Chapter 50

Linny

Prison.

That’s beyond the scope of what I imagined whenever I pictured Jeremy’s family.

There was nothing online about his parents.

The only familial connection I’ve been able to make is that he inherited Rizon from his mom’s father.

I got that from the Rizon website. It was written in a short paragraph about how the company was founded and its history since then.

I ask the obvious question because I don’t know what else there is to say. “What did he do?”

“He fucked up the lives of his children,” he says, his head bowed. “He ran an investment firm. He stole from every one of his clients. From me too.”

I’m speechless.

Hours ago I thought my dad had hurt me in an inconceivable way, but his failings were based on his selfish need to give his son the world.

From what Jeremy’s saying, his father’s actions were purely selfish.

“I interned for the firm that he ran with his third wife.” His head falls back onto the couch. “I saw things that didn’t add up. None of it made sense. I didn’t know what to do.”

“How old were you?”

He tilts his head to look at me. “Nineteen, twenty. Old enough to know that something wasn’t right.”

I reach for his hand, cradling it between my own. I need him to feel reassured, to feel my presence in every way.

“I was in college, and it happened over two summers.” He circles my hand with his thumb. “The first year I thought it was an accounting error. I mentioned it to my dad, but he said it was nothing. He called it an oversight and told me to forget about it.”

“Did you?” I ask warily.

“No.” His jaw tightens. “It bothered me. It ate at me. I went back the next summer and the first thing I did was pull up that account on my computer. The numbers still didn’t add up.”

He shifts slightly, his legs parting. I can feel the tension knotting his body.

“I pulled up another account; my account.” His eyes close. “I had inherited a trust when I was eighteen from my mother’s family and Rizon when I was twenty-one. I was the only child; the only grandchild.”

“Your father invested the money in the trust for you?”

“I didn’t think twice asking him to handle that for me.” He huffs out a pained laugh. “If you can’t trust your father, who the fuck can you trust?”

I’m not the person to answer that.

“Was it all gone?” I squeeze his hand in mine.

His gaze skims my face. “I couldn’t access it, so I asked him about it. He gave me some bullshit excuse about keeping it under lock and key because of the other employees. He promised he’d get me a printout of it, but that never came.”
It’s a betrayal that’s about so much more than money.

He moves to stand.

“He gave me his assistant’s password to login to the system.” His hands rake his hair. “That’s why I had access to everything. The more I searched accounts, the more discrepancies I found.”

“Did you bring it up to your dad?”

“Hell no.” He turns back toward me. “I listened to him lie on the phone to clients. They’d call wanting to cash out an investment and he’d tell them the timing was off, or he’d need a couple of weeks to pull the paperwork to release it.”

His hand lands on his bare stomach. “He’d take money from someone else’s account to pay out the first. It was a circle that was collapsing on itself.”

I slide to my feet. “What did you do?”

He takes a deep breath. “I turned him in. I went to the police, they got the feds involved, and I gave them all the evidence they needed to put Craig Weston and his wife away for the rest of their lives.”

***

I stand behind him watching him.

He’s been staring out the window for the last ten minutes since he told me that he turned his father in.

He’s a brave man.

“You did the right thing, Jeremy.”

He looks at my reflection in the glass. “Not everyone would agree with you.”

I move closer to him with unsteady steps. “I’m sure your father and his wife wouldn’t agree, but they’re criminals.”

He turns to face me. “They are.”

I tug on the sash of the robe to tighten it. “I’m glad you told me.”

“There’s more.”

I freeze.

“That’s not even the part that matters, angel.” He glances up that ceiling. “Jesus, I wish that was all I had to tell you, but you’re going to need to sit back down for the rest of it.”

I stay standing. “What else is there?”

His phone starts ringing in the distance. He looks toward the bedroom, but he doesn’t move from where he’s standing.

“Do you need to get that?” I ask quietly. “I can wait here if you need to get it.”

“I love you, Linny.” His voice cracks. “I need you to know that.”

Tears well in the corners of my eyes, fear squeezing me from the inside out. “Please tell me what it is. What are you keeping from me, Jeremy?”

His phone stops ringing, only to start again a few seconds later.

“I’ll show you.” He holds out his hand to me. “Get dressed and I’ll show you.”