Chapter 23
VAUGHN
I’m sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the door behind which the night waits. Riley has been outside for over an hour. I know she needs to process what she’s just heard. A truth that completely derails her life.
I experienced it myself, back then, at sixteen, standing in my parents' bedroom and realizing that the world I knew no longer existed.
There is a moment—an exact, measurable moment—when the pain becomes so great that the body can no longer process it.
Then everything goes silent. Like a screen crashing and showing only black.
Riley is currently in that black screen.
And I’m the one who pulled the plug.
I stand up and look out the window. She’s still sitting there, her head in her hands.
I wonder why this is affecting me so emotionally.
I’ve destroyed many lives by hacking secrets or exposing people.
The difference is: those people were usually guilty.
And Riley is, if such a thing exists, the definition of innocence.
I knew this moment would come. I planned it. I’ve had that adoption decree on my hard drive for months. I researched the Thompsons, found their address, verified their circumstances. I prepared every detail like a surgical procedure.
What I didn't prepare for was the feeling that washed over me when Riley collapsed on the porch steps and cried silently. When I stood three steps away and could do nothing because I was the reason for her tears.
Not Blackstone. Not the Thompsons. Not the past.
Me.
I could have told her sooner. Before she started asking me questions about my mother. Before she placed her hand on mine. Before we slept together.
But I waited. Not out of strategy—I tell myself that too often.
But out of cowardice. Because I knew the truth about the adoption would change everything, and because I didn't want to give up the days with her.
The coffee mugs in the morning. The uneven tomato cubes.
The laugh she tried to suppress when I sang for Gerald the cactus.
I fell in love with a woman who was supposed to be a means to an end. And at the same time, I withheld the most important truth of her life from her. That doesn't make me better than Richard Blackstone. It just makes me a different kind of liar.
I check my watch. It’s time for the third call.
I retrieve the satellite router from its hiding place, activate the connection, and open the laptop. Griffin wrote two hours ago:
Terms are set. Contract is watertight. Mutual non-disclosure clause, notarized. If Blackstone signs, he can't report Vaughn without incriminating himself. And vice versa. MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction. Elegant and ugly at the same time.
MAD. Griffin’s favorite acronym. Mutual destruction as a guarantee of peace. It ended the Cold War, and it will bring Richard Blackstone to his senses.
I open the voice app. Activate the six-fold VPN cascade. Dial the number.
This time it rings five times before he picks up. When his voice comes, it sounds different than in previous conversations. Not angry, not frightened. Tired. The voice of an old man who has stopped fighting something he can't control.
“I’m listening,” Richard Blackstone says.
No greeting. No threat. Just three words that taste of resignation.
“Before we start,” I say. “How much has your new head of security found out about me?”
“Why should I tell you that?”
“Because I’m the one making the rules here, and otherwise, this call ends immediately.”
“We found out you were a member of a student society,” he continues. “Chester Street Society. Along with a certain Griffin Calloway, who is now a lawyer in Manhattan. My guess: he is your legal counsel.”
Griffin. I suppress a frown. That they found the link to Griffin doesn't surprise me—the Chester Street Society is discoverable with enough effort, and Griffin’s career is publicly documented.
But it changes nothing. Griffin is a lawyer.
Everything he does for me falls under attorney-client privilege.
Blackstone can have him questioned, but Griffin won't tell him a thing.
“Impressive research,” I say. “And worthless at the same time. You know my name, my birth date, and my lawyer’s name.
You don't know where I am, where Riley is, how much evidence I’ve gathered against you, or whether that material is already held by a third party as insurance.
” I pause. “Which it is, in case you were wondering.”
In fact, Griffin has deposited three full copies of the files in separate, sealed envelopes—with a notary in Delaware, with a judge friend in California, and in a Swiss bank vault.
Should anything happen to me or Riley, these envelopes open automatically within thirty days.
It’s a dead man’s switch that Blackstone needs to know about for the deal to work.
“You’ve protected yourself,” Blackstone says. It’s not a question.
“Triply. Should anything happen to me or Riley—an accident, a mugging, a surprise arrest—the files go to three different recipients simultaneously.
FBI, SEC, and the New York Times editorial board.
