But he could never do that to Thomas. Never Thomas. Somewhere along the way, he’d just…grafted himself to Aiden’s heart, and removing him now would cause a wound so deep he’d bleed out in seconds.
Death was probably the far more peaceful option, but Aiden had never had the sense to take the easy way out. Still, he wasn’t letting Thomas worm his way out of this conversation. Not this time. Not ever again. He was going to force Thomas to do the one thing he’d demanded of them their whole lives. He was going to hold him accountable. He had to. The stakes were now far too high.
“Well?” Aiden finally said when it seemed Thomas would never begin on his own.
Thomas closed his eyes briefly, then gave a weary sigh. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
Thomas shook his head. “The beginning of what? Their deaths? Before that? After? I don’t even know when the first domino was knocked over.”
Aiden clenched his jaw until it felt like his teeth might crack, praying for patience. “Guess.”
Thomas picked up his mug and took a sip then winced, like the liquid was too hot. One final stall tactic. How bad could this story be? Why was he so leery of talking about his family? As long as Aiden had known Thomas, his family was the only thing he’d ever truly cared about. “I guess it started with Shane.”
“Your…cousin?” Aiden asked, recalling Thomas had mentioned the name the night he’d called. Body number five. The one with no face. Had that conversation only been yesterday?
Thomas started to give a stilted nod that became a shrug. “My…cousin, yes. But before I tell you about him, I need to say some things about my family. Things maybe you already know, but it matters…for context.”
“Alright,” Aiden said, suddenly feeling wary himself.
Thomas nodded. “The Mulvaneys aren’t special. We made our money the way most disgustingly wealthy people did.”
The Mulvaneys’ road to billions was well-documented. As someone who had once bore the name Mulvaney, it was only right that Aiden had learned their history. Thomas’s great-grandfather Gerald Mulvaney had made his money in the 1800s by having his fingers in many lucrative pies. Oil. Railroads. Hotels. But that wasn’t what Thomas said.
“We made our money by stealing it.” He flicked his gaze to Aiden. “Legally, of course. We weren’t bank robbers or mafia. We were far worse than that. We stole land, exploited people, lied, cheated, took from those less fortunate until we amassed a fortune we couldn’t spend in a hundred lifetimes.”
Aiden frowned. He could feel Thomas’s disgust like an actual living, breathing thing between them. But why now? Thomas had never been averse to the finer things in life. His wardrobe alone was probably equal in value to the salary of several congressmen. He had private jets and even a yacht. Thomas was the liberal elite. And Aiden had never seen him appear even slightly apologetic about it.
“By the fifties, my family had transformed their image from greedy robber barons to benevolent oligarchs. We gave generously to numerous charitable causes, had several foundations set up to help those who fell on hard times, and were shoveling money into things like pharmaceutical and cancer research as well as advanced technologies. To my father, the Mulvaney name was everything. And it was to be protected at all costs.”
What did that even mean? Protected from what? From who? Thomas was equally protective about the Mulvaney name, but that was out of necessity. The only scandals Thomas allowed were those that promoted exactly the image he needed to continue his work. Did that make him like his father?
“To say I grew up with immense privilege is a vast understatement,” he continued. “My father was golfing buddies with sultans and dictators. He played polo with royalty. I truly had no concept of money. My parents kept me deliberately shielded from those who struggled. I knew not everybody had money like us, but I didn’t realize there were people without food or shelter. That seemed impossible to me.”
Thomas stared into his coffee cup now like he was scrying his memories from the dark liquid. He shook his head, expression pained. “Maybe if my father had allowed me to see the suffering of others, I might have had some perspective. Maybe I wouldn’t have found my own suffering so…all-consuming.”
Aiden hated this. He hated how much he wanted to call this off after only a few sentences because Thomas looked so distraught. He’d said next to nothing but it was like every word seemed to physically pain him, like he had to drag his tongue along broken glass just to spill them.
“I was gifted. Like August. IQ off the charts. Homeschooled with private tutors then entered school already light years ahead of my peers even in my ivy league-like prep school.”
Aiden’s head swam at the sudden shift in perspective. He knew all of this. The whole world knew Thomas Mulvaney had Doogie Howser’d his way into a degree before he was even old enough to drink. Was Thomas processing or stalling? “That had to be hard.”
Thomas’s lips twitched in an aborted smile. “It sucked, but nobody was going to be mean to a Mulvaney. I was a slightly bigger fish in a pond filled with big fish. People pretended to like me. I let them. It was my home life that truly sucked. Shocking, I’m sure.”
It was. Thomas had never spoken of his family with any malice. Of course, Thomas had never spoken of his family at all unless forced. Perhaps that was a red flag they should have examined closer over the years, but given Thomas’s current reluctance, Aiden imagined it wouldn’t have been a productive conversation.
“My earliest memories of my parents were them trotting me out during parties to perform for their friends. Reciting every country from memory, speaking foreign languages, recalling obscure information I’d read from a book far too advanced for me. People would always fawn over me and say ‘you must be so proud’ and my parents would smile and nod.” Thomas was scowling now, the words dripping with bitterness.
“It was all an illusion, though. I wasn’t their beloved child, I was a parlor trick, meant to lure people into believing we deserved everything we had. A distraction meant to dazzle people while my father swallowed up more wealth than any one person should ever have a right to. When the party ended, I was handed off to the nanny, forgotten again until they needed me once more. It became apparent at a very young age that any crumb of affection I hoped to get from my parents would only be won with effort.”
Aiden’s stomach churned. “How young?”
“Diapers. I was raised by whatever nanny was on the payroll at the time, and there were several because my mom was a monster and would get drunk and verbally abuse them until they quit. If she had just let the nannies raise me, I might have been okay. If she had just stayed distant, I could have coped maybe.”
What did that mean? Aiden didn’t have the patience for this.
“But she couldn’t stay away. Especially not when she’d been drinking. She used her love like a reward. A merit badge I had to earn by excelling, by getting things right. Whether it was potty training or learning to read, my mother dangled hugs and affection in front of my face like carrots, and if I wanted a smile, a hug, or even acknowledgment, I better do what she wanted right the first time.
