Dear Ford,
As I reach the end of this journey, I can’t help but reflect and wish I had done things differently. You are smart and strategic, and you always loved science. Those are the things on the surface that everyone knows about you. I never allowed myself to know you deep down the way a mother should. I regret that, but I do hope that you’ll learn from my mistakes. To that end, I’ve set up a trust for any future children you may have. I had my hand involved in many foundations over the years, and I’ve decided to create new foundations for each of my children. Enclosed, you’ll find all the details regarding the foundation that’s already in your name.
All my love,
Mom
Emotions plow into me for the first time as I glance around the room and see similar reactions to the letters.
She gifted each of us a foundation. A way to make a better impact on the future.
I glance through the attached paperwork to find the Ford Bradley Foundation. The details say that I can do whatever I want with it. She laid the groundwork and fronted quite a bitof capital, so now it’s up to me to run with it to help people however I choose.
“Your mother set up trusts and foundations years ago for each of you,” my father begins.
I glance up at him, and I narrow my eyes. Did she? Or is this anotherthinghe’s done to protect thelegacyhe’s so fond of mentioning?
It appears I’m not the only one thinking those thoughts.
“Did you have anything to do with this?” Madden asks quietly. Frankly, I’m surprised he’s asking in front of everyone here. While everyone in this room is important, not everyone is officially a member of this family.
Dad holds up both hands. “I had no hand in any of this.”
“But where did the money come from?” Madden asks.
“Your mother’s inheritance.” He glances around the room at each of us only to find we all look like guppies, our mouths dropped wide open. “As you know, she didn’t get along with her own parents. What you might not know is that they demanded she marry someone in the same social class as her. She married me anyway. There was love between us once upon a time, believe it or not.” He sighs, and I sense a bit of regret in its heaviness. “When her parents died, they left everything to her. She refused to touch it, insisting we make our own path. I suppose that was the point for me when greed took the place of love, and that’s something I have to live with. Regardless, she wanted the seven of you to have the money. You’ll see when you look further into both the trust and the foundations that the trust has five million in it for each of you to use for your future children, and each of your foundations has an account with two million in them to start your bankroll.”
“That’s almost fifty million dollars,” Madden murmurs, echoing my own thoughts. “Her parents were worth that much?”
He shakes his head. “Her parents were worth double that.”
I mean…I don’t want to sound greedy, but—
Before I can finish the thought, Dex asks, “Where’s the other half?”
Dad glances out the window, guilt playing on his features.
“Oh, no. Dad, no,” Everleigh says.
“He has admitted to nothing,” Paul reminds us, but we all know where the money went.
He pilfered it for some underground operation, or for gambling, or for…something. He took it. It didn’t belong to him.
Add it to the list of crimes.
“What’s all this nonsense about the fucking legacy when you continue to prove that all you care about is yourself?” Archer asks, surprising everyone in the room with his question. It’s one we were all wondering, but probably one that none of us had the nerve to ask.
“Judge me how you want, but understand that there’s a lot you don’t know,” he answers. “I made investments to build this family’s wealth. I did it to create something that would last, to give us the type of wealth and power we deserve.”
Madden stands and shakes his head in disgust. “You’re not fooling anybody,” he hisses. “You did this to serve yourself. To pretend like you fit in with some social class, like you were good enough for Mom. But there’s more to that class than wealth. It’s not just how much you have. It’s how you make it. Mom apparently came from old money.” He shakes the papers in his hands to prove his point. “You come from dirty money.”
He walks out of the room, and Kennedy looks around a little helplessly, a little lost, before she follows him out of the room.
The rest of us glare at our father and give him our own looks of disgust as we each follow suit, walking out of theroom and leaving him alone with his lawyer…which is likely a mirror image of how he’ll be spending most of whatever time he has left on this earth.
CHAPTER 33: Tatum Barker
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