Chapter 16 Silas
SILAS
Idrive my rented SUV to the cul-de-sac where only the top of the Fox mansion is visible behind the stone wall they’ve erected. Pretentious pricks. That’s not my destination, though. It’s the smaller house that belongs to the Harts. Well, at least for another few days.
Is it considered breaking and entering once a number is agreed upon and paperwork finalized even if money hasn’t changed hands? Not that it matters for my purposes tonight. I need to get inside because I have a sense that time is running out.
I think about my meeting last night with the Foxes. How smug they are still, even when they come to me, their enemy, for money. I should have made them beg, but I remind myself that is not the goal. My game is a long one. I will swallow what I need to now to have the final laugh in the end.
But I know it hurt arrogant, self-satisfied Sly’s ego to have to come to me for money.
My father is a self-made man. His money is as new as it comes, and as filthy.
Born dirt poor, Sly was an only child, which maybe explains his inability to play well with others.
His mother, my grandmother whom of course I never met, waited tables at a greasy diner in Boston while his father, a goliath of a man, worked in construction all his life.
Both were hard working. Together they made ends meet, giving the best they could to their ungrateful son and working themselves to their graves before either of them reached fifty-five.
My father took after his mother physically, and, I imagine to everyone’s surprise, he had a talent for numbers that was discovered fairly early on.
That talent got him into a prestigious private boarding school for boys on scholarship.
Well, that talent and his Colombian heritage on his mother’s side.
His father came from a white, working-class family in the Midwest. I guess I don’t really blame Sly for having used his background to his advantage and land a scholarship.
I may have done the same to get ahead if I’d needed a scholarship.
With Sly paying for my education, though, I’d wanted to bleed as much money from the man as possible.
It's not so much how he got that scholarship that bothers me, though. It’s what he did afterward that shows the kind of man he would one day become.
He distanced himself from the less white part of his heritage when, after graduation from an Ivy league university, it no longer served him.
Although maybe that’s not fair because truly, he essentially cut off ties with both of his parents as soon as he left high school.
Sly always was clever, calculated, cunning even.
Maybe he didn’t completely forget his parents because he worked for a real-estate developer, the same one who owned the construction company his father worked for.
He climbed the ranks, slowly at first, which I know because I researched his career path for years.
Then, when he was in his mid-thirties, boom! He catapulted to the top, replacing much of the management once he got there.
I know how he did it, although I don’t really have proof because no one will talk, of course. It’s the nature of blackmail, after all.
My father collected secrets. He always had his ears open, and he held on to whispered words spoken in confidence until the time was right to topple one man after another after another.
So yeah, dirty money.
When he made the comment about him knowing how I operate—that he is my father—after all, I know what he was referencing.
My own climb to the top of what is now called Emerald Cross Ventures, a commercial real-estate development firm—yes, like father, like son, almost—took several years.
I didn’t destroy anyone to get to where I got.
Well, not anyone who didn’t deserve it, at least. I was more discriminating than my father, but I do admit to similarities.
So, he is right in some regards. I am like him. I also inherited his talent for numbers. For business and finance. For the deal.
Ethan doesn’t have an ounce of that. I wonder if it bothers Sly.
It must. His acknowledged son is an idiot, essentially.
He will only get ahead on his name and his inheritance—of which, if I have anything to say about it, won’t be much.
If anything, Ethan is inadvertently helping me by burning through his trust at super-human speed.
I blame that on Mira. She coddled Ethan, which is another thing Dad and I agree on.
I’m guessing that if it was left up to Ethan alone, he’d bankrupt the family in his lifetime. But I can’t wait for that. Sullivan Fox is my target. Ethan is just a bonus.
The loan Sly needed—the one I generously provided—injected blood into a firm on the brink of bankruptcy.
If I hadn’t stepped in, they might have died out naturally, but what would be the point in that?
I want Sly to know it was me who hammered the nail into his coffin.
