25. Ford
FORDCHAPTER 25
B ut all escapes from family—as everyone knows—are temporary.
A mere week later, Emzee and I were headed back to Chicago for her sister-in-law Brooklyn’s baby shower.
As our flight descended into O’Hare, the familiar layout of the city came into view below us: the Chicago River, the dark monolith of the Willis Tower in the Loop, the John Hancock Center overlooking Lake Michigan.
The sense that I was truly home again washed over me.
It felt nice.
Despite the fact that I was overjoyed to be back in the city I loved and knew so well, however, I was also feeling paranoid.
I had no plans to see anyone from my old life while I was in town, but all the same, it was anxiety-inducing being on the outs with my parents.
They’d gone radio silent after our huge fight over Claudia at my Williamsburg apartment, but they’d crossed too many boundaries for me to be able to reach out and forgive them just yet.
And I was still infuriated by all the underhanded, fucked-up things they’d done in order to keep me and Emzee apart.
Meanwhile, I didn’t know what they were telling people about my absence from the city and the society events I usually attended with them.
It was possible my reputation had already suffered some damage.
And then I reminded myself that I didn’t care.
That it wasn’t my responsibility to back up whatever lies they were surely telling.
It had given me a whole new appreciation for the grace that Emzee had always shown ever since people first started shitting on her back at Wayland-Blaine Academy.
The guilt I felt over being the genesis of all that bullying might never leave me, but I felt like I was on a path to redemption at last. And it was a path I intended to stay on.
Speaking of bullies, Emzee hadn’t been thrilled when I relayed the insults my mom and dad had hurled at the entire Zoric family, but I had reassured her that my parents’ opinions had nothing to do with our future together.
That their plot to coerce me into marrying Claudia had been futile.
I knew my parents loved me, in their way, and that in trying to protect themselves and their legacy they were also trying to protect me…
but I had no room in my life for that kind of love and protection anymore.
Emzee and the baby were all I needed.
At least I had been welcomed back into the Zoric family fold with open arms. I wasn’t sure exactly what Emzee had told her brothers about our divorce, but I knew they were aware of her pregnancy, and the fact that she and I were back together for good.
The evening before the party, Emzee and I went over to Stefan and Tori’s place for an early dinner and to visit the new addition to the family.
Luka and Brooklyn were there, too.
“A baby changes everything,” Stefan was whispering.
“It really clarifies your priorities.”
We were all staring down at the crib, where baby Nina was swaddled carefully in a circus animal print blanket.
She looked drowsily up at all of us, half asleep and gurgling softly.
“She looks so peaceful,” Emzee said.
“Oh, sure. She looks peaceful now, but she was up all night screaming her sweet little head off,” Tori told us.
Both she and Stefan had dark circles under their eyes.
“I’m just trying to get as much sleep as I can before my little one comes,” Brooklyn said, rubbing her round belly.
“Zoric babies are loud when they don’t get what they want.” She winked at Luka.
“Just like their fathers.”
“You like it when I’m loud,” Luka said with a grin.
“Or was that the other way around—I like it when you’re loud?”
“Oh, stop it,” Brooklyn slapped his arm, grinning.
Stefan cleared his throat and looked at his watch.
“Aren’t you ladies going to be late for your appointment?” he asked.
He and Luka had arranged for the wives to get mani-pedis while the rest of us kept an eye on Baby Zoric.
“You’re right, we’d better get going,” Tori said.
We all tiptoed back out to the living room, and Brooklyn and Tori began gathering up their things.
“Are you sure you won’t join us, Em?”
Brooklyn clasped her hands over her chest. “Pretty please? We never get to see you anymore. I’m dying without our lunch dates.”
“I wish I could,” Emzee said.
“But I’m not technically off the clock just yet.”
“Oh, come on,” Brooklyn wheedled.
“You’ve been working so hard—look at the bags under your eyes. Your new boss is running you into the ground. You deserve a break.”
It was true that Emzee looked tired, but for once, I couldn’t blame Andrew for it.
She hadn’t been sleeping lately because of what was happening with the Bratva.
That and her morning sickness.
But she hadn’t told her sisters-in-law about her pregnancy yet.
“I really need to get this project taken care of,” Emzee said apologetically.
