Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Warren
The engine hums steadily as I head south on the highway, my headlights cutting through stretches of empty road.
Salt air slips in through the cracked window, stinging my eyes. Or maybe it's the approximately ninety minutes of sleep I got last night between the kicks to my ribs, the mosquitoes, and the hard ground.
My grip tightens on the wheel, knuckles aching.
The sound keeps replaying, a reminder I don’t want gone.
What I do want gone is the way Janie looked at me on that porch, like all those years of lines we swore not to cross, and the secret she kept anyway, didn’t matter.
The brush of her fingers, the hesitation in my own chest, none of that can happen. I'm exhausted. That's all that was. Not to mention, I'm still on a high from spending the last twenty-four hours with my son.
A momentary lapse in judgement.
I smiled at his high, squeaky giggle when his marshmallow went up in flames. Wide-eyed, not afraid. Pure delight. "Look! It's on fire! It's on FIRE!"
"That's how you know it's perfect, buddy."
The memory washes over me. His small body tucked against mine as we watched stars appear one by one.
The weight of him as he finally fell asleep, head heavy against my chest, fingers sticky with marshmallow still clutching my shirt.
I'd carried him to the tent, careful not to wake him, and spent ten minutes picking bits of grass from his hair.
My son. My boy.
I swallow hard, something raw and tender cracking open inside my chest.
Then another image intrudes. Janie. Fuck. The parting of her lips, like words were waiting there. Words I didn't let her speak.
My jaw locks. I’m still angry. I have every right to be fucking furious. Five years were stolen from me. Decisions made without my voice. He grew up not knowing me as his father, and I was denied the chance to see life through his eyes.I slam my palm against the steering wheel.
The truck cabin is suddenly making me feel claustrophobic. It's too small, too hot. I crack the window further, letting the cool, fall night air rush in. I gulp it down. It doesn't help.
I take the next turn too fast, tires protesting. The pain in my chest isn't just anger anymore. It's something worse. Something dangerous.
I'd stood there on that porch, looking at her, at the woman who'd kept my son from me, and still, I'd wanted to touch her face. To feel if her skin was as soft as I remembered. To see if her lips tasted the same.
"You're losing your mind, Carter," I mutter to the empty truck.
I force myself to focus on the road ahead, on getting home. On maintaining the hard line I've drawn between us. Between what we once were and what we can never be again.
Monday morning waits. Meetings. Briefs. Cases. The controlled, contained life I've built.
But as I pull into my driveway, I know with sickening certainty that nothing's contained anymore, and I'm in deep shit if I can't pull this together.
The fluorescent lights in the CHG conference room reflect off the glossy table surface, casting an unforgiving glow over the spreadsheets and projections splayed between us.
I shift in my chair, acutely aware of the mere inches separating Janie's elbow from mine.
“The community vaccination program would open CHG doors to underserved families two evenings a week in the first quarter alone.” Janie gestures to the schedule grid on page sixteen of our presentation, her voice carrying that perfect blend of passion and practicality that makes board members lean forward.
“We’ve already secured commitments from three community centers to help us identify families most in need. ”
Her perfume drifts across the gap between us. I grip my pen tighter, focusing on the numbers instead of the curve of her wrist as she turns the page.
“Warren, what about liability concerns for extending services beyond our membership?” Caleb adjusts his bow tie. Today’s is navy with tiny sailboats.
I clear my throat. "I've drafted waivers that protect CHG while remaining accessible to families.
" I flip to the legal section, hyperaware of Janie's shoulder nearly brushing mine as she leans to see my notes.
"We'll need standard insurance riders, but nothing that would create barriers to the communities we're targeting. "
"Impressive work, both of you." Dr. Parker Matthews nods approvingly. "Your complementary approaches make for a comprehensive plan. Legal protections without sacrificing accessibility. That's exactly what we need."
If they only knew.
If they could see inside my head, the rage still simmering beneath my practiced calm, the betrayal coiled around every interaction with the woman beside me.
Janie tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, her fingers trembling slightly. Only I notice.
"The budget breakdown on page twenty shows the cost efficiencies of our approach," she continues smoothly.
Under the table, my knee bounces, a small betrayal of the storm inside me.
Yet watching her command the room, seeing the project that will help thousands of children come to life under her leadership, something unwelcome stirs beneath my anger.
Pride. Damn it.
The meeting adjourns with handshakes and congratulations. I pack my notes with mechanical precision, sliding each document into its labeled folder.
"Warren, do you have a minute?" Janie's voice is low, meant only for me.
I snap my briefcase closed.
"No. I've got to get back to the office."
"Alright. Well, that does it, gentleman. I'll be in touch."
And without a second glance, she's gone. God, why do I have to be such a dick?
My condo sits dark. The only light is the blue glow of my phone as I scroll through Beckett’s soccer schedule. I already know it by heart, but the ritual steadies me. Tuesday, 4:00. Thursday, 5:15. Saturday at 9:00. A rhythm to cling to while everything else is unsteady.
Thankfully, Margaret slipped me the printout. It's easier this way. Easier than asking Janie directly, easier than putting myself in that situation when I don’t have to.
