Chapter 6 - A Father Who Knows Too Much
My father reached the attic before either of us could hide the container.
He saw the letter in my hand and stopped at the threshold.
"Where did you get that?"
"Granddad left it."
"Give it to me."
"No."
For years that word had been impossible for me to say to him without feeling twelve years old.
Now it felt simple.
He stepped forward.
Ryan moved between us.
"Dad, what agreement?"
Our father stared at him in disbelief.
"You don't understand what you're getting into."
"Then explain it."
"There are things people do to keep this family comfortable.
Things neither of you could appreciate."
He reached for the metal container.
I stepped backward.
"Don't touch it."
He stopped, finally remembering that the daughter he considered powerless had spent years learning how to hold a boundary.
My mother appeared on the stairs.
"Why is everyone yelling?"
Dad said, "Emily is stealing family property."
I watched the claim settle in my mother's face and become truth without evidence.
"Of course she is," she said.
Ryan turned.
"Mom, stop."
She looked at him as though he'd spoken another language.
"I'm protecting your father."
"From what?
His own letter?"
Dad lunged for the papers before Ryan could finish.
The movement was clumsy and desperate.
He caught only the edge of the envelope, tearing it across the address.
I held the contents away.
"This ends now."
He froze.
I called Reyes from the stairwell and described what we had found without drawing conclusions.
She told us to leave the materials untouched and wait for investigators.
Dad laughed harshly.
"You brought the Navy into my house?"
"No," I said.
"Whoever used my credentials did."
A moment later, my mother's phone rang.
She answered on speaker without looking at the number.
A male voice said, "Tell Victor the agreement's finished.
If the girl opens that drive, everyone loses."
My father's name was Victor.
My mother went white.
May you like
And the caller hung up before any of us could ask who he was.
