brother.”
I looked at my father.
“I am done hearing that people can explain later.”
He nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
Evelyn Ross touched his arm.
“Richard, security first.”
He looked at her.
Then at Marcus.
“Find Daniel.”
Marcus was already working.
“Last known location?”
My father answered.
“Boston.”
“When did you speak to him?”
“Yesterday.”
“Phone?”
“Yes.”
“Any security detail?”
“No.”
Marcus stared.
“No?”
My father’s jaw tightened.
“He refuses it.”
“Address?”
My father gave it.
Marcus relayed everything to corporate security.
Detective Morales contacted Boston police.
I stood beside the table listening to people search for a brother I had learned about ninety seconds earlier.
The absurdity almost broke me.
Dominic moved closer.
“Vivienne.”
I turned.
“Not now.”
He stopped.
My father looked at me.
“I never wanted you to learn like this.”
“When did you plan to tell me?”
His silence answered.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“After your grandmother died.”
“She died nine years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then after what?”
He looked ashamed.
“There was always another reason to wait.”
I nodded.
“That sentence sounds familiar.”
He knew I meant Dominic.
He flinched.
Good.
Secrets did not become noble because the person keeping them loved you.
“Who is Daniel’s mother?”
“Her name was Caroline Reeves.”
“Was?”
“She died when Daniel was twelve.”
“Were you married to her?”
“No.”
“Did Mom know?”
My father’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
That stopped me.
“My mother knew.”
“Yes.”
My mother had died of ovarian cancer when I was twenty-two.
For eleven years I had grieved her as the person who knew me best.
Now even that relationship contained a locked room.
“Why was he hidden?”
“He wasn’t hidden.”
I stared at him.
“I didn’t know he existed.”
“From you.”
“Then that is hidden.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
I waited.
My father took a breath.
“Caroline and I had a relationship before I married your mother.”
“Daniel is younger than me.”
“Yes.”
“So not entirely before.”
My father looked away.
My stomach tightened.
“Were you unfaithful?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
“Your mother and I separated for eight months when you were eighteen months old.”
I had never known that.
“She moved to California.”
“Why?”
“We were fighting constantly.”
“About what?”
“My father.”
“Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
“He wanted me to take over the company.”
“And Mom didn’t?”
“She wanted us to leave Chicago.”
“Why?”
My father hesitated.
“Because she believed something was wrong inside the company.”
Malcolm.
I knew before he said it.
“She knew about Malcolm.”
“She suspected him.”
My father looked toward Eleanor.
“And apparently she was right.”
Eleanor said nothing.
My father continued.
“During the separation, I saw Caroline again.”
“Daniel was conceived.”
“Yes.”
“When Mom came back?”
“I told her.”
“She stayed.”
“Yes.”
“What about Daniel?”
“Caroline did not want public involvement with our family.”
“Why?”
“She hated what money did to people.”
I almost smiled bitterly.
“She may have had a point.”
My father accepted that.
“After she died, Daniel came to live with me briefly.”
“When?”
“You were fourteen.”
I stared.
“I was home.”
“You were at boarding school.”
For one semester.
I remembered my father pulling me from school after Christmas because he said he missed having me home.
Now I wondered whether that decision had something to do with Daniel.
“What happened?”
“Daniel hated the house.”
“Why?”
“He believed I had abandoned him.”
“Had you?”
My father’s face tightened.
“In some ways.”
At least he did not lie.
“He left after three months.”
“Where?”
“His maternal aunt.”
“And since then?”
“I paid for school.”
“You paid.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him?”
“Sometimes.”
“How often?”
“Not enough.”
That might have been the first fully honest thing he said.
Marcus approached.
“We have a location ping.”
My father straightened.
“Daniel?”
“His phone connected to a tower six minutes ago.”
“Boston?”
Marcus shook his head.
“Chicago.”
My father froze.
“What?”
“He flew in this afternoon.”
“Why?”
“Unknown.”
Marcus looked toward Dominic.
“The phone connected near the old Wabash office at six fourteen.”
A new wave of dread hit me.
Daniel had been near Malcolm.
My father grabbed his phone and called.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Marcus said,
“We’re checking airport footage.”
My father looked furious.
“With whom?”
“Working on it.”
Detective Morales asked,
“Does Malcolm know Daniel personally?”