“Plus, I don’t want to miss a single second with Nina, especially now that I’m in New York all the time. You two enjoy. Let me take advantage of all the baby snuggles I can get while I’m still in town.”
“I’m sure she’d love some quality time with Auntie Em,” Tori agreed.
“See you soon. We won’t be long.”
The minute she and Brooklyn were out the door, the conversation turned serious, the tone of the room shifting significantly.
“Okay,” Luka said. “Time to get down to business.”
Technically, Emzee hadn’t been lying—she did have a project to take care of.
Sending Tori and Brooklyn to the salon had been Stefan’s way of getting the wives out of the house so that the Zoric siblings (and I) could have a family meeting about the situation with the Russians.
We sat around the dining room table, baby monitor propped up in the center so Stefan could keep an eye on Nina.
“These are the DRM board members we still need to convince,” Stefan said, passing around a sheet of paper with a list of names on it.
“They’re not in favor of a sale, and we have to get them to come around without telling them too much.”
“I’ll get it done,” Luka said, reviewing the list. “Leave it to me.”
“Are there any other agencies you could offer to sell the company to, privately?” I asked.
“Rather than outside investors who might not know how to run the business.”
Emzee nodded.
“Ford’s got a point. I know you were joking about Elite, but we should keep all our options open. They were interested in buying us out before.”
It was clear that Luka didn’t like the idea of selling to Elite, judging by the expression on his face.
“I’d hate to see them get their greedy hands on the business we built out of rubble.”
“That’s fair,” Stefan said.
“But at least they’d get all the strings attached to it as well.”
They all shared a laugh, and then it got quiet again.
“Do you remember how we used to play tag in the hallways?” Stefan asked.
“They’re so long that it was the perfect length for games, even though it used to drive the employees up the wall having us running around like a bunch of wild animals.”
“I kind of remember that,” Emzee said with a wistful smile.
“Or at least, I remember running after you. I could never catch you guys.”
Luka grinned.
“I remember. I always won, didn’t I?”
Stefan cut in, “You wish! My legs were twice as long as yours.”
“Pretty sure you cheated,” Luka said.
“You always cheated when we were kids.”
“Me?” Stefan put a hand to his chest as if he was offended.
“I’m not the one who’d break into the receptionist’s desk to steal candy during her lunch break, even when she told us we were only allowed to have one piece. You always were the troublemaker.”
“And you were always the one who told on me,” Luka shot back.
“I never would’ve gotten caught if you didn’t tell her.”
“What? She’d come back from lunch and catch you standing there with your hand in the drawer!” Stefan laughed.
“And you’d swear the candy was for Em.”
They reminisced some more, and I put my arm around Emzee, gently rubbing her shoulder to let her know I was there for her, even if I couldn’t take part in the conversation.
I could see the look of longing on her face, the unconscious hand she’d placed on her belly.
She didn’t remember much about her mother, I knew that…
but what she did remember was all tied up with the Danica Rose offices, the agency itself, and the paintings her mother had left behind when she died.
Paintings the Zoric children had split up amongst themselves.
Stefan kept his on the walls all over the condo, so I was familiar with Mrs. Zoric’s art.
Modern, edgy, a little bit abstract and a little bit feminine, with hints of nude curvy bodies and glimpses of nature in the dark swaths of thick paint.
I’d been told that Luka kept his canvases in storage, and I knew Emzee had hers boxed up at the loft, but she usually had one hanging in her bedroom.
I think it hurt her to look at them too often.
Or maybe it hurt her that she couldn’t connect the art to her mother in the way she wanted to.
She’d described it to me as a hole in her heart, growing up without a mother.
Her brothers had lost their mom at a young age, but at least they had memories of her, of being with her.
Emzee had none. And yet it seemed like she’d projected all those years of yearning outward—it had manifested in the way she was so committed to caring for the women Konstantin had hurt.
Helping them. Mothering them, in her own way.
Providing for them what she herself had missed out on.
That’s what See Yourself was all about.
Which is why it was so fucked that my parents were forcing her hand.
Forcing her to give up the non-profit, forcing all of the Zorics to give up their passions, their livelihood.
It wasn’t difficult to be on their side.