I want him to feel those consequences he’s always been so fucking happy to dish out.
What Hart built over years was a solid, lucrative business that he also managed to do good with. It’s one of those things about Hart that I come back to, a saving grace. Horatio Hart never lost sight of his roots. He was proud of them.
Sly Fox, even though he came from the same background as Hart, was the opposite—distancing himself, hating that part of himself.
When the embezzlement charges were filed against Hart and then, a few months later, Fox, it essentially destroyed Hart’s finances.
Sly had other businesses in addition to the joint venture, so although it sullied his name, it didn’t destroy him.
But it did damage him financially, which is why he needed that infusion of cash that I was able to offer him when no bank would touch him after the bad press.
I turn onto the driveway of the Hart house and drive up the long incline, parking the rented SUV out of sight. Although the Foxes will already have left for the gala, I don’t want to take a chance anyone might see me. I am breaking and entering, after all.
The temperature is freezing. I’m in a tux, but don’t bother to put on my coat.
I won’t be here that long. I make my way toward the porch, remembering how cozy it was when the Harts lived here.
Now, debris has collected in the corners and the single chair left out here has toppled in the wind.
I’d prefer to use the back entrance, but the lockbox containing the key is hanging on the front door, so here I am.
I punch in the code Nigella had acquired from the realtor and the box opens.
From inside, I retrieve the key and slide it into the lock to open the front door.
Once inside, I close it behind me and pocket the key.
The house is dark. I’m grateful for the moonlight shining in through the bare windows and off the snow on the ground.
Boxes are stacked high, carpets rolled up, furniture that wasn’t sold to cover legal fees wrapped in moving blankets.
I walk through the living room feeling a sense of loss, a sense of life passing by.
A past being erased. I wonder if that’s how Ophelia felt when she saw this because I’m sure she’s been here since the packers came. No way she’d stay away.
I make my way up the stairs first. Six bedrooms up here. The Fox house used to be a mirror image of this one, but you’d never recognize the old house in the monstrosity they built. This house once had a warmth theirs will never have.
I go directly to Ophelia’s bedroom, remembering the day I moved into the cottage next door.
Strangely enough, I spy the binoculars sitting on top of one of the moving boxes.
I take them to look out over the trees shivering in the wind in this wintry, forgotten garden.
I take in the sheer barrenness of the place next door.
It feels emptier than this empty house. It hadn’t always been that way and I didn’t think I’d feel the way I do now that I’m here, now that I am so close to having what I always wanted.
The meeting last night, too, had felt different than I’d expected.
There was no joy, no elation, at this crucial step in the toppling of Sly Fox.
There’s an irrational part of me that wants to blame Sly for that, for stealing even that from me.
It’s not that he’d participate in his own downfall if he had any choice.
I need to recenter myself. I’m almost there, almost at my end goal.
The destruction of the Foxes is near, and I need to stay focused because Sullivan Fox is a sharp, cunning man.
He’ll be watching for weaknesses, and he will exploit any holes he sees.
My interest in Ophelia Hart can become a weakness if I’m not careful.
The moon, which had vanished behind a cloud, reappears.
I catch my reflection in the window. I haven’t worn a tux in a very long time.
Mom used to get a kick out of it, us dressing up to attend a charity or event.
It was never where we were supposed to end up, and I know she enjoyed it.
She was almost giddy at times. She never got to experience those things until the end of her life and for that, I’m sorry.
I wish she’d had more time to enjoy living.
I check the time on my Rolex, a gift from my mother, which was the most extravagant thing she’d ever bought.
It wasn’t like Esmerelda Cruz, and when she saw the surprise on my face when I opened the box, she smiled in that way of hers.
There was some life lesson she was going to impart and it was right there on the inscription.
No matter how much time changes things, never forget who you are.
I still recall our conversation.
“Wherever you go, never forget, Silas. Time passes quickly, and it’s easy to forget yourself. To forget to look after those who truly need it, especially when one has so much.”
