Chapter 23
Ben
Kent.
The name clatters around inside Ben’s skull like a dropped wrench in an empty corridor.
Dad’s right hand man. The guy who laughs too loudly at all of Dad’s jokes, who calls Ben ‘kiddo’ unironically.
The man who gave him his first set of keys to the plant and said he’d earned them.
Who slipped him a lemon bar from the covered tray at his mother’s funeral because Ben was too overwhelmed, too devastated, too scared, to be the first one to lift the foil.
Kent, who’s been looking him in the eye at every Monday morning meeting and lying. Over and over. Lying that he believed in him. Lying that he had his back. Smiling while carving Ben up behind closed doors.
The betrayal doesn’t just hurt. It rearranges him. Clear-cuts space where trust used to live and fills it with fury and heartbreak and humiliation.
Jackson’s voice finds its way through, low and even, delivering the damage report: what he overheard, what it means, what comes next.
Facts, options, a plan. Softly delivered words, steady hands.
It’s helping, sort of. But there’s a part of Ben that still feels like he’s just been tased. Muscles locked and ears ringing.
Jackson has no reason to lie, not about this.
Suddenly the picture snaps into stark relief.
It’s not just tonight. It’s not just one overheard conversation at a bar.
It’s the way Kent brushed off the MarineSelect concern in the meeting, how quickly he pivoted, changed the subject, turned the room against Ben with a single condescending smile.
Kent had made sure he told Ben’s father about the cod line before Ben had the chance, even though Ben was the one dealing with it.
Undermining him, stealing credit, making him look slow and indecisive.
Kent had made certain that Dad heard about the one day, one lousy day, that Ben missed rounds on the floor.
The past week’s been a highlight reel of Kent quietly sawing off the legs of Ben’s credibility while smiling right through it.
The party swells around Ben, music and laughter, clinking glasses, tinsel glinting off flushed, happy faces. But none of it feels real anymore.
He stares through the crowd at Kent’s back. How long has this been going on? Months? Years?
Ben can’t even pinpoint when it soured. Just that it’s gone now. Pulled out from under him like a tablecloth. It leaves him standing in the center of a party he’s currently hosting, for a company he’s spent half his life trying to prove himself worthy of, feeling stupid and used.
When Kent finally stumbles off toward the bathroom, Ben still doesn’t feel ready. There’s a part of him that still wants it to be a mistake. A misunderstanding. Anything but this.
Then Jackson looks at him. Doesn’t say a word. He just gives him a small, determined nod.
Ben doesn’t know how it happened so fast, or why it feels so easy. But it does. There’s no strain to it. No performance. No hoops to jump through or metrics to meet. Just trust. Quiet and whole. Even in the middle of this nightmare, that part feels solid.
They move together.
Past garland-strung doorways and flickering votives, past sugar cookies on silver trays, past pine and perfume and the sticky sweetness of overpoured eggnog and toward the quieter part of the house, where the walls aren’t lined with people.
Kent is staggering out of the guest bathroom just as they turn the corner. He startles at the sight of them, but he recovers fast, too drunk to hide the stumble, too practiced to show the shame.
“Hey,” he says, a little too jovial. “You boys enjoying the party?”
Ben forces a polite smile. “Sure. You?”
“Free drinks were a nice touch this year. Though it’s all bar rail shit.” He jerks his thumb behind him. “Your dad still keep the good stuff in here?”
Kent pushes into the study without waiting for an answer and heads straight for the scotch.
The decanter lives by the window, on the antique walnut console table with elegant spindly legs and hand-carved scrollwork.
Ben remembers running toy cars across that edge when he was too small to reach the top.
He hasn’t thought about that table in years, not really, but now he can picture it with his mother’s crystal vase. Peonies in spring. Dahlias in fall.
Kent takes a long drink, scanning the study, a curl of something sour in his voice. “Must’ve been nice, huh? Growing up with all this.”
“I wasn’t exactly knocking back a lot of scotch when I was a kid,” Ben says flatly.
Kent chuckles, but it’s empty. “Helluva speech, by the way. Legacy and future and all that bullshit. Very inspiring.” He swivels, tumbler dangling from his fingers. “Does your dad know you’re already shuffling him off to a cozy retirement?”
Ben doesn’t bite. “Does my dad know you’ve been forging my signature on contract waivers?”
The shift is instant.
Kent lowers his glass. No more grin. “Come again?”
Ben swallows. “I think you heard me. MarineSelect. I didn’t sign those contracts. I think you did, Kent.”
For a moment, Kent doesn’t move at all. Then his face twists, grotesque, mean, all the more terrifying in how sloppy he is.
“That’s a serious fucking allegation, kiddo,” he says.
“Didn’t think you did anything but mince through the office with your little clipboard and your feel-good mission statements. ”
Ben’s spine straightens. “That contract could’ve ruined us.”
“Oh, spare me. I’m thinking you just forgot you signed it, because maybe I want to believe you’re not such a fucking pussy.
” Kent steps forward, scotch sloshing over his fingers.