This isn’t how co-parenting and custody work, not really. I know better than anyone that sideline promises and casual drop-ins won't cut it in the long run. To do it right, there have to be petitions, filings, and orders.
But I'm not ready to go there, yet. So I’ll settle for this. For now.
The ringtone startles me. The screen flashes with an unknown number, but it's vaguely familiar. It's a Palm Beach area code.
My stomach tightens. I can't say why, but I have a hunch this has something to do with my father.
Against every instinct, I answer.
"Warren." It's not a question. And it's spoken with a voice I’ve heard only once in the last twenty years. It's thinner than I remembered, but still carrying that steel edge beneath the polish.
“Mother.”
Silence stretches, not decades this time, but days. The space between the call about my father’s death and this one.
“The funeral is Friday.” She clears her throat. “Private. Family only.”
My laugh comes out harsh. “I’m not family. That was made abundantly clear.”
“You’re his son.” Her voice cracks, surprising me. Eleanor Carter doesn’t crack. “Please come. For me.”
I pace to the window, watching palm trees bend in the night breeze. The same view my father likely had from his hospital room. Something twists in my chest.
“Fine. I’ll come. But I won’t sit up front with the family.”
"Thank you." A pause. "There's something else."
Of course there is. The twist in my chest hardens to stone.
"What is it?"
"Carter Corp is broke."
I stop pacing. "What do you mean?"
"The revitalization project your father announced before he went downhill. It was smoke and mirrors. There are no investors. No reserves." Her voice drops. "Your grandfather's company will collapse within months if we don't do something to save it."
We?
My jaw locks so tight my teeth ache. "And?"
"I need you to step in, Warren. I'm asking you to invest, to save what your grandfather built. I need you to save your namesake's business."
The laugh that erupts from me is bitter, incredulous. "With what money? I've been cut off for twenty years, remember? Disowned for telling the truth. I'm an attorney, but as you know, I'm not the rich kind."
"Not entirely." Her voice shifts, becomes sharper. "Your grandfather made provisions before he died."
My pulse quickens. "What are you talking about?"
"Warren, you own thirty percent of Carter Corp. You have since your twenty-first birthday."
The room tilts. I grip the windowsill for balance.
"That's not possible. Father would have—"
"Your father couldn't touch it. Your grandfather made sure of that." She takes a breath. "There's more."
The line falls silent after her revelation. The pounding of my heart fills the void.
"More what?"
"Your trust. It belongs to you. It's still sitting there."
"A trust?" My voice is a rasp. "What trust?"
"The irrevocable trust in your name that was set up when you were born.
We decided we wouldn't tell you boys about it until it vested at age twenty-five.
And, well, you weren't around when you were twenty-five for us to tell you about it.
" Her breath hitches. "The dividends, the reinvestments, they've been accumulating since the day you were born. Untouched."
I press my forehead against the cool glass of the window. "I don't believe that. Father would have gotten that long ago if the business were failing."
"He couldn't touch it."
"How much?"
"Just over one billion."
My legs nearly buckle. One billion dollars. The number doesn't compute. It doesn't seem real.
"That's impossible."
"Warren, I've seen the statements. Your grandfather built failsafes into everything."
"So I've been, what? Secretly rich this whole time while scraping by in college and law school, thinking my education trust was the only thing I had?" Acid rises in my throat.
"Your father forbade it. He believed you needed to learn your lesson. He was waiting for you to come back."
My fist balls at my side. "My lesson. For telling the truth."
"Warren, please." Her voice shifts, softens in a way I've never heard. "Carter Corp is dying. The company your grandfather built from nothing will collapse within months. Don't let your pride stop you from doing the right thing. You're the only one who can save it."
"Why would I?" The laugh that escapes me is hollow. "Why would I lift a finger to save anything with the Carter name? My father told me I wasn't a Carter."
"You are, Warren. You will always be. You can run it differently. Better. The way it should have been run."
My chest goes tight, pressure building behind my ribs. All those years of struggle. The pro bono cases I took because I believed in justice over profit. The clients who reminded me of myself—cast out, cut off, fighting for dignity.
And all that time, they hid what they thought was a way to manipulate me. A fortune that could have changed everything.
“No.” I spit the word like iron. “Carter Corp should die with him. I don’t care how much money sits in that trust.”
“Warren—”
“I built my life without the Carter name or Carter money. I won’t use it now to clean up his mess.”
Her silence hums on the line.“You’re the only one who can.”
I end the call, the click final. Caustic fury burns in my gut.
Rich. Obscenely rich. The irony chokes me as I stare into the darkness of my modest condo, paid for with money I earned myself, dollar by painstaking dollar.
That money could’ve made things easier back then, maybe kept the lights on in those early years, maybe helped a few more people I couldn’t afford to take on. But that wasn’t the point. It never was.
One billion dollars.
My reflection stares back from the window, hollow-eyed, jaw tight. For a moment, I see him in me. I see my father staring back at me, and the thought makes me sick.
Then Beckett’s face flashes in my mind. His messy hair under the glow of a campfire. The way he looked at me on the trail, curious, trusting. My son.
One billion dollars. An empire in ashes. None of it matters.
Because the only legacy that matters is four miles away in Spider-Man pajamas, who doesn’t even know I’m his father.