“Mom, I work hard.”
“I know, my darling. I know. But life is not forever. Don’t lose yourself.”
She knew she was sick then. She just hadn’t told me yet.
“I don’t ever want you to wake up one morning and realize you’ve wasted your life on things that don’t matter.”
I set the binoculars down on the seat and turn away from my reflection.
Would she think this doesn’t matter? My revenge on the Foxes?
Yes. She would. But I console myself with one fact as I head out of Ophelia’s old, freezing bedroom and get to the task at hand.
I still have a gala to attend, after all.
Things have changed. This isn’t solely about revenge anymore. She’d want me to protect Ophelia from them.
Ophelia isn’t like them. She’s innocent. I know that now. The ends will justify the means.
I tell myself that as I navigate around the boxes in this house with its creaking floorboards. I don’t go through all the rooms. I just wanted to see hers before I do what I really came to do.
I head down the stairs and from the front window, I see the SOLD sign still on the front lawn. I walk toward Hart’s study.
Several years after we’d moved in next door, an envelope had been delivered to the Fox house.
Mom usually handled sorting the mail, but Sly happened to be standing there when the mailman came.
I remember Sly reading the front of the envelope and opening it, ignoring me entirely as if I was invisible even as I stood in the same room fixing the window.
He’d pulled out whatever was inside, and I still remember his sucking in of breath before a wide smile spread across his face.
He’d walked into his office and left the door open as he took photos of each page of whatever was inside.
Arrogant move but not unlike him. He’d tucked it all back into the envelope then and called out to me, the look on his face not of one who’d been caught, but one of satisfaction, almost. Or something darker.
“Take this to the Harts. Make sure you hand it to Horatio directly. No one else, got it?”
I took the envelope from him, glanced at the front to see it was addressed to Horatio although the address was the Fox address.
“You opened it?”
“Accidentally,” he said with that grin that showed all his teeth. “Let him know, will you?”
There was something in his tone that made my skin crawl.
But he just turned back into his office and slammed the door shut in my face.
I walked that envelope over and rang the Harts’ doorbell.
Ophelia had answered, and if it’d been Tonia, I don’t think she’d have walked me straight to Hart’s study and opened the door without knocking.
I wonder if she’d found it strange to see her father on his knees fumbling with something, but when Ophelia threw the door open, he looked like a guilty man.
He caught my eye, knew I’d seen what he was doing, but he schooled his features quickly. He’d straightened the carpet and stood, muttering some excuse about spilling coffee all while Ophelia filled the moment with some rambling story about school.
Hart had turned to me, and when I handed him the envelope, he looked at it, then at me.
“Fox wanted you to know he opened it accidentally,” I said, knowing exactly how it sounded. Back then, as far as I was concerned, Horatio Hart and Sly Fox had too much in common for one to be any better than the other.
I still remember how Horatio’s face had lost its color. How he’d glanced into the kitchen where Ophelia was climbing up on a stool and chattering away to Tonia. Horatio didn’t even thank me before he’d closed the door, this time locking it behind him.
If I think back, the relationship between Horatio and Sly had been strained by then.
Now, I walk into that office, where the desk is gone.
It was an antique and I imagine paid at least in part for his lawyer who ultimately wasn’t worth his salary, considering.
The carpet is rolled up and standing against a corner.
I remember the exact spot Hart had been when we’d barged in on him, and as I kneel, I take out my phone and switch on the flashlight to peer closely at the floorboards.
I run my fingers over the old wood, feeling the uneven texture of it.
They are beautiful, old floors. It takes me a few minutes, but I find the spot because a part of one of the floorboards is damaged, something you’d only see if you were looking this closely at it.
It’s a very thin space between two boards where the wood is lighter.
I reach into my pocket to take out my keys. I have a Swiss Army knife on my keychain. I flip the small nail file and slide it into the divot. It fits almost perfectly, and with just a little finagling, I lift out the board.
And there, hidden beneath it, is a lock box.