“Jesus, kid. No wonder your dad had to park you in middle management with training wheels. The waste gets hauled off-site; what happens after that isn’t our concern.
You really think anyone in this industry gives a shit where the trucks end up? ”
“I do. And the people who live here would too,” Ben says.
Kent snorts, dismissive, like he’s swatting away a fly. “This is how grown-ups do business. I keep this place afloat while you jerk off about eco-audits.”
“You didn’t just break the rules, Kent. You gambled with everything my father built.”
“And what about what I built?” He laughs again, bitter this time. “That MarineSelect deal is the road to everything I should’ve had years ago. If I had been offered something to push it through, well, let’s just say I fucking earned it.”
“You forged my name to do it,” Ben says.
“No one questions the golden boy,” Kent snaps.
“That’s the point, Ben. You walk around with that last name like it’s armor, and things just fall in place.
Name’s on the factory, even though you didn’t do a damn thing to put it there.
I give thirty years of my life to this place and what do I get?
Benched. Passed over. Stuck babysitting a bleeding-heart brat with a trust fund and a fantasy.
I gave this place everything. Time for it to give something back. ”
Ben stares at him. Kent has gone past denial and into self-righteousness. It’s partially the booze, but that’s not the whole story. He wants Ben to know everything he’s held back. It feels good to let go after a life of faking it. Ben can sympathize with that, if nothing else.
Ben’s voice doesn’t rise, but there’s a crack in it, low and close. “I trusted you. Dad trusted you. I thought … You were supposed to be looking out for the plant.”
“I was. I know what you’d do to this place, kiddo,” Kent says, eyes like stone.
“I could see the writing on the wall. You want to play CEO, be my guest. But you’re not built for it.
Never were, no matter how much your dad doesn’t want to acknowledge it.
And when he finally hands you the reins, you’re going to drive the whole thing straight into the ground.
Because you don’t have the first goddamn clue how the world really works. ”
He pauses, then smiles, slow and cutting.
“You always were your mother’s son,” he says, almost like it’s an afterthought.
Almost fond. “Soft. Naive. Floating through life on good intentions and family money. She was the same. Thought the world could be different if she was just sweet enough. Charity balls and thank you cards. Like that’s real work. ”
Ben flinches, but Kent doesn’t stop. He leans in, voice thick with contempt, the stink of scotch on his breath. “She was a spoiled brat. And so are you.”
There’s a sound beside Ben. Jackson. Moving, instinctively, protectively, just a little closer.
And that’s when Kent sees it: the phone in Jackson’s hand. The pulsing square of the voice recorder app.
Kent’s expression warps with rage. “You little shit—”
He lunges.
Jackson tries to backpedal but Kent’s already on him, fast, drunk, wild-eyed, fingers clawing for the phone.
Ben doesn’t think. It’s all instinct as he shoves himself into the middle of it. Kent grabs Ben by the lapels and yanks, a sudden, vicious snap of motion. Ben’s dress shoes skid on the polished floor, and leave the Earth.
He hits the console table at an angle that makes the world go white. Something gives with a sickening crack. Wood, maybe, or bone. Then there’s the heat, flashing through his ribs, his chest, his shoulder. His whole left side is a brushfire of pain.
Ben wheezes, trying to pull in air. All he gets is static.
Above him there’s just vague movement and noise. Kent, bellowing, a slurred, spit-flecked sound, too close, too loud. Jackson, crouched low, shielding Ben, shoving Kent back with one arm.
Someone shouts his name.
Lou. Big and furious and charging in, hauling Kent up by the collar like a man ten years younger. Kent snarls and thrashes, but Lou’s already dragging him back, slamming him into the bookshelf hard enough to make the curios rattle.
Pina’s right behind him, phone to her ear, voice sharp and clipped. “Yes. The Whitaker place over on Ashmere Lane. It’s…fuck….it’s….it’s got the stupid fucking fancy name.”
“Hildebrandt Hall,” Jackson barks, too loud, too frantic, as he drops back into view.
Ben tries a smile, but he’s not sure it has the reassuring effect he intended. “You… paid attention to the tour,” he manages, voice thin and thready.
“Of course I did,” Jackson says, rough and low and a little watery, his hands cradling Ben’s face.
“I think—” Ben’s throat constricts. “I think something’s broken.”
Jackson’s fingers ghost gently over Ben’s chest, horrified but careful. “Okay. That’s okay. We’re getting you help. Just hang on.”
Ben blinks, eyes swimming. “I’m sorry.”
Jackson shakes his head like it hurts to hear. “No. No. Not your fault,” he murmurs, voice cracking. “Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault.”
“Sometimes you… just say sorry… because you are sorry people are upset… Jackson.” Ben curls tighter into himself.
He doesn’t even know where to put the pain.
It’s everywhere. The room feels a mile wide, loud with the sound of too many voices swelling in the hallway.
There’s blood on his palm. Glass in his hair.
And the only thing holding him together is the warmth of Jackson’s hands.
And then a new voice cuts through it all.
“Benny?”
He looks up.
His father is standing in the doorway, coat half-off, fresh from the airport.
And he’s seen everything.