Chapter 8 - What Brandon Had Never Told MeI did not sleep that night.
Amber's final sentence had been designed to do exactly what it accomplished: make me question everything I believed about my son.
What had Brandon known about Eleanor's discovery?
Had he seen the original documents?
Had he given Victor information about the contract?
Most importantly, had my wife discovered something about her own son that she had never found the courage to tell me?
At 6:00 the next morning, I sat at the kitchen table with two cups of coffee. Brandon arrived twenty minutes later, wearing yesterday's clothes.
He looked as if he had aged ten years.
I placed Eleanor's letter between us.
“Read it.”
He did.
When he reached the final paragraph, his hands began to tremble.
“I didn't know she wrote this.”
“Did you know about the contract?”
He shook his head.
“Not until now.”
“Did you ever take documents from my office?”
“No.”
“Did you give Victor copies of any contracts?”
He looked at me.
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
I pushed my coffee aside.
“Brandon, I am asking you because I need the truth, not because I want another argument. If you know something, tell me now.”
He stared into his cup.
Then he began speaking.
Two years earlier, Victor had approached him at a private business event. He had already known about the River Oaks mansion and about my company's commercial holdings. He told Brandon that I had spent too many years controlling my assets and that Brandon would never become independent unless he learned to negotiate with people who could help him.
Victor offered to arrange several lucrative contracts for Brandon's consulting firm.
In exchange, he asked for access to old business records.
Brandon had initially refused.
Then his company began losing money.
He had hired too many employees, leased an expensive office, and committed himself to projects that generated impressive headlines but little profit. He had borrowed from private lenders and concealed the company's financial problems from Amber.
Victor appeared at precisely the right moment.
“He said I could recover everything,” Brandon admitted. “He told me I just needed to prove that I had access to the family's assets.”
“Did you tell him you owned the mansion?”
“I told him you had promised it to me.”
“That wasn't the question.”
Brandon looked down.
“Yes. I told him I owned it.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
“What happened next?”
“He asked for documents. I gave him copies of some old financial statements. I thought they were harmless.”
“Were they?”
“I don't know. He said he needed them to prepare a proposal.”
“Did you give him anything with my signature?”
“No.”
“Did you know Amber was trying to transfer management authority over Redwood Capital?”
He hesitated.
“I knew she was preparing some company paperwork. She told me it was for an investment partnership.”
“And you never asked what it did?”
“I trusted her.”
The words landed between us.
I had trusted Brandon.
He had trusted Amber.
Amber had trusted Victor, or perhaps she had understood his intentions all along.
Trust had become a chain of assumptions, each link weaker than the one before it.
“Did Victor ever mention my father?” I asked.
Brandon shook his head.
“Not directly. But he asked about the Austin development. He wanted to know whether your company still had any rights connected to it.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That you kept old contracts. That's all.”
I stood.
“Brandon, I need you to understand something. You may not have forged a signature. You may not have known every detail of the plan. But you gave a man with a history of manipulating our family access to information he should never have had.”
He swallowed.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He finally looked at me.
“I think I do now.”
For a moment, he seemed like the little boy who used to sit on the floor of my workshop while I repaired broken machinery. Back then, he had believed that every problem had a solution if he simply asked his father for help.
But he was no longer a child.
And I could not repair his choices for him.
At 8:15, Richard called.
“The warehouse address is real. It is connected to a company that has recently done business with Northstar Meridian.”
“Should we go?”
“Not alone, and not to hand over documents. I'm arranging a meeting through counsel and preserving the relevant communications.”
I put the phone down.
Brandon stared at me.
“Are we going to save Amber?”
The question surprised me.
“She has not asked to be saved.”
“She might be in trouble.”
“She might be involved.”
He flinched.
“She is my wife.”
“And I am your father.”
The silence was brutal.
For a moment, I thought he would return to anger. Instead, his shoulders dropped.
“I know what I did to you,” he said quietly. “I know saying I'm sorry doesn't change it.”
“No, it doesn't.”
“I don't expect you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
He looked up, wounded by the bluntness.
I softened my voice, but not my answer.
“Forgiveness is not a substitute for accountability. If you want a relationship with me, you need to become someone I can trust.”
He nodded slowly.
Then his phone vibrated.
A new message from Amber.
Your father has the wrong idea. If he brings the box, everything can still be fixed.
A second message followed.
But he must come alone.
Richard read the messages over my shoulder.
“No,” he said immediately. “Nobody is going alone.”
I looked at the blue box on the table.
Inside it lay my wife's letter, the photocopied contract, and a clue to a scheme that might reach back fifteen years.
I had no intention of surrendering any of it.
But I also had no intention of letting Victor Sloane decide how this story ended.
“Richard,” I said, “arrange the meeting.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“With the proper safeguards, of course,” I added.
Brandon looked at me.
“What if Amber refuses to cooperate?”
I picked up Eleanor's letter.
“Then she will have to explain why she asked for a document she claims can fix everything.”
May you like
I glanced at the clock.
“We meet tomorrow.”
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