At my birthday party, my husband tied me to a ceiling beam and wh*pped me thirty times because I had stained his mistress’s dress. “Maybe now you’ll learn your place,” he laughed while everyone watched. I didn’t cry. When they finally cut me down, I picked up my phone and called my five brothers. “Make his entire family beg for mercy,” I whispered. Then the front gates suddenly slammed shut.
I told Noah about the message over breakfast.
He set down his coffee cup.
“Don’t meet him alone.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“I mean it, Flora.
Not in a private location.
Not without someone present.”
“I know.” I turned my phone over in my hand.
“But I think I should meet him.”
Noah looked at me steadily.
“Why?”
“Because Marcus said Isaac’s involvement is unclear.
Because there’s a difference between a man who built a cage and a man who was born inside one and never thought to question the walls.” I set the phone on the table.
“I want to know which one he is.”
“And if he’s both?”
“Then I’ll know that too.”
Julian arranged it.
A conference room at his firm’s downtown office, neutral ground, with Julian present and Isaac’s lawyer present and a glass wall facing the open floor so nothing could be misrepresented afterward.
Isaac arrived ten minutes late.
He looked like he hadn’t slept.
His suit was the same one he’d worn the night before, jacket gone, collar open.
His lawyer — a man named Garrett, compact and careful — sat beside him and opened a leather portfolio without looking up.
I sat across from Isaac with Julian to my left.
For a moment, no one spoke.
“Thank you for coming,” Isaac said.
“You said it wasn’t about money,” I said.
“So what is it about?”
He looked at his hands.
“I need to know what you know.
About my father.”
“You could ask your father.”
“He’s not speaking to anyone.
His lawyers have him completely locked down.” Isaac looked up.
“Flora, I need you to understand — I didn’t know.
About the shell companies.
About Raymond Holt.
About any of it.”
“Raymond Holt,” I said.
Something moved across Isaac’s face.
“You know that name.”
“I do.”
“Then you know what my father did to him.”
“I know what Raymond says your father did to him.
I know what the documents support.”
“It’s true,” Isaac said.
“All of it.” He said it quietly, without drama, which was the most surprising thing he had done in four years.
“I found out six months ago.
I found a file in my father’s study — old records, correspondence.
I confronted him.”
Julian’s pen stopped moving.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said Raymond had been stealing.
That he had no choice.
That everything he did was to protect the company.” Isaac’s jaw tightened.
“He said it the way he says everything — like it was already settled.
Like I was foolish for even asking.”
