“Fritz... Calloway?” Surprise stopped my inching in its tracks. “That’s a stupid fucking name.”
Fritzbarked a startled laugh. “No arguments here. My birth mother was a drug addict who walked right out the damn hospital two days after giving birth to me... without me. I ended up in the system, of course. Foster care until I was eight, then a group home from eight to twelve.”
I held his gaze. “And then...”
A mirthless smile curled into his cheeks. “And then when I was ten years old, one of the older kids in the home started... doing stuff to me.”
My muscles locked up.
“I was small and weak.” Alex’s low, deep voice filled the room. “He was bigger and stronger. He didn’t think there was anything I could do to stop him. He didn’t think anyone would believe me if I told. He found out he was wrong on both counts when I stabbed him with a penknife I stole from a kid at school.
“When the caregivers came running in and found him bleeding on the floor with his pants down, they believed me when I told them why.”
I gave in, releasing the long, slow breath bursting to get out of my lungs. The buzzing quieted, leaving way for a blanketing silence.
“He died in the hospital a week later,” Alexander continued. “The director of the home didn’t want anyone to know that everyone in charge missed that he was abusing me to the point I had to kill him, so they covered it up. They said he was jumped on the way home from school by an unknown assailant that was never caught, and not even a little blemish went into my file.
“That’s why the Montgomerys had no idea when they adopted me.” Alex tried again to take a step closer to me.
I let him.
“They changed my name,” he went on. “Like I was a fucking puppy, not a person, but I didn’t complain. I let them drive me off to my new life of mansions, butlers, and playrooms with a whole-ass slide and jungle gym in it. The only thing they wanted in exchange is that I be the perfect little robot boy they’d never been able to have.
“I got great grades, I joined all the clubs, I got into the prestigious Titan Prep, and then into Columbia.”Step.“They were so proud... until the conglomerate sent their worst after us, and their PIs dug up the history of Fritz Calloway. They ended up interviewing one of my old caregivers who told the PI the whole story of how I’d gotten away with murder, and with that weapon in their arsenal, the conglomerate forced me to sign on the bottom line and give them my share of the business for free.”
The question left my lips unbidden. “Did they tell your parents too?”
“No,Itold my parents.”Step.“After the buyout was announced to the media, dearest Mommy and Daddy came knocking with their hands out.” He looked away—anger finally bleeding through his serene mask. “I guess it’s true what they say: a wealthy person never has enough money.
“Even though my folks never had to work a day in their lives, a millionaire is not a billionaire, and they wanted to be billionaires. Theyhoundedme for a cut of the money,” he forced through gritted teeth. “They got nasty, Sarang. Fast.”
I jerked to hear my name leave his lips.
“They started going on about how I was an ungrateful brat who they plucked out of the gutter. That theleastI could do was repay theirinvestmentin me.”
Bile burned my throat. “That’s disgusting.”
“Yes, it is.”Step.“You want a master class in hownotto treat your son or daughter, Connie and Richard Montgomery could teach it to you.”
“You had to tell them you didn’t have any money to get them off your back.”
“And then I had to tell them why.” Alex stepped again—only three feet away and drifting closer. “They wouldn’t accept that only Micah and Rhodes got paid, and not me, so I had to tell them I was blackmailed with a murder I committed when I was eleven years old.
“They haven’t spoken to me since.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it.
He shrugged. “It’s no matter. Honestly, the three of us were never that close. Growing up, I only ever saw them as absent roommates who paid the housekeepers and chefs. Them walking out of my life was no great loss. No,” Alex said. “The only family I’ve ever really had is this one.”
My eyes drifted down to the flash drive. “And Omma threatened that when she hired her own investigators to look into you, and they spoke to your same former caregiver.”
“Yep,” he hissed. “Real fucking chatty, she is.”
“This,” I whispered, “is what you couldn’t let get out.”
“That has been the fuse lighting the slow destruction of my life.” His eyes flashed as he moved ever closer. “I never got a cent of that fucking money, so I became the useless fifth wheel dragged behind the car. I got all jaded and paranoid after the conglomerate dug up my deepest secret and my parents ditched me. I was scared to go after anything because it felt like at any moment, someone would pop up and blackmail me into giving it all away.
“When Lily was born, I threw myself into raising her, and for a long time, living life just as her dad was good enough,” he said. “I didn’t care that I lived in a house I hated, in a town I hated, with a wife I hated. I had a daughter who needed me, and that was all that mattered. But then things got so bad with Sue, it was looking like divorce, and Omma decided to make sure her daughter got every cent and more out of allthreeof us—only one legal husband be damned.”
