That blew my brows up.
“He dug through everything and uncovered the whole plot.” He pointed. “Somewhere in your mother’s office are old emails where we stupidly spilled the entire thing. It’s true what they say—nothing can be deleted. The internet is forever.”
“I... But...” I hated myself... but I was starting to believe him. “What could she even blackmail you for? What did you have that she wanted?”
Another cringe.
“What?” I snapped. “What did you lie about now?”
“It wasn’t entirely a lie!” he burst out, not bothering to deny it. “When I opened the investment firm, I once again had no money because I donated the buyout payment. So, at the time, I did what your mother suggested and I went to your estate’s lawyer with a business proposal.”
“You can do that?”
He tipped his head. “Apparently, it’s in your father’s will that a portion of the funds can be invested inincome-generating opportunities. Whatever keeps the money growing.”
“Is that why the terms are so strict?” I asked—pieces falling into place. “Because you borrowed money from my father’s estate?”
“That’s exactly why,” he replied. “I’ll say this for your dad, he picked the perfect lawyer and executor of his estate. That man is fanatical about protecting your inheritance. The firm has to make the estate a certain profit every year, or he can and will demand the full amount of the investment be paid back.”
“Rhodes!” I half screamed, clapping my hands. “What. Does. This. Have. To. Do. With. Omma!”
“It has to do with her because she initialed next to that penalty right along with me!She’sthe one who introduced me to the lawyer.Shevouched for me.And shewas on the hook with me if the firm went under,” he said. “But she became my not-silent and unwanted partner for a reason. Because the lawyer agreed that in exchange for bringing a successful venture into the estate’s portfolio, she’d receive a ten percent cut of the profits.”
He looked at me through heavy lids. “You did know that your mother had zero money of her own, right? She lived on a pittance—her words—from the estate, and she hated it. That’s why she was on me every minute of every single day to squeeze more money out of my business, but when she got her hands on those emails...” He whistled. “She demanded it all. Forget the lawyer. Forget the estate. Forget ten percent. She demanded my entire salary. Sue, I’ve been working for free for an entire year.” Rhodes gave me a grim smile. “And I believe they have a word for that in this country. A history too.”
Horror stole my breath. “R-Rhodes,” I choked out. My gaze fell away, landing on the beans next to go in the pot, but making no move to touch them. “I don’t... know what...”
“You don’t have to say anything.” Resignation laced his voice. “It’s not like I told you. It’s not like I told anyone,” he confessed. “In the end, I fell back on the old Newbury motto: never let anyone see your pain.”
The pain was ours. My chest ached like a dagger buried in my spine and forced its way through the other side. “I’m sorry,” I said honestly. “Balogun said you can trust the opinion of someone’s child over all. But it’s not true. I didn’t know my mother at all.”
“She wasn’t that hard to figure out, Sue. Your mother was accustomed to a certain standard of living.” His eyes swept the grand home meant for fifty, but only housing five people. “And she wasn’t going back to middle class. Not for anything.”
“I understand that now,” I confessed. “But what I don’t understand is why you all of a sudden had to get your hands on those emails. She had them for over a year, so why now? Why when it didn’t matter anymore? She was hardly blackmailing you from her deathbed.”
His expression didn’t flicker. “But she was.”
“Excuse me?”
“She was still blackmailing me, Sue. After your mother got the news that she had months, not years, left, she brought me into that same fucking office and told me that she madearrangements,” he spat. “She had digital files with all the proof of our crimes and GloryBoi’s dirty money launch set to auto-send to the estate lawyer and the police the minute official word of her death came through.”
I was wrong. Those were the words that dropped my jaw to the floor like a Tasmanian devil. “What!”
“You didn’t mishear me.” His voice was flat. “She was going to put all of us in jail. Omma claimed that it was one thing to keep quiet while she was here toprotectyou and Lily from us, but after she passed, you two would be alone with a bunch of thieving thugs, and she couldn’t let that happen.
“So, yes, Sue, there was a reason why I suddenly had to get into her computer, delete the file, and destroy any hard copies. Because it wasn’t untilnowthat the situation became urgent.”
“Because Omma didn’t have much time left,” whispered through numb lips. “The file was going to hit the LPD server any day now.”
“Exactly. And before you ask,” he plowed on, “I didn’t fly into a rage and run into the room next door to kill Omma after failing to get into her computer. Because I didn’t fail. I got in, deleted everything, and destroyed the emails.
“I was free,” he hissed—hands out and beseeching like a starving man reaching for sustenance just within reach. “I was finally fucking free of a stupid mistake I made over ten years ago. I didn’t celebrate that freedom by turning around and committing a worse one.”
I was quiet for a long spell. So long, burned beef and smoke filled my nose—but I did nothing about it.
“How?”
He frowned. “What?”
