24. Declan #2
She meets my stare, blinking innocently.
“No point, not really. Uh, just…love what you’ve done with the place.
The feng shui is un real .” She jabs a thumb over her shoulder toward the kitchen.
“The ceramics littering the floor of the kitchen?” She does a chef’s kiss with her fingers, ignoring the daggers I’m flinging her way.
“Can’t imagine what you could’ve done differently.
Some people might use cupboards, but you?
Nah. Just smash all the plates. I know you’re enjoying the new lifestyle of an unemployed bum, but maybe interior decorating is the career path for you. ”
Nolan comes into the room, digging into a cereal box with a frown. “I disagree,” he grumbles. “I could use a plate right about now. And why the fuck is your fridge empty? You don’t even have milk.”
“I didn’t invite either of you assholes here,” I gripe. “If you don’t like it, go stay at the hotel with Mom.” I lean my head back against the couch, feeling fucking exhausted. “Why’re you both here?”
“Because why get a hotel room when our brother has a perfectly good condo to house us while the feds raid our home?” Darcy reasons.
“A condo with one bed,” I point out.
“Which leads to my next question. Why is it—” she gestures at the bed base still leaning against the living room floor. “And the mattress. Are you still a bedwetter or are you planning on killing someone on it?”
“Careful, Darce,” Nolan mutters. “I think his head might actually explode.”
“Well, if he moves over to his plastic-wrapped mattress, it’ll be an easy clean-up.”
“There’s nowhere for the two of you to sleep,” I grit out, eyelid twitching. “And it probably wasn’t a great idea to leave Mom on her own. So, if you could just kindly fuck…off…”
Darcy waves a flippant hand. “She popped a couple of valium, and was out before we left.”
I sigh. “How was she?”
They share a solemn look before Nolan says, “As well as you could expect. You know she’s never really let herself think too hard about Dad and who he really is.”
“Much good it did us,” I mutter bitterly.
Darcy straightens, her glare turning razor-sharp.
“Don’t put this on her. She might live with her head buried in the sand, but we’ve always known who she is.
You made choices here, Declan, and they affected all of us, including her.
” She sits next to me, her hand grabbing mine.
“Maybe if you hadn’t kept this all to yourself, things could have turned out differently.
” Nolan scoffs doubtfully, and she concedes with a nod.
“Okay, not differently, but we could have had some warning .”
“How long have you been collecting evidence?” Nolan asks quietly.
I chew on my lip, eyes flicking between the two of them. “A year. I started digging after?—”
“After he sicced you on Lily,” Nolan finishes. “That’s when everything changed, huh?”
I tip my chin up. “I should never have let him manipulate me into it, knowing everything he was asking me to do went against my moral compass—both personally and professionally. I knew it was wrong, and I never fully understood his desire to raze Hi-Tech to the ground, but…”
“Why did you go through with it?” Darcy asks. “You knew she’d find out eventually.”
“I knew,” I agreed grimly. “I wanted Hi-Tech to be safe in my hands before she found out.”
“Your reasoning sucks,” Nolan grunts. “Even if you’d never made the deal with Grant to start with, he would’ve just found someone else to sell it to. Dad would never have got his hands on it.”
My brows climb my forehead at his naiveté.
“Do you really believe that? Because Dad was already making moves while I was on my honeymoon. He was tanking Hi-Tech by going after the material suppliers and contracts, even though Silvia had to have told him about me signing off on the sale when I got back.” I sit up.
“It wouldn’t have mattered who owned Hi-Tech in the end, Dad would’ve tried destroying it just because he knew what the company meant to Grant. ”
Darcy shifts closer, leaning against my side. “Why didn’t you tell us?” Her voice is soft, wounded. “If we hadn’t overheard you and Dad arguing last year about Lily, we never would’ve known any of it. Even now, it feels like you’re still keeping us in the dark.”
“There was nothing you could’ve done, Darce,” I protest. “There was no point in you knowing. I was just protecting you.”
“It’s not your job to protect us,” Nolan says firmly.
“And it’s not your job to protect Lily. You’ve got to stop shutting people out and expecting to do everything on your own.
Look around you. Look where it’s got you.
” He drops the cereal box to his side, his other arm sweeping out around the room before landing the finishing blow. “Where’s Lily, Dec?”
Sleep is hard to come by that night. Standing in the hotel hallway the next morning, it feels like my eyeballs have been scrubbed with sandpaper.
Mom opens the door at my knock. She’s dressed for the day already, in a silk blouse and linen pants. Her makeup doesn’t quite hide the stress lining her mouth as she beckons me inside.
“Declan,” she greets softly as I hug her, hating how frail she feels.
“Mom,” I murmur into her hair. “How are you?”
She steps back, lifting her shoulder in a dainty shrug. “I’ve been better,” she admits, leading me over to two armchairs set up in front of the large window.
A coffee cart has already been set up, with a selection of pastries and fruits. I grab a coffee, but she shakes me off, her brow clenched in thought.
“The lawyer’s already been in contact. He says—” she clears her throat, eyes wary.
“He said that it’s an open and shut case, and there’s not much he can do.
The evidence they’ve compiled against your father is…
” She frowns down at her hands. “He says the best way forward is for your father to take a plea deal, and that a judge might be sympathetic enough to reduce the sentence. He wants us to provide testimonial and character witnesses to show another side of him.” My stomach sinks, but I don’t interrupt, waiting for her to spill it all in black and white for me.
“He suggested you by name, Declan. As the eldest son and heir to the Masters empire, and the CEO of Nexus.”
“I’m not the CEO anymore.”
She waves that off. “I’m sure that won’t matter.” Her smile is expectant, but Darcy’s words ring through my ears. It’s not your job to protect us.
“I can’t do that.”
She blinks, her eyes puzzled. “Why not?”
“I’m the one who compiled the evidence, Mom.” I lean forward, bracing for her reaction. “I’m the one who turned Dad in.”
For a long moment, she doesn’t move, and then she blows out a quiet, long breath, until it seems like every ounce of air must’ve left her body. She slumps in her chair, and I get up to crouch in front of her, taking her cold hands in mine.
“We’ll get through this,” I tell her firmly. “Darcy, Nolan, me and you. We have each other and we don’t need him. We let him control us for too long.”
Her eyes glimmer wetly. “And Lily,” she whispers. “We have Lily too, right?”
“Right,” I agree, praying it’s not a lie. “And Lily.”
Just saying her name sends my mind racing back to her, wondering how she is today after last night. After Nolan had asked me where she was, neither of them had spared a breath when they had started in on me, insisting that I fix what I broke.
When I’d asked them for suggestions, they’d been surprised, but it was—shockingly—Nolan who’d said, “You need to prove you’re trustworthy, right? And that she means something to you. So, it stands to reason you need a grand gesture. Something symbolic or meaningful.”
But sitting here with my mother, an idea pops into my head. Not a grand gesture as such, but something that will show Lily that this time, I’m sticking to my word and choosing the right side of the war.