Chapter Thirty Two #2
“Stay here. With me.” Benji cut in and looked to his uncles. “Okay?” They just nodded. There was no point in arguing it at that moment. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s in the board room, getting ready for a new mission briefing,” Andi mentioned with a shake of her head. “He’s been carrying on like nothing happened. Like you haven’t been missing for days,” she sobbed.
Benji sighed. That sounded like Matthew Madison alright. “I guess I’ll be interrupting that,” he muttered with a roll of his eyes.
“I’m behind you no matter what happens, Benji,” Andi told her brother. He knew she would be too.
He flashed her a quick smile then shifted his gaze over to Sawyer.
He looked rather uncomfortable, but that was going to happen, he supposed.
It was an awkward situation. However, when their gazes met, he flashed Benji a look that said ‘you can do this’ and for a moment, he felt that he really could. “Let’s go then.”
“What’s going on?” Spence asked. He could clearly tell that something was up but no one was saying anything.
“I think it will be better coming from him,” Benji mentioned as he walked out of the office towards the board room.
If he would even say anything. The other four were quickly in tow behind him.
While the Madison’s stepped into the board room, approaching Matthew, Sawyer stayed in the back by the wall.
He clearly didn’t want to intrude where he wasn’t needed.
But Benji knew he would be there if he needed to fill in the blanks about what he had read.
The moment Benji had entered the room, Matthew’s eyes went wide as saucers and his jaw fell ajar. “B…Ben?” He asked and stepped out from around the podium. “Y-You’re here.”
A wave of emotions washed over Benji the moment his father spoke.
He missed his dad dearly but after what he had done to him?
The feelings of betrayal and hurt outweighed anything else.
And the fact that his dad looked surprised to see him.
Not happy or ecstatic like Andi and his uncles.
Just surprised. As if he could read his mind, Matthew stepped towards him and finally pulled him in for a hug.
Benji couldn’t help but return it, even if he was feeling all sorts of negative emotions.
Matthew pulled back and placed his hands on his shoulders. “I knew you’d be back.”
He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Dad…” He began, trying to find the strength in his voice again. “I-I need to know some things, okay? Please don’t lie to me.”
“I would never, kiddo.”
Fuck. Benji really should have planned what he was going to say when they were driving there, shouldn’t he?
Fuck it. He was doing it live, he supposed.
“John Raymond,” was all Benji had said and he could see a shift in his father’s eyes.
It was minimal but enough for him to notice. “Do you know him?”
“Uh…yeah, we’ve done a few missions for him in the past.”
“Money transfers, right?”
Matthew chuckled a bit dryly and nodded. “Yeah, easy things. Why? Why bring him up?”
Benji sniffled softly and dragged his hand underneath his nose. “Well, you had a job from him not too long ago, right?” His dad just nodded. “But you never really finished the job, did you?”
He could feel the eyes of his uncles staring directly into the back of his head and his dad’s own gaze was enough to make him want to quit the conversation all together. But he had to keep going. “I don’t know what that means, Benji.”
“Y-You didn’t wire the money from John to the person it needed to go to, did you?” He asked. “You didn’t tell Andi where it was going. You just gave her the information and she did it because she didn’t have a reason to question it, right?”
Matthew scoffed quietly and dropped his hands from Benji’s shoulder. “What are you saying?”
“You said you would tell me the truth. You took the money, didn’t you, Dad?”
He shook his head and stepped away from Benji, going back behind the podium to continue working on his presentation. “That’s preposterous.”
“It’s really not, Dad. You wired the money to your own bank account, right?
” His dad didn’t answer. He just kept looking down at his documents.
Benji shook his head and wiped at his eyes.
“Dad, come on. Don’t lie to me about this.
” He walked around the side of the podium and stood directly beside his father.
“You took the money and you thought you were going to get away with it. But you were caught. And because you had Andi do the initial wire transfer, her name was found by the people you stole the money from–”
His father cut in, “They’re shitty people, Benji.”
“I don’t care that they’re shitty people!
You’re shitty too for stealing their money!
” Benji shouted through a heaving breath.
“I know how you have felt about me since I fucked up that mission a decade ago.
I've always just been a liability, right?
I'm nothing like Andi and we all know she's been the one you've been wanting to take over for you when you retire. So you set me up to keep her safe and to keep you from getting caught.”
“What?!” Spence spat out behind him.
“That can’t be true…” Travis added in, clearly in disbelief.
“You sent me to that fucking bunker to die because you couldn’t own up to your own bullshit with stealing the money and I was just an easy target to send. What are you even doing with all that money? We get paid well, Dad. Don't you have enough already?”
Matthew’s nostrils flared as he stared down at his son.
He looked pissed off, which was laughable because what did he have to be pissed about?
He was the one that made the decision in the first place.
He didn’t have to steal the money. They had plenty of it already.
He could have just let them have it and none of that would have happened.
Whether Milo was shitty or not wasn’t the principal of the matter. Two shitty lefts didn’t make a right.