Chapter 25
Tashi
The gala was tomorrow night.
I’d made four hundred decisions in the last day. Approved lighting designs. Selected signature cocktails. Finalized the announcement speech. Coordinated with Frank, Evelyn, and a dozen other vendors. My feet hurt. My voice was hoarse. And I was running on coffee, adrenaline, and sheer stubbornness.
But everything was ready.
The ballroom was nearly transformed—Frank’s team was scheduled to work through the night, and the result was breathtaking.
Neon Elysium came to life. Ice sculptures gleamed under programmable lights.
Video displays testing constellation patterns.
The stage where we’d make our announcement looked like a doorway to the stars.
It was perfect.
It was terrifying.
It was happening in less than twenty-four hours.
I was in the Selene Room when my phone buzzed with a text from Marta: Just landed. Coming straight to the hotel. Need to see you immediately. Alone.
My stomach dropped. Marta never used that tone unless something was seriously wrong.
I texted back: Text me when you get here. I’ll meet you in the lobby.
She arrived an hour later, looking exhausted and wired in equal measure.
She dragged her wheeled bag behind her, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, dark circles under her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and frantic research.
I took her to my room, and she flopped down on the couch, grateful to put her feet up on the coffee table.
“Tell me you found something,” I said.
“I found everything.” Marta pulled out a thick manila folder from her oversized purse. “Tashi, you need to sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down. I want to know what you found about Henri and my mother—”
“Sit. Down.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “Please.”
I sat.
Marta pulled out the first document—a faded employment record from Meridian Tech Solutions, dated 1999.
“Your mother worked here,” she said. “Administrative assistant. Twenty-five years old. This is where that picnic photo was taken—the company summer party.”
I stared at the document, at my mother’s name in black and white. Catherine George.
“And Henri?” I asked.
“Also worked at Meridian Tech. Same department. Same time.” Marta laid out another document. “Junior accountant. Twenty-eight years old. Ambitious, according to his performance reviews. Difficult, according to his supervisor notes.”
My hands started shaking. “They worked together.”
“They did more than work together.” Marta pulled out another document—a marriage license. “They were married. June 1999. Just three months before you were born.”
The world tilted.
I stared at the license. At my mother’s signature. A signature right next to it, Albert Saltzinger.”
“Saltzinger.”
“Look at the employee photo.”
I stared at the man who looked like a younger Henri Saltz.
“No,” I whispered. “That’s not—she never said—”
“The marriage lasted two months.” Marta’s voice was thick with emotion.
“I found the divorce filing. Your mother filed on grounds of abandonment. Henri left when she was eight months pregnant. Just disappeared. No longer showed up for work. Your mother had a small inheritance. He cleaned out their joint bank account. Left her with nothing.”
“He left her.” The words felt distant, as if someone else were saying them. “He left us.”
“There’s more.” Marta pulled out another document—an old police report.
“Your mother tried to file a missing person report when he first disappeared. But Henri wasn’t missing.
He’d moved. New city, name, and life. He’d planned it.
Carefully. Deliberately. He wanted to disappear with your mother’s money. ”
“Why?” My voice cracked. “Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. But Tashi—” Marta’s hand covered mine. “He’s avoided all responsibility for you. And then, when you showed up at this hotel, when you became involved with the Kolykos brothers, he tried to destroy you. His own daughter.”
I was stunned.
All those years. All that abandonment. All the times I’d wondered about my father, imagined him as someone who didn’t know I existed, who would have loved me if he’d only known.
He’d known.
He’d known and he’d chosen to leave anyway.
And then he’d tried to weaponize me against the men I loved.
I stood. “Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To talk to him.”
“Maybe you should wait. Talk to the brothers first.”
I was already moving. “This is between me and him.”
The executive offices were three floors up. I took the stairs, letting the physical exertion burn through some of the fury so I could think clearly. By the time I reached Henri’s door—Orion’s old office, the one Henri had stolen—my hands had stopped shaking and my mind was ice-cold.
I didn’t knock.
Henri looked up from his desk, and I watched the color drain from his face as he recognized me.