Automatically. Without any action on my part.
The system is designed so that I can't even stop it if I wanted to.”
That’s a lie. Of course I can stop it. But Blackstone needs to believe I can't so he has no incentive to pressure me.
“Mercer.” For the first time, he speaks my name as if I were a real human and not just a phantom on the phone. “I remember your father. He was a good engineer.”
The sentence catches me off guard. A good engineer. Like saying: a good restaurant, a good wine. Is this guy really trying to go the empathetic route? My father was a footnote in Blackstone’s career. A business case that was closed.
“He was more than that,” I say. My voice remains calm, but my grip on the edge of the table tightens. “He was my father. And you destroyed him.”
“Times were different. The business world—”
“Enough of that,” I interrupt him. “It’s time for the deal.”
“Talk.”
“The terms are simple. First: you take no action against me. No charges, no investigators, no retaliation. Not now, not in a year, not in twenty years. Second: you leave Riley alone. No contact, no monitoring, no attempts to bring her back. If she ever reaches out to you on her own, that’s her decision. Not yours.”
Silence. I hear him breathing.
“And in return?” he asks.
“In return, the files don't go to the authorities. No FBI, no SEC, no press. Your loan fraud, your extortions, the forced adoption—everything stays in my vault. Your empire remains intact. Your name stays clean. Your casino stays yours.”
“You don't want money.”
“No.”
“No share.”
“No.”
“The postnuptial agreement?”
“Will be annulled as soon as you sign the non-disclosure agreement.”
“Why?” he asks. “You have me. You could take everything. Why do you leave my empire standing?”
“Because I’m not interested in your empire. I never was.”
“What then?”
“Riley.”
The word fills the line. I hear his breath hitch.
“You want my daughter.”
“She isn't your daughter, Richard. You know that as well as I do.”
He says nothing to that. It’s as if someone on the other side hit the pause button.
After what feels like an eternity, he says: “I raised her. Twenty-seven years. Every night she had nightmares. Every birthday. Every Christmas. I was there. Always.”
“You were there. Behind cameras and locked doors and security protocols. You were there like a warden in a maximum-security wing. That isn't being a father. That’s false imprisonment.”
“You don't understand—”
“I understand more than you’d like. I understand you promised Emilia you’d look after Riley. And I understand that after Emilia died, you forgot the difference between protecting and possessing.”
His breathing quickens. I’ve touched a nerve.
“The contract will be delivered to you by my lawyer,” I say. “You have forty-eight hours to sign and have it notarized. After that, the matter is settled.”
“And if I don't sign?”
“Then tomorrow evening, every news site in the country will feature an article about a casino mogul who destroys families, blackmails parents, and buys children. And the day after tomorrow, FBI agents will be standing in your lobby.”
Silence.
“You didn't find me for thirty years. Why now?” he asks.
“I found you thirty years ago, Richard. I was just waiting.”
I end the call and type a message to Griffin.
Third call finished. Deal offered. Blackstone will sign. Send the contract to his firm. Forty-eight hours.
Griffin’s reply comes after a minute.
Understood. Goes out tomorrow morning. Vaughn—whatever you do now: be careful with her.
I stare at the last sentence. Griffin didn't write: Be careful with the operation. He wrote: Be careful with her.
He knows something is going on between us. Griffin is one of the smartest people I know, and he knew it the day I wrote Complicated instead of Under control.
I delete the messages, disconnect the router, and stow everything away. Then I get up and go outside.
Riley is sitting on the porch steps. Exactly where I left her two hours ago. She has her knees pulled to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her hair falls loose over her shoulders. In the starlight, it shimmers dark red, almost black.
I sit down beside her and put my arm around her.
We sit in silence side by side and look into the desert. The night has turned cold. Her body is shivering slightly, and I pull my long-sleeved shirt over my head and drape it over her shoulders. She reaches for the fabric and pulls it tighter around her.
Minutes pass as we watch the stars travel across the sky.
Then Riley says, without looking at me, her voice hoarse from her tears:
“Take me to them.”
Four words. And I know she means the Thompsons. To the people who lost her twenty-seven years ago.
“Okay,” I say, and she leans her head against my shoulder.