Chapter 5 - The Sins of the Father
Gideon went completely still.
“My father is dead.”
Daniel's laugh echoed through the church.
“No. Your father is buried.”
Jo felt the distinction immediately.
Gideon did too.
Silas Hale had died eleven years earlier.
Heart attack.
Private funeral.
Closed casket.
Gideon had inherited everything.
Daniel explained that Silas had built a hidden political network decades before Gideon took control. Marcus had merely inherited part of it.
The corruption extended through police departments, courts, unions, construction companies, and city government.
Gideon's empire had not created the machine.
It had been built inside one.
Daniel had discovered proof.
“Why disappear?” Jo demanded.
“Because Marcus found out.”
“You abandoned us.”
“To keep you alive.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“Don't turn cowardice into sacrifice.”
Daniel flinched.
Jo stepped closer.
“You could have warned me. You could have sent one letter. Sammy spent years asking why his father didn't want him.”
“I watched you.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
“From a distance.”
That was worse.
Jo slapped him.
The sound echoed.
“You watched?”
Daniel lowered his head.
“You watched me work two jobs? You watched him wear shoes with holes in them?”
“I couldn't touch the money without exposing you.”
“You could've been his father.”
Silence.
Gideon looked away.
This was not his argument.
Then Daniel said something that made him look back.
“Sammy isn't mine.”
Jo stopped breathing.
“What?”
Daniel's face collapsed.
“I met you when you were already pregnant.”
“No.”
“You didn't know yet.”
Jo stared at him.
“That doesn't make sense.”
Daniel removed an old photograph.
Jo took it.
The image showed her at twenty-one at a charity fundraiser.
She remembered the night vaguely.
She had been working catering.
In the background stood Gideon.
Much younger.
Beside him—
his younger brother, Caleb.
Jo's knees weakened.
Caleb Hale.
She remembered him.
One night.
One foolish, tender night with a charming stranger who had called himself Cal.
Weeks later, she met Daniel.
By the time she discovered the pregnancy, she assumed Daniel was the father.
Daniel had allowed her to believe it.
“Why?”
“Because Caleb was dead.”
Gideon seized Daniel by the coat.
“What did you say?”
“Caleb knew what your father was doing. He wanted out.”
Gideon's grip tightened.
Caleb's death had been ruled a robbery gone wrong.
Daniel shook his head.
“Silas ordered it.”
Jo covered her mouth.
Gideon released Daniel as though burned.
For eleven years he had blamed himself.
Caleb had called him the night he died.
Gideon had ignored the call because they were arguing.
By morning, Caleb was dead.
Now a six-year-old boy with chocolate on his cheek and an obsession with purple spaceships might be Caleb's son.
Gideon walked outside.
Snow had stopped.
Jo found him beside the church steps.
He stared at nothing.
“You don't know it's true,” she said.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Caleb had a scar above his left knee.”
Jo remembered Sammy's small crescent-shaped birthmark in the same place.
“That proves nothing.”
“No.”
But his voice said otherwise.
Jo sat beside him.
For once, Gideon looked less like a feared crime boss than a man carrying too many graves.
“I should've answered his call.”
“You don't know that it would've changed anything.”
“I could've tried.”
Jo understood that kind of guilt.
Every poor parent did.
Every bill unpaid became a moral failure.
Every missed school event.
Every cheap dinner.
Every night Sammy asked why other children had fathers.
“You can't raise the dead,” she said.
“No.”
“But you can decide what you do with the living.”
Gideon looked at her.
Their faces were close.
Too close.
Neither moved.
Then Sammy came running from the SUV.
“Mom!”
Jo stood quickly.
He held another drawing.
Three figures this time.
Jo.
Sammy.
And a very tall man wearing black.
Gideon stared at it.
“That's you,” Sammy explained.
“I gathered.”
“You're too big because I ran out of paper.”
Jo laughed.
Gideon took the drawing carefully.
Then his phone rang.
The warmth vanished.
One of his businesses was burning.
Then another call arrived.
Marcus had escaped.
And the final message came from an unknown number.
A photograph.
Gideon's penthouse security chief lay unconscious.
Below the image:
MIDNIGHT TOMORROW. BRING THE DRIVE. OR THE BOY LEARNS HOW HIS FATHER DIED.
Jo read it.
Then another message arrived.
This one contained security footage from the diner.
Sammy sitting alone.
Crosshairs centered over his chest.
Gideon's expression became murderous.
Jo grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“No what?”
“No becoming exactly what they expect.”
“They threatened Sammy.”
“I know.”
“I can end this.”
“By killing everyone?”
“If necessary.”
“And then what?”
He had no answer.
Jo tightened her fingers around his wrist.
“You told me attachments create leverage.”
His eyes sharpened.
“How did you know that?”
“You said it in the car.”
He had forgotten.
Jo continued.
“Maybe that's why men like Marcus win. Because you all think caring about someone makes you weak.”
Gideon stared at her.
“What if it does?”
“Then be weak.”
She released him.
“Just don't be stupid.”
For the first time in years, Gideon laughed.
Quietly.
Briefly.
But genuinely.
Then Daniel emerged from the church.
He looked frightened.
“There's something else you need to know.”
Gideon's laughter died.
Daniel held out a phone.
On the screen was an old photograph of Silas Hale.
Standing beside him was a familiar man.
The chief of police Gideon had seen eating steak at the Wellington.
May you like
And beside him—
Jo's landlord.
