Chapter 8 - What Adrian Was Paid to Do
I put the phone on speaker.
"Say that again."
Adrian breathed heavily on the other end.
"I said I helped fill it."
Dad stepped toward the phone.
"Where are you?"
Adrian recognized his voice immediately.
"Mr. Hart."
"Where are you?"
"I'm not talking to you."
"You're talking on my daughter's phone."
Adrian went silent.
I spoke before Dad could continue.
"What did you put in the storage unit?"
"Documents."
"Which documents?"
"Background research."
"On me?"
"Yes."
The word was small.
It still split my life into before and after.
"Why?"
Adrian exhaled.
"Because I was stupid."
"That is not an explanation."
"Victor said your family was dangerous."
Dad's laugh was quiet and humorless.
"So you stalked my daughter to protect yourself?"
"I didn't stalk her."
I looked at the photograph on the tablet.
"There are pictures of me entering my apartment before we met."
Adrian said nothing.
"Did you take them?"
"Some."
My throat tightened.
Dad started toward the door.
Margaret caught his arm.
"Gideon."
He stopped.
I kept my voice level.
"Tell me from the beginning."
"Not on the phone."
"You called me."
"Because I need protection."
The words stunned me.
"Protection from whom?"
"Victor."
"Why would he hurt you?"
"Because your father triggered the loan covenants."
"That sounds like your problem."
"Mara, listen to me."
His voice became urgent.
"The money was never supposed to stay in Vanessa's company."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
"Then explain it."
He lowered his voice.
"Victor funded Vale Meridian when nobody else would."
"Before you met me."
A long pause.
"Yes."
"How much did he give you to get close to me?"
"It wasn't like that."
I almost laughed.
"There is a behavioral profile describing how to approach me."
"I didn't write that."
"How much?"
"Mara."
"How much were you paid?"
He inhaled.
"Two hundred fifty thousand at first."
My father closed his eyes.
I felt strangely calm.
Maybe there was a point beyond betrayal where the mind stopped registering each new wound separately.
"At first?"
"He cleared part of my debt."
"In exchange for dating me?"
"In exchange for getting introduced to Hartwell people."
"I never introduced you."
"I know."
There was bitterness in his voice.
"You kept your family completely separate."
"Because you mocked them."
"Because you made me think they were nobody."
That angered me enough to sharpen my voice.
"You were paid to deceive me before you knew my last name mattered, and somehow you are still trying to make yourself the victim."
Silence.
Then Adrian whispered, "I fell in love with you."
I hated that those words still had the power to hurt.
"When?"
"What?"
"Before or after the first payment?"
"Mara."
"Before or after you photographed my apartment?"
"Stop."
"Before or after you studied a file telling you what kind of man I would trust?"
"I said stop."
His old anger surfaced.
It almost comforted me.
That was the Adrian I knew.
Not the pleading stranger from five minutes after my phone call.
"You don't get to order me anymore."
His breathing changed.
"I can give you Victor."
Dad's eyes opened.
"How?" I asked.
"I have records."
"Where?"
"Not until I have a deal."
Margaret shook her head at me.
"This is not a negotiation you conduct privately," she said loudly enough for him to hear.
Adrian cursed.
"Of course your father's lawyer is there."
"My lawyer," I corrected.
"You never had your own lawyer until last night."
"I never needed one until I learned who I married."
Another silence.
Then Adrian's voice became softer.
"Mara, Victor is going to make it look like you stole that money."
"He already tried."
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"The eleven million is nothing."
Dad leaned closer.
"How much?"
Adrian ignored him.
"There is another account."
"Where?"
"I don't know anymore."
"How much?"
"Forty million."
Nobody in the room moved.
"Whose name?"
Adrian said nothing.
"Whose name, Adrian?"
"Yours."
My stomach turned.
"That's impossible."
"That's the point."
"Where is the money?"
"It was in Singapore last month."
"Was?"
"Victor moves it every few weeks."
Dad looked at Margaret.
She was already typing.
"And you knew?"
"I knew some of it."
"How much is some?"
"Enough."
"Enough to know you were helping frame me."
"I was trying to get out."
"After seven years?"
"After I realized Victor was going to bury me too."
I closed my eyes.
"Why Vanessa?"
"Victor brought her in."
"When?"
"Two years ago."
"You told me you met her at a conference."
"That was the story."
"Did you sleep with her because Victor told you to?"
Silence.
"Adrian?"
"No."
At least that betrayal belonged entirely to him.
He had managed to preserve one piece of personal responsibility.
"She was supposed to get close to you," he continued.
"Why?"
"To learn how much you knew about Hartwell."
"And when she couldn't?"
"She got close to me instead."
I laughed once.
"How efficient."
"I know how it sounds."
"It sounds exactly like what happened."
He went quiet.
Then he said, "I can testify."
Margaret mouthed, Let counsel handle it.
"Then call the authorities," I said.
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because Victor has something on me."
"Beyond fraud and what you did last night?"
"Yes."
"What?"
His voice dropped.
"A death."
The room changed.
Dad's expression hardened.
"Whose death?"
Adrian spoke so softly I almost missed it.
"A Hartwell auditor named Peter Sloan."
My father went white.
I knew that name.
Peter Sloan died in a highway accident three years earlier.
He had worked for my father's company for twenty-seven years.
Dad attended the funeral.
"Adrian," I whispered, "what did you do?"
"I didn't kill him."
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"Then why does Victor have something on you?"
"Because I was the reason he was on that road."