“Tashi. You shouldn’t be—”
“Henri Saltz,” I said, closing the door behind me. “Formerly Albert Saltzinger. Married to Catherine George in June 1999. Father to Tashi George, born September 1999. Want to tell me which part of that is wrong?”
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
“You knew,” I continued, my voice steady despite the storm inside me. “This whole time. The moment I walked into this hotel, you knew who I was. You saw your daughter—the child you abandoned before she was even born—and you said nothing.”
“I didn’t—” His voice was hoarse. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“Like what? You weren’t supposed to see me? I wasn’t supposed to exist? Or I wasn’t supposed to figure out that my father is the man who’s been trying to destroy my life?”
“Your mother made life impossible.”
“My mother? When you stole her money and disappeared? I’m having difficulty understanding how that was her fault. What reason makes that okay?”
“Your mother—” He stopped. Started again. “Catherine was—she trapped me. The pregnancy wasn’t planned. I wasn’t ready to be a father. I had ambitions, plans, a life I wanted to live—”
“So, you ran.” The words tasted like ash. “You ran because having a child was inconvenient. Because my mother wanted to keep me, and you didn’t want the responsibility.”
“I was twenty-eight years old! I wasn’t ready for a family!”
“Then you should have used a condom!” My voice echoed off the walls. “You should have been honest with her. You should have done anything except steal her money and disappear while she was pregnant with your child!”
“I don’t need your guilt trip,” he said coldly. “I’m trying to save this hotel.”
“Really? By betraying your business partners.” I was shaking now, fury and grief warring inside me.
“I want to hear why you did this. Why you worked with Orion and Leo and Ares for seventeen years and never once mentioned you had a daughter. Why you looked at me that first day and decided to destroy me instead of—” My voice broke.
“Instead of what?” Henri asked quietly. “Instead of telling you I was your father? I don’t owe you anything. I don’t know you and I don’t want to.”
“That’s right.” The words exploded out of me. “You took that from me. Just like you took the choice from my mother. Just like you’ve tried to take every choice from me since I arrived at this hotel.”
“The board meeting was business—”
“It was personal.” I leaned across the desk. “You looked at me and saw the daughter you didn’t want. You saw me with Orion and Leo and Ares, saw me happy and loved and successful, and you couldn’t stand it. You couldn’t stand that I’d found people who actually wanted me.”
“That’s not—”
“Isn’t it?” I pulled out my phone and showed him the documents Marta had found. “Mom never left New York. You could have reached out anytime. Could have sent a letter. Could have at least acknowledged my existence. But you didn’t. Not until I showed up here and became a threat to your plans.”
“Tashi—”
“My mother raised me alone. Worked two jobs to keep us fed and housed. Sacrificed everything so I could go to college. And she never once spoke badly about you. Never told me what you’d done.
She protected me from the truth because she loved me more than she hated you.
” My voice broke. “And now I know why she never told me. Because knowing you—the real you—is so much worse than imagining you.”
Henri stared at the documents, his face crumpling. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“That’s bullshit.” The words came out flat. “Facing what you’d done would have required courage and responsibility and all the things you’ve never had. And then I showed up here by accident, and you saw it as a threat.”
“You don’t know. If people had started digging into your background, into your mother’s history, they’d find me.”
“Who?”
“People you don’t want to know.”
“Wait, you stole money from other people too?” The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity. “The harassment allegations. The board meeting. Voting them out of management. All of it was to get rid of me before anyone could discover the truth.”
“I was protecting myself—”
“That’s all that matters, isn’t it!” I was yelling now, no longer caring about who heard me.
“You were protecting the lie you’ve been living for twenty-five years!
You let Kurt Wilder use me as a weapon. You let Marcus harass me and sabotage the hotel.
You stood by while they tried to destroy the men I love—all to cover up your crimes! ”
Henri looked at me with a coldness that would have made snakes shiver.
Silence fell like a guillotine.
“You shouldn’t have done this, Tashi. This will not work out well for you.”
“Me? You’re the one who failed as a human being in every way that matters.” I turned toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Henri asked.
“I’m going to stand on a stage with three men who actually love me and tell the world that I’m not ashamed of who I am or who I love. And you’re going to watch. You’re going to see what you lost.”
“This can’t get out.”
“Why?”
“I told you.”