“I think Jaime was planning on telling me after the fact. But one night I got into my bedroom and your mom had fallen asleep with the lights on, an art magazine half-open under her arm. I tucked her in and was about to turn off the light when I picked the magazine up and saw an item about how all of Harry Fairhurst’s paintings had been bought by a mysterious collector. I wondered why we hadn’t been approached about the paintings in our house—everyone else had been, after all—but the answer was simple. You had access to our house, and to the paintings in it. I threw the magazine away so she wouldn’t know, wouldn’t do the math herself. I racked my brain trying to figure out why you’d want to own all this motherfucker’s paintings. Better yet, how you could afford them. So I checked your trust fund, and sure enough, it was empty.”

I swallowed wordlessly. I’d been sloppy in that regard. All I could see was the end goal, and that had backfired in my face.

Dad put his hand on my back, both of us hunched over, seated on my bed. My face was still buried in my hands. I felt like a stupid kid, and hated every minute of it.

“What could drive a man to buy an entire, eight-figure collection of paintings he’s not even fond of?” My father’s voice drifted in the air like smoke, lethal and suffocating. “There was only one answer: vengeance.”

I stood up and walked to the window, refusing to face him.

He knew.

Lenora knew.

My secret was no longer mine. It had broken free. Run loose. I had no control over it. It was probably pounding through the alleyways of every ear in my inner circle.

“You want him forgotten,” Dad said gently behind me.

I appreciated that he didn’t say outright the things Harry had done to me. It made the situation a little less unbearable, somehow. I sniffed, ignoring the statement.

I wanted to forget Harry Fairhurst had ever existed, yes, but I knew I couldn’t. So I’d settled for erasing him from the memory of the rest of the world.

Ars longa, vita brevis.

But not if all your paintings are torn, burned, and floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Then you’re just another mortal.

Dad stood up and came toward me. He planted his hands on my shoulders from behind. I dropped my head to my chest. He hadn’t ridden my ass like I thought he would for ghosting him for eternity.

…or spending a sickening amount of money on art I had burned.

“Let me do it,” he whispered.

“Huh?” I spun, my eyebrows diving down.

“I know what you’re about to do, and I’m asking you to let me do it. Not for you, for me. When we talked about your problem before, I told you I wouldn’t pry, but if I found out who was involved, I’d deal with them myself. And you agreed. We shook on it. There’s a lot on the line for you, son. Let me shoulder your burden. Let it be on my conscience, not yours. After all, I was the one who fucked up. I was the one who let it happen. I was the one who didn’t figure it out in that Parisian gallery, the idiot who sent you to Carlisle Prep when you were a young boy. My fuck-up. My mistake. My payback.”

I appreciated how, even now, he did not bunch Mom into the colossal fuck-up that was Harry Fairhurst. He took full responsibility as the head of the family. Some people thought flowers and hearts were romantic. Me, I thought being a badass who took the fall for his entire family and shouldered all their sins was far better. Not that it was really my parents’ fault. They’d prodded, asked, begged, and questioned. They’d provided me with a magnificent childhood, and not just materialistically.

“Thank you,” I said curtly. “But no.”

“You don’t know what killing a person does to your soul.”

“And you do?”

He squeezed my shoulder again, refraining from answering me. Interesting.

“You have a girlfriend.” Dad changed the subject. “Isn’t she his niece? That would complicate things.”

“We’re not staying together.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. That would be beyond awkward, now that she knew my plans for her uncle.

I’d given her all my secrets.

I’d trusted her then, and I trusted her now.

She’d never opened her mouth. And, as it turned out, she hadn’t even known what she saw back then. When I told her about Harry’s abuse, she’d confessed to me that what she saw in that room was completely different.

“I didn’t see Harry’s head underneath you. I just thought it was a girl. I didn’t know anything about oral sex. I thought you were young, and angry, and doing things you shouldn’t be doing and going to regret. I felt sorry for you. At thirteen, you shouldn’t need sex and booze and blow jobs to feel. At thirteen, you’re learning the hang of feelings. It’s life on training wheels, you know?”

I didn’t know. Harry never gave me the chance to know what it felt like to feel.

“Besides…” I moved around Dad, changing the subject. “…how do you know about her?”

“Knight sent a family newsletter,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Fucker,” I mouthed.

“Watch your mouth.”

“I was making a general statement. What do you think he does with Luna? Play poker?” I flung myself over the bed, staring at the ceiling. I felt like a real teenager for the first time in forever. My dad was on my case, offering to get me out of the shit I’d gotten myself into. I had girl trouble. I made sex jokes on my best friend’s account.

Dad stood in the middle of the room, looking a little lost all of a sudden—for the first time ever, actually.

“It doesn’t have to be that way, Vaughn. You don’t have to lose her. You don’t have to lose anything.”

“It’s a done deal, Dad. Drop it.”

“Son…”

I turned to look at him. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Mom. It would break her.”

He held my gaze, nodding gravely. He got it. He got why I needed to do it myself.

“I won’t,” he said. “I didn’t when I saw the article. This stays between you and me. What happened doesn’t define you, you hear me? Once upon a time, I held on to a dark secret, too.” He leaned down, brushing my ink black hair from my forehead and frowning. A mirror image of father and son, with nearly three decades between them.

“How did it end?” I blinked.

He kissed my forehead like I was a toddler, smiling.

“I killed it.”

I was raised to find beauty in everything.

Growing up in Virginia, we didn’t have any money. We used buckets as small pools in hot, humid summers and trash bags to collect oranges and peaches in spring. An old tablecloth was destined to become a fine-looking dress once it ceased to serve its purpose. Two empty tin cans turned into a very short-distance walkie-talkie. An evening without electricity quickly rolled into an all-nighter full of scary stories and truth or dare.

Years later, after I married my billionaire husband, I’d stumbled across an article in the New Yorker, asking if the poor lead more meaningful lives.

I didn’t agree with the sentiment altogether, because I was happier now—happier with the love of my life, with my beautiful son, and surrounded by friends I could host and spend time with. But then again, I wasn’t really rich, was I?