As far as I was concerned, they were more family to me than the people who had raised me.
We all needed Danica Rose Management in different ways, but Emzee was the one who needed it most of all.
The one who had done the most good with DRM’s influence and scrubbed-clean reputation.
I couldn’t let this happen—couldn’t just stand by while my parents manipulated my wife out of her last connection to her mother.
Because the charity wouldn’t be able to continue without DRM’s financial support.
Even if See Yourself was able to secure a ton of donations, it was Danica Rose’s money that had been covering the salaries of the admins, the cost of the non-profit’s rental space, the students’ cameras, film equipment and photo developing supplies, and God knew what else.
It’d take months, if not years, of fundraising to get the charity up and running again—and it’d always be on the verge of shutting down without outside support.
I had to say something.
“Listen,” I said, pulling Stefan and Luka out of their memories.
“We could all be unhappy, or just Emzee and I can be.”
Stefan frowned.
“I’m not sure you get a vote in this situation, but where are you going with this?”
“If Emzee and I go through with the divorce, my parents will cover your debts. The Bratva will walk away. You won’t have to sell,” I said.
“Em told us about the deal she made,” Stefan said.
“And while I appreciate the sacrifice you both are willing to make, I can’t in good conscience support it. We’re not going to break up your marriage just to save the agency.”
“Agreed,” Luka said.
“Family first.”
“I understand that. But I think you need the agency,” I said.
“All of you.”
“With all due respect,” Luka said, with an edge to his voice, “I don’t think you know what we need.”
“We have to sell the business, Ford,” Emzee said gently.
“It’s the only way.”
Stefan started to join in with their protests, but I shook my head.
“Can you not hear yourselves?” I waved my hand at the table.
“Because I just listened to a hell of a lot of compelling reasons for you to keep DRM. You spent the last ten minutes talking about your great memories growing up in that building—growing with the business. It’s clear the company was responsible for shaping all of you into the adults you are. It’s your legacy .”
I watched as the brothers exchanged a look.
It was hard to tell if they were going to tell me to shut the fuck up or if they were finally considering what I was saying.
As for Emzee…her face was schooled into the kind of neutral blankness that I now knew was just a cover for heartbreak.
Of course she wanted to keep the company in the family.
She was faced with an impossible decision.
Lose me, or lose DRM.
Suddenly the baby monitor squawked, and we could hear the baby start to cry.
Stefan rose, but Emzee was on her feet faster, waving her brother away.
“I’ll go rock her,” she said.
“I could use the practice.”
I followed her, standing in the doorway of the baby’s room as she turned on the light and reached into the crib to take Nina out.
Cradling the baby, she crossed the room to settle in the rocking chair by the window.
Nina quieted almost immediately, staring up at Emzee with her big, round eyes.
As I watched the two of them rocking slowly together, I could almost see our future.
The way Em would be holding our child soon.
But first, we had a lot to sort out.
“I can’t change the past,” I told her.
“I’m not even sure I can change the future. My parents are always going to be assholes. But here’s what I want for your future, Em.”
She didn’t look up, her eyes fixated on the baby, but I knew she was listening.
“It’s taken me a while, but I’ve come to realize how important the non-profit is—how much value your work with those women has, for them and for you. I’ve seen how you interact with them, how you lift them up. How you strive to make their lives better. And I know just from watching you that you’re going to be an amazing mother to our child.
“But I also know that our child getting the chance to grow up playing tag with their cousins in the hallways of Danica Rose, and watching Mommy save the world, is the best thing I can offer.
”
Emzee finally looked up at me, tears in her eyes.
Realizing the same thing that I already had: we were going to have to break up.
Once and for all.
“I know it’ll be hard,” I told her.
“We can’t ever say the baby is mine. But I want you both safe, more than anything, and this is the only way we can make that happen.”
My eyes were starting to sting, too, but we had no other choice.
Going along with my parents’ deal felt like the best plan.
And it would save Danica Rose.
Save the Zoric legacy.
Secretly, though, I had a Hail Mary in my back pocket.
And even though Emzee and I had promised not to keep secrets anymore, I knew that I had to keep this from her.
Because if it exploded, she couldn’t be anywhere near the devastation.