Chapter 2 - THE FATHER WHO NEVER LEFT
Jasmine did not sleep.
At seven the next morning, she called her mother again.
No answer.
At seven-ten:
Nothing.
At seven-thirty, Jasmine finally received a text.
DON’T INVOLVE DRAKE.
Her stomach dropped.
She had never told her mother Derek was inside the apartment.
She showed him the message when she arrived at work.
Derek read it once.
Then:
“Who knows I was with you?”
“Marcus.”
“My driver.”
“And your security team.”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
Jasmine sat slowly.
Her mother knew too much.
Derek did not pull her into his office.
He asked:
“Do you still want to work today?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
“Do not lock me upstairs like evidence.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He almost smiled.
Then:
“I’ve moved you off confidential Aster-related documents until we understand the conflict.”
Professional.
Correct.
It still stung.
Good decisions sometimes do.
At nine, Jasmine called her mother from a conference room with her attorney present.
Yes.
Attorney.
Derek offered company counsel.
Jasmine declined.
She hired her own.
A sharp woman named Naomi Keller.
Her mother finally answered.
“Why is a lawyer here?”
Jasmine froze.
“How do you know she’s here?”
Silence.
Naomi wrote something on a legal pad.
ASK WHO IS WITH HER.
Jasmine did.
Her mother started crying.
“I didn’t want this.”
“What?”
“Any of it.”
“Mom, what is Aster?”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ll know.”
“Who?”
No answer.
Then Jasmine asked the question she had never needed to ask before.
“What was Dad’s real job?”
Silence.
Her mother stopped crying.
Derek, seated across the room only because Jasmine allowed it, looked up.
Finally:
“He worked for Drake.”
Jasmine forgot how to breathe.
“What?”
“Your father worked for Drake Industries.”
Her mother’s voice broke.
“Internal audit.”
Jasmine looked at Derek.
His face was unreadable.
“He didn’t abandon us?”
Her mother said nothing.
“Mom.”
“No.”
One word.
Twenty years of childhood collapsed.
Jasmine stood.
“What happened to him?”
“He died.”
Her hand gripped the table.
“When?”
“When you were eight.”
“You told me he left.”
“I know.”
“You told me he chose another woman.”
“I know.”
“You let me hate him.”
“I know!”
Her mother sobbed.
Jasmine’s anger became strangely calm.
“How did he die?”
“Warehouse fire.”
Derek stood.
“Which warehouse?”
Her mother heard him.
“No.”
Panic.
“Jasmine, get away from him.”
“Why?”
“Because his family killed your father.”
Derek stopped.
Naomi’s pen froze.
Jasmine stared at the phone.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said his family.”
“Thomas found something.”
Thomas Cole.
Her father had a name that suddenly felt alive.
“What?”
“Money.”
Her mother whispered:
“He said someone was using vendor companies to move money through Drake subsidiaries.”
Aster.
Then:
“He wanted to tell Derek’s father.”
Victor Drake.
Dead six years.
“But before he could, the warehouse burned.”
Jasmine’s entire body chilled.
Her mother continued:
“Two days later, Malcolm Drake came to our apartment.”
Derek’s face changed.
“What did he want?”
“A box.”
“What box?”
“Thomas’s records.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
Her mother went silent.
Then:
“I gave it to you.”
Jasmine frowned.
“When?”
“The week you moved to New York.”
“I didn’t get a box.”
“Yes, you did.”
Her mother’s voice trembled.
“Your father’s books.”
Jasmine looked toward the wall of her apartment in her mind.
Boxes of old paperbacks.
Children’s books.
College texts.
May you like
Her father’s books had been sitting beside her bed for six years.
And one of them apparently contained something Malcolm Drake had been searching for since she was eight years old.