My father hesitated.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Daniel interned at Sterling Crown one summer.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
“With which department?”
My father closed his eyes.
“Finance.”
Eleanor laughed quietly.
Everyone looked at her.
She shook her head.
“Malcolm has been planning this longer than you think.”
My father turned.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing about Daniel.”
“Then stop performing.”
Eleanor’s smile vanished.
“I know Malcolm collects people.”
“What does that mean?”
“He finds the angry ones.”
Her gaze moved toward Dominic.
“The overlooked ones.”
Then Chloe.
“The desperate ones.”
Then herself.
“And he tells them their resentment is proof they’ve been cheated.”
My father stared at her.
“You’re describing yourself.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised everyone.
Eleanor looked down.
“He told me your father destroyed my future.”
“He may have.”
“He told me Sterling money should have been partly mine.”
“That is absurd.”
“I know that now.”
“Now?”
She looked at me.
“When someone offers you an explanation for every disappointment in your life, it is very easy to mistake manipulation for truth.”
I understood more than I wanted to.
Malcolm had done it with Dominic too.
The struggling business.
The wealthy wife.
The promise of a partnership.
A way to be more than Richard Sterling’s son-in-law.
He had found the wound.
Then he had pressed it.
My father looked at Eleanor.
“What did he promise Daniel?”
“I don’t know.”
But I did.
Or at least I could guess.
Recognition.
A place in the family.
The inheritance he may have believed I had stolen simply by being acknowledged.
Marcus’s phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
“We found airport footage.”
He placed the tablet on the table.
O’Hare security video.
4:52 p.m.
A man walked through Terminal 3 wearing jeans, a dark jacket, and a backpack.
He had my father’s height.
My mother’s? No.
I stared.
Daniel.
My brother.
Seeing him was stranger than hearing his name.
He looked familiar in ways I could not explain.
The shape of his jaw.
The way he carried his shoulders.
Then another man appeared beside him.
Malcolm Pierce.
My father inhaled sharply.
The video continued.
Malcolm embraced Daniel.
Not like an employee.
Like family.
They walked toward the parking garage together.
My father whispered,
“No.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
He stared at the screen.
“Daniel told me he hadn’t spoken to Malcolm in years.”
Marcus paused the footage.
“They clearly have.”
My father looked betrayed.
I almost felt sorry for him.
Then I remembered I had learned about Daniel from a criminal threatening us.
Secrets had consequences.
That lesson belonged to everyone tonight.
Detective Morales asked,
“Could Daniel be involved voluntarily?”
My father’s answer came too quickly.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t know that.”
He stared at me.
“You’ve known he exists for ninety seconds.”
“And you’ve been wrong about people all night.”
That landed.
He looked back at the video.
I hated hurting him.
I hated even more that the sentence was true.
Marcus said,
“We need to determine whether the threat was real.”
My father nodded.
“Track the phone.”
“It’s moving.”
“Where?”
Marcus zoomed out.
The signal had left downtown.
It was heading north.
Toward Lake Forest.
My father’s face changed again.
“What?”
I asked.
“There’s a Sterling property there.”
“What property?”
“My father’s old house.”
I had not been there since childhood.
The mansion had been empty for years.
My grandfather had refused to sell it.
After his death, my father kept it mostly closed.
“Why would Daniel go there?”
My father whispered,
“Because that’s where Caroline died.”
My skin went cold.
“You said she died when Daniel was twelve.”
“She did.”
“At that house?”
He nodded.
I stared at him.
“How?”
My father said nothing.
I knew another secret had arrived.
“How did she die?”
He finally answered.
“Officially?”
I hated the word.
“Yes.”
“A fall.”
“Officially.”
My father’s eyes remained on the screen.
“She fell from the second-floor gallery.”
I swallowed.
“And unofficially?”
My father looked toward Eleanor.
Then toward Evelyn.
Then at me.
“Your mother never believed it was an accident.”
Before I could speak, Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face hardened.
“Say that again.”
My father stepped closer.
Marcus ended the call.
“They located Daniel’s phone.”
“Where?”
“Inside the Lake Forest house.”
“Is he there?”
“They don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“The front door is open.”
May you like
Marcus looked at us.
“And there’s blood on the foyer floor.”
