Chapter 10 - THE SECRET MY MOTHER KEPT
I refused to believe it.
Then I saw the photograph.
My mother.
David.
JFK.
Standing beside one another.
Ethan caught my arm when my knees weakened.
This time I let him.
Only for a second.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“Safe,” Marcus said. “She wasn’t arrested.”
“Then why was she there?”
“Because she contacted David.”
My anger exploded.
“She did what?”
My mother arrived twenty minutes later escorted by security.
I had never shouted at her before.
Not even as a teenager.
“What were you thinking?”
She closed the door.
“I was trying to get your father’s letters back.”
“You met a man who drugged me?”
“I didn’t know about the medication until today.”
“You knew he was dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“And still went alone?”
Her face crumpled.
“I already lost your father because of David.”
Silence.
My anger vanished.
“What?”
Mom sat.
“Your father didn’t die from a heart attack.”
I felt Ethan move behind me.
No one spoke.
“My father’s death certificate says cardiac arrest.”
“It was cardiac arrest.”
She looked at me.
“But it was triggered.”
“How?”
“Medication.”
History repeated itself.
Sedatives.
Drugs.
Medical manipulation.
My hands shook.
“David killed Dad?”
“We could never prove it.”
“We?”
“Your father and I had begun investigating him.”
Mom explained.
Eight years ago my father discovered David stealing small amounts through investment subsidiaries.
Not millions at once.
Thousands.
Hundreds of thousands.
Enough to hide.
When my father confronted him privately, David panicked.
Weeks later, Dad collapsed.
His medications had been altered.
My mother suspected David but lacked evidence.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were twenty-four. Your father had just died. David disappeared from Kensington Capital shortly afterward.”
“But then he joined Ethan.”
“I didn’t know until years later.”
“And you still said nothing.”
“I was afraid.”
I stared at her.
Of David?
Or of what the truth would do?
“Both,” she whispered.
Ethan stepped forward.
“Did David approach me because of Sophia?”
Mom looked at him.
“Yes.”
Ethan recoiled.
There it was.
The cruelest revelation yet.
Maybe Ethan’s entire career had been manipulated because he loved me.
David had watched my father invest in him.
Then after Dad died, David moved closer.
He helped Ethan expand too quickly.
Encouraged debt.
Created dependence.
Waited.
Khloe.
The insurance policy.
The death certificate.
All designed to turn Ethan’s weakness into David’s opportunity.
But Ethan still made his choices.
David hadn’t forced him to cheat.
Hadn’t forced him to humiliate me.
That belonged to Ethan alone.
And Ethan knew it.
“I gave him everything he needed,” he whispered.
Mom shook her head.
“No. He exploited you.”
Ethan looked at me.
“He exploited what was already wrong with me.”
I did not rescue him from that truth.
Marcus’s phone rang.
He stepped away.
Then returned quickly.
“David wants a deal.”
“No,” I said.
“He says he has information about your father’s death.”
“Still no.”
“He also says someone else was involved.”
My mother went pale.
“Who?”
Marcus looked at her.
“He won’t say unless Sophia meets him.”
Ethan immediately objected.
“No.”
I turned.
“You don’t decide.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he nodded.
“You’re right.”
Progress sometimes looked very small.
I agreed to meet David in a monitored federal interview room.
He looked exactly as he always had.
Calm.
Expensive suit.
Perfect tie.
“You’ve grown into your father,” he said.
“You killed him.”
“Did I?”
“You drugged me.”
“I never touched you.”
“You paid people who did.”
“Allegedly.”
I leaned closer.
“You’re going to prison.”
His smile remained.
“Perhaps.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because you still think I’m the villain.”
“You are.”
“One of them.”
I felt cold.
“Who else?”
David leaned back.
“Ask yourself who had access to your father’s medication.”
“My mother?”
He smiled.
“No.”
“Arthur?”
Nothing.
My heartbeat changed.
Then David said the name.
“Charles Whitaker.”
I stared.
The man who had welcomed me at Kensington Hall.
My father’s oldest friend.
The man who had known me since childhood.
David smiled wider.
May you like
“Your father wasn’t investigating only me, Sophia.”
“He was investigating Charles.”
