He looks at me.
"But I'm not asking for unlimited access," I say. "I'm asking not to be kept in the dark about things that directly affect my life. Those aren't the same thing and you know it."
"The Torres document?—"
"Is one example. It's not the point." I look at him steadily. "The point is that I've been reading those files and you were fine with it right up until something made you uncomfortable. And now I'm supposed to understand that some things are just sealed and I should accept that?” I pause. "That's not being inside this family. Not really."
He's quiet for a long moment.
Then he stands up and says he needs some air and goes upstairs.
Later that night,neither of us sleeps.
I can hear him moving around in the bedroom—the floor creaking, the sound of him sitting on the edge of the bed, getting up again. I sit at the kitchen table for a while and then move to the couch and lie there in the dark with some lights coming through the windows and think about Torres and the settlement and what it all means.
At three in the morning I hear his footsteps on the stairs.
Phoenix comes into the living room and sits down in the chair across from the couch. He's in a t-shirt and sweatpants. It’s just Phoenix at three in the morning with dark circles under his eyes and his hands loose between his knees.
"Torres knew what the job was,” he says after a long moment.
I don’t reply and just listen.
"Torres was my head of security," he says. "He knew our history. He knew what the job meant and he took it anyway. When he died, we took care of his family—the settlement, his kids' college, all of it. That's what we do for our people." He looks at me directly. "You need to decide if you can live with this or not."
The room is quiet. The clock on the wall ticks. Outside the city goes about its three in the morning business, the occasional car on the road below the house, a dog somewhere barking twice and stopping.
I think it through.
Torres knew the job. The family took care of his family. The settlement exists because that's how you protect people quietly—you don't put it on record in a way that creates exposure, you just make sure the kids are covered and the widow doesn't struggle. I know this. I worked it out months ago going through what Nicholas's lawyers were actually doing in the aftermath.
What I couldn't stand was finding it in a stack I was supposed to be reading. Being trusted with the cascade analysis and the Harwick dissolution and Ashley Price and everything else, and then hitting a sealed document like a locked door I wasn't supposed to notice was there.
"I can live with it," I say. "But I need you to tell me the truth from now on." I look at him across the dark living room. "I'm not outside the circle anymore. You need to stop treating me like I am."
He's quiet for a moment. His hands are still loose between his knees, his elbows on his thighs, and he looks at me with a sense of defeat.
"You're right," he says. "I should have pulled that document out or I should have told you it was there. I didn't. That's on me."
"Why didn't you?"
He looks at his hands. "Because I didn't know how to explain it without it sounding like exactly what you're accusing me of."
"Which is?"
“Lying to you." He looks up. "Deciding what you can handle and giving you that."
The clock ticks.
"Phoenix."
"Yeah."
"That's what your father does."
He doesn't flinch. He holds my gaze. "I know."
"I know you know," I say. "That's why I said it."
