Chapter Fifty-Nine
Kwame
Loyalty
When I look back at Sin, Paloma is sitting in the seat I just vacated. My stomach drops. I never want Sin to know it was Paloma she saw that night.
Paloma’s got a streak of mischief in her that makes her hard to predict. But she knows better than to say anything.
I hope.
“How well do you know the woman you were with?” Oz ’s question draws my attention back to him and raises my hackles.
“She’s a family friend.”
“Really? That’s news to me.”
“On my mother’s side of the family. You wouldn’t have met her.” I mean it as a simple statement of fact but then his jaw tightens and his shoulders tense. I forget that my mother is a sore spot for him.
She was a stickler for propriety when it came to staff. She wasn’t unkind to Alice, but she treated her like the help all the time.
I hated it. Oz may not have been a doting son but I can imagine he didn’t enjoy watching his mother use the service entrance to come into the house every morning.
It’s not lost on me that after being treated like a poor relation, he’s the one leading me through the halls of the house now.
I take him in. I guess the pipeline from falsifying company card expenses to selling stolen goods on the black market is slippery as hell. It sounds far-fetched but Oz’s need for more than his portion is insatiable.
To know that he’s robbing countries of their identity and facilitating a marketplace built on the exploitation of endangered animals, cultural theft, and blackmail. All so he can come to parties like this and live a life of luxury.
It tracks. He’s always been so shallow. My dad wanted a protége so badly. The pit in my gut is heavy with guilt and regret. If I had come back sooner, maybe he wouldn’t have turned to Oz. Maybe if I hadn’t been so determined to keep him at arm’s length, we could have found some common ground.
He’s not the kind of man I want to be. But he’s the reason I’ve been able to spend so long at a job that paid me shit. I supported myself but I also never worried about being short at the end of the month.
He’s my father. I love him. As much as he’s disappointed me, I keep hoping we can have the kind of relationship my mother wanted us to.
We reach my dad’s office and he presses a button that’s built into the wall. A small square panel opens, and he places his palm on it. It flashes green, beeps, and the door opens.
This is my father’s most private space. The biometric entry was supposed to only allow me, my mother and Alice entrance. Why would Oz have it?
“Kwame, come in so we can close the door,” my father calls out. I grit my teeth and fight back a growl of irritation when I realize Oz is not leaving.
I sit in the chair across from my father's desk. “Why haven't you come out to the party? Sin is waiting to see you.”
He looks up at me and smiles. “Oz doesn’t trust her.” He quirks his eyebrow.
I whip my head around to look at Oz, incredulous. “What the hell does that mean?”
“She’s been investigating me for more than a year now. I don’t know how she ended up getting close to you, but I’m sure she’s using you to get to me,” Oz says.
I burst into laughter. “You think she got close to me so she could get close to you? She’s never even mentioned you.”
“Well maybe she doesn’t tell you everything. I know for a fact she was working on a story until her editor killed it before she could do much damage, but now she’s here. Does she know you’re related to me?”
I feign calm but a five-alarm fire is burning suddenly. “Not yet.”
“So you lied to her?”
“You’re not part of my life. I don’t consider us family.”
If my words sting, he doesn’t show it. “Is that what you tell yourself? I swear, you could teach the CIA a thing or two about living a double life.”
“I’m not living a double life. She knows everything about me that matters. And if I’d known it was you she was looking for, I would have brought her here sooner.”
A loud splintering crash startles us both and we look in the direction of the noise. The white brick fireplace is dripping with red wine and glass lays in shards on the floor.
“What the hell was that?” I ask when I realize my father threw his glass across the room.
“You wouldn’t stop talking and I needed you to.” He looks between us. “Oz, I want to enjoy my son attending his first Palm Sunday in a decade. Kwame, Oz is here to do what he does best, network.”
I sneer at Oz. “That’s right, go do your job so I can talk to my father alone.”
His expression doesn’t change but the corner of his left eye twitches from the effort it’s taking for him not to let his anger get the best of him. “I don’t take orders from you.”
I turn to my father. “Will you ask your dog to heel?”
“Shut up Kwame,” Oz snarls. “Or I’ll shut you up.” He takes a step toward me, and I get a tingle of excitement at the dangerous glint in his eyes.
I get to my feet, an amused smirk on my face. “Last time you tried that, I broke your nose. Nice reconstruction by the way.”
His nostrils flare. “I let you land some licks that day because I didn’t want to hurt you.” He looks me up and down and grins. “Today, it’d be a fairer fight. Let’s see who's got the Palmer blood in him and who's just an accident of birth.”
I scoff. “Nothing you do will make you more than what you are. I really hope one day, that will feel like enough.”
“For fuck’s sake,” my father roars. “Why are you two still having this argument?”
Oz and I stare at each other, eyes burning with mutual disdain, lips clamped together in a show of mutual restraint.
Like a pair of clocks that broke at the same time, we agree one thing—this feud of ours isn’t for public consumption.
A pulsing beep from my father’s computer draws Oz’s eyes away from mine and his expression goes from furious to focused. My father moves aside for him as he rounds the desk to study my father’s computer monitor.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Something tripped an alarm at the lodge,” my father says absently.
He and Oz exchange a meaningful glance. “I’ll go check on it.” Oz straightens and heads to the door. He stops next to me and leans in long enough to whisper, “You’ll never win.”