“You’ve been ignoring my calls.”

“I spoke to Mom every day. You never took the phone. Gotta hand it to you. You know how to master the hard-to-get act.”

That was the strangest thing about the entire Dad ordeal, but also precisely what made me not answer his calls. He was on to something, and whatever it was, he didn’t want Mom to hear it.

Dad sat back, but he didn’t look smug. A pang of worry pinched my chest. He had the constant air of someone who’d just fucked your wife, emptied your safe, and taken a shit in your bed. Now he looked surprisingly somber. Somber meant trouble.

“We had to talk privately,” he said.

“Clearly.” I scanned his face, looking for clues.

“I figured it all out, son. I’m sorry. I’m so. Fucking. Sorry.” His voice broke midway, and he turned his face away, his jaw clenching like mine did. His throat bobbed.

No.

No.

I dropped my head into my hands, elbows on my knees, and shook it.

“Troy Brennan?” I asked. It had to be that fixer he’d hooked me up with. How the fuck else did he figure that out?

“No. I made a promise and kept it.”

“Jaime, then?” I snorted in false amusement. He must’ve told Dad I was in some kind of trouble. I didn’t even have it in me to be mad at him. It was the logical thing to do. Still, shitty as hell. He’d signed a contract.

“No,” Dad said, standing up and taking the necessary half-step toward me.

I didn’t want any of what he was about to offer—not the pity, the pain, the shame, the feeling that accompanied those things. Still, he sat next to me on the bed.

“I think Jaime was planning on telling me after the fact. But one night I got into my bedroom and your mom had fallen asleep with the lights on, an art magazine half-open under her arm. I tucked her in and was about to turn off the light when I picked the magazine up and saw an item about how all of Harry Fairhurst’s paintings had been bought by a mysterious collector. I wondered why we hadn’t been approached about the paintings in our house—everyone else had been, after all—but the answer was simple. You had access to our house, and to the paintings in it. I threw the magazine away so she wouldn’t know, wouldn’t do the math herself. I racked my brain trying to figure out why you’d want to own all this motherfucker’s paintings. Better yet, how you could afford them. So I checked your trust fund, and sure enough, it was empty.”

I swallowed wordlessly. I’d been sloppy in that regard. All I could see was the end goal, and that had backfired in my face.

Dad put his hand on my back, both of us hunched over, seated on my bed. My face was still buried in my hands. I felt like a stupid kid, and hated every minute of it.

“What could drive a man to buy an entire, eight-figure collection of paintings he’s not even fond of?” My father’s voice drifted in the air like smoke, lethal and suffocating. “There was only one answer: vengeance.”

I stood up and walked to the window, refusing to face him.

He knew.

Lenora knew.

My secret was no longer mine. It had broken free. Run loose. I had no control over it. It was probably pounding through the alleyways of every ear in my inner circle.

“You want him forgotten,” Dad said gently behind me.

I appreciated that he didn’t say outright the things Harry had done to me. It made the situation a little less unbearable, somehow. I sniffed, ignoring the statement.

I wanted to forget Harry Fairhurst had ever existed, yes, but I knew I couldn’t. So I’d settled for erasing him from the memory of the rest of the world.

Ars longa, vita brevis.

But not if all your paintings are torn, burned, and floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Then you’re just another mortal.

Dad stood up and came toward me. He planted his hands on my shoulders from behind. I dropped my head to my chest. He hadn’t ridden my ass like I thought he would for ghosting him for eternity.

…or spending a sickening amount of money on art I had burned.

“Let me do it,” he whispered.

“Huh?” I spun, my eyebrows diving down.

“I know what you’re about to do, and I’m asking you to let me do it. Not for you, for me. When we talked about your problem before, I told you I wouldn’t pry, but if I found out who was involved, I’d deal with them myself. And you agreed. We shook on it. There’s a lot on the line for you, son. Let me shoulder your burden. Let it be on my conscience, not yours. After all, I was the one who fucked up. I was the one who let it happen. I was the one who didn’t figure it out in that Parisian gallery, the idiot who sent you to Carlisle Prep when you were a young boy. My fuck-up. My mistake. My payback.”