Chapter 3 - Poison in the Wine
Evelyn pulled a chair out from the corner and gestured toward the bed. "Sit down, Nathan. Please. Before your legs give out."
Nathan didn't sit. He leaned against the dresser, his arms crossed over his chest, his knuckles white against his sleeves. "Talk. Both of you."
Evelyn drew a deep breath, clutching her hands in her lap. "When I found your father at the shelter, he was coughing up blood. I took him to an urgent care clinic under an alias because he had no insurance, no identification, and no legal existence. The doctors told me his heart was failing and that he had untreated pulmonary fibrosis from smoke inhalation during the fire years ago."
"I wanted to bring him straight to the penthouse," Nathan said, anger bleeding into his grief. "I could have hired the best cardiologists in the world! We could have flown him to the Mayo Clinic!"
"And what do you think Adrian Voss would have done the moment Graham Hale reappeared in public?" Evelyn asked, her gaze burning into his. "Nathan, think! Who controls the primary voting bloc on the board of directors right now?"
Nathan paused, his analytical mind kicking into gear against his will. "Juliette holds thirty-five percent. Adrian controls the fifteen percent held in escrow by the family trust. Together, they have fifty."
"And if your father is legally declared alive, what happens to that escrow trust?"
"It dissolves," Nathan realized, the air leaving his lungs. "The shares revert back to Graham immediately. Juliette loses control. Adrian loses his trusteeship fees, which are... nearly two million a year."
"And what happens to the criminal liability for filing fraudulent probate affidavits?" Evelyn pressed. "Adrian Voss isn't just an attorney, Nathan. He’s a ruthless man facing disbarment and federal prison if this truth ever surfaces. When I first tried to quietly gather Graham’s original medical files from Massachusetts General four months ago, someone noticed."
Nathan’s jaw tightened. "Who?"
"Adrian," Evelyn whispered. "He called me into his private office on State Street. He didn't mention Graham directly. He poured me a glass of wine and showed me a printout of the foundation’s accounting records. He said, 'Evelyn, you’re an idealistic girl from a modest background. Nate loves you, but the board views you as a liability. If certain... irregular bookkeeping were to appear in your charity accounts, Nate’s reputation would be permanently destroyed. He would be forced to step down as CEO to protect the stock price.'"
Nathan felt an icy chill wash over his scalp. "He threatened you."
"He told me that if I started digging into ten-year-old estate documents, an anonymous tip would go to the district attorney about embezzlement at Mercer Street," Evelyn said, tears finally spilling over her lashes. "He said, 'Accidents happen to wealthy families, Mrs. Hale. Your father-in-law had an unfortunate tragedy on the water. It would be a shame if Nate suffered a similar accident on the Mass Pike during his evening commute.'"
Nathan’s fists clenched so hard his palms throbbed. "He threatened my life to you?"
"Yes!" Evelyn sobbed quietly. "I couldn't tell you, Nathan! You're hot-headed when it comes to your family. You would have marched into Adrian’s office, thrown a punch, and triggered every trap they set for us! I had to find hard evidence first. I had to prove the original boat explosion was arson before I could bring your father home safely!"
Graham reached out, his trembling, spotty hand resting against Nathan’s knee. "She did it to keep you alive, son. For four months, this girl has spent her evenings nursing a dying old man, cleaning my sores, buying my medicines with cash from her personal savings so no credit card alert would trigger Voss’s surveillance. She took the blame. She took Juliette’s insults at family dinners. All to keep the wolves from tearing you apart."
Nathan looked down at his father’s withered hand. The gray wool sock was pulled snugly over the frail foot.
He thought of the pharmacy. Evelyn rubbing the fabric between her fingers under the harsh white lights, making sure it was soft enough not to chafe skin paper-thin from chemotherapy and heart failure. He thought of his sister Juliette sitting in his office, smirking behind a mask of faux concern, sliding photographs of Evelyn across the mahogany desk.
“Nate, I know you love her. That’s why somebody has to think clearly.”
It was all an orchestrated coup.
Juliette and Adrian hadn't just followed Evelyn; they had manufactured the suspicion to push Nathan into filing for divorce. A divorce would trigger an emergency valuation of Nathan’s assets, freezing his voting shares on the board during a sixty-day litigation period. And during those sixty days, Juliette and Adrian could pass the proposed merger with the Carlyle Syndicate—a deal Nathan had rejected three times because it would liquidate the company’s affordable housing developments.
"They're voting on the Carlyle merger tomorrow afternoon," Nathan said, the realization hitting him with the force of an oncoming freight train.
"At two o'clock," Evelyn nodded, wiping her eyes. "Adrian filed the emergency board proxy yesterday morning while you were out inspecting the seaport project."
Nathan reached over, took the brown envelope containing the divorce papers, and tore it in half. Then into quarters. He dropped the shredded fragments into the small plastic trash can beside the bed.
He fell to his knees beside his father's mattress, burying his face into the rough wool blanket, his broad shoulders shaking violently as nearly a decade of buried tears finally broke through the dam.
May you like
"I'm sorry, Dad," Nathan wept. "I'm so sorry."
Graham’s frail fingers stroked his son's thick dark hair, just as they had done thirty years ago in Vermont. "You're here now, Nathan. You're here now. Now let's finish what they started."
