According to Greek mythology, King Sisyphus betrayed Zeus. In return, Zeus ordered Death to chain Sisyphus in the underworld. Sisyphus asked Death to demonstrate how the chains worked, then seized the opportunity to trap Death in the chains.
When he was caught, Sisyphus’ punishment was to roll a boulder until it reached the top of a steep hill. Zeus had enchanted the boulder to always roll away from Sisyphus before he reached the top. That condemned Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration.
The moral of the story—no one is above penance.
Even kings can’t escape punishment.
Sisyphus’ eternal punishment is also why pointless, difficult, or impossible tasks are described as Sisyphean.
I imagined Sisyphus carrying a boulder in front of me, like I often did when I needed to remind myself penance required delivering. That I would be trapped in this Sisyphean task for life, and even when I accomplished it, I would always suffer knowing I could have prevented all this.
My penance was to deliver punishment to those involved in the Winthrop Scandal.
Gideon Winthrop for embezzling money.
Balthazar Van Doren for co-owning Winthrop Textiles and helping Gideon.
Virginia Winthrop, Eric Cartwright, and Emery Winthrop for knowing or worse—being involved.
The second Dad died, retaliation fueled my nights, turning dreams into revenge fantasies and plotting into an obsession. The first nail in the head would be Gideon. He had been the ringleader, the main owner of the company, so he would be the first domino to topple.
I planned to acquire access to his fortune, then sit in front of him as he watched it bleed dry, knowing the son of a gardener had brought his deliverance. And like a sudden windstorm, he would never see it coming.
The others would suffer after, their penance easy to achieve. Virginia thrived on a life of luxury. Without money, she would wither to nothing. Balthazar and Eric deserved to suffer in six-by-eight cells, which would happen once I turned over the ledger to the F.B.I. or S.E.C. and testified to the two conversations I had heard the night of Emery’s cotillion.
The one before—where Gideon and Balthazar discussed embezzlement and the downfall of Winthrop Textiles.
The one after—where Gideon, Eric, and Virginia argued in the office, Virginia yelling that Emery already knew.
And Emery’s penance was supposed to be dismantling her trust fund… If she was to be believed, however, she had no trust fund. I believed her like I believed Mariah Carey sung without autotune.
I considered her involvement. She’d been young at the time, which was why I only intended to relieve her of her trust fund. But she was old enough to know better. To, at the very least, warn Reed, Ma, and Dad. That was all I expected. Instead, she’d kept her mouth shut, my parents lost everything, and Dad lost his life.
No, Emery Winthrop didn’t deserve my pity nor my futile attempts to feed her.
I chalked it up to habit. With Virginia forgetting to give Emery lunch money so often, it had become a habit to stop by Reed and Emery’s table at lunch and hand her the brown lunch sack Ma packed me.
Now, she was hungry again, and habit had taken over. Worse, she had met with Brandon Vu outside the tent city. A gilded snake in my stolen kingdom.
Maybe taking me down was her penance.
After all, she had led an S.E.C. agent to my family’s cottage the day of the F.B.I.-S.E.C. raid on the Winthrop Estate. I’d only seen the back of his head, but he wore a windbreaker with S.E.C. printed on it.
Either way, Dick Kremer, the private investigator Delilah hired for me, needed to deliver, or I would level the state searching for answers.
Dick popped a sugar-free Jolly Rancher into his mouth, and I already knew I would dislike him and anything he had to say. I pulled out my phone and shot a text to Delilah.
Nash: Where did you find this guy? Last I checked, Craigslist shut down personal ads.
Delilah: Haling Cove Flea Market. He came with my used tea set. Be gentle. Neither is refundable.
The pad of Dick’s thumb swiped at his nose. He clutched the chair handles with that same finger before drawing his eyes away from my penthouse view. “Emery Winthrop has taken out, like, a ton of student loans. Before this, she had a job at a diner in Alabama near Clifton University’s campus.”
Fika hadn’t told me that.
Fika hadn’t told me a lot of things.
Dick continued, “She used all of that diner money to pay a company called Atgaila. It’s Lithuanian for penance. The company is registered under her name in Lithuania, and other than that, it’s like it doesn’t exist.”
Student loans.
Diner job.
Shell company.
Penance.
I had been given a puzzle with a million pieces, and the biggest one had been hidden. What I did know was, the word penance implied she had done something wrong to atone for. I latched onto that like fingers gripping the edge of a cliff.
“What does the company do?” I finally asked.
“Dunno.” Dick scratched his belly, the one he had shoved into an Ed Hardy tee two sizes too small, the gym rat muscles peeking out in a way that was very much obscene.
I rarely raised my voice. Speaking threats at a level volume always worked better than shouting them, but I upped mine a notch or two, because Dick was that type of person. The type that mistook aggression for strength. “How much is it worth?”
He withered in front of me. The two-hundred-and-seventy-pound boxer in the distressed True Religion douche jeans and hot pink Tap Out briefs peeking out actually withered in front of me. “I don’t know.”
“Where is its headquarters?”
“Um, I don’t know?”
I wanted to strangle him. “Dick—”
“It’s Richard.”
“Dick, take a break from your Jamba Juice green smoothies, extra-strength steroids, and failed super heavyweight career, and teach your concussed ass how to do its fucking job.”
First Fika.
Now Dick.
Un-fucking-believable.
Competence, it turned out, was the Lochness Monster—it never existed in the first place, but people sure as hell liked to say it did.
I pointed to the penthouse door. “Get out.”
“But—”
Sliding Emery’s wallet out of my pocket, I tossed a few hundred-dollar bills at Dick’s stunned face. “Buy yourself a new fucking brain, and get out.”
I ran a palm down my face as Big Dick scrambled out of the chair. The door opened but never closed. When I looked up, I caught Fika hovering near the entryway like a confused puppy unsure how to use the stairs for the first time.
Delilah Lowell.
She could never mind her own business.
“Delilah sent you here,” I stated, taking in the newfound weight Fika carried.
His tan had returned since I had last seen him. I’d never seen his eyes this crystal clear, too. He wore a fitted purple Henley sheathed over scraggy muscles, but his skin no longer glowed a shade of death.
He paired the same distressed jeans he always wore with Nike slides and red and gold tube socks with the number seven stitched on the sides in white. Even the sallow cheeks I’d gotten used to had filled out.
“Delilah called me last night and said I might wanna make a day trip to Haling Cove.” Fika rubbed the top of his head, brushing four strands of stringy blond hair to the side. The Jonas Brothers wig no longer covered his scalp, but he had the same amount of hair as Rosco. He also didn’t look tired. “Not much to do for me in Eastridge, so I said, yeah, I’d make the trip. Saw your Ma at the supermarket the other day. She said Reed is coming back to town soon.”
I ignored his last comment, slid Emery’s wallet back into my pocket, and gestured to the chair opposite of mine, wondering if I had any cigarettes in my desk. I didn’t smoke, but I used to keep them around for Fika’s visits. “You look like shit, but less shitty than usual.”
“The tumors in my lungs are basically gone.” He rubbed around his ribcage before taking a seat. “Hopefully for good this time.”
I booted my laptop up and searched for Emery’s shell company. “Why are you here?”
“I know you paid off my medical bills.”
Fika looked two seconds from thanking me, so I cut him off, “It was anonymous.”
If I wanted his gratitude, I would have cooked him dinner and complimented his eyes. Never happening in the next ten lifetimes.
“What do you know?” His shrug emphasized how much he had filled out since I’d last seen him. “I’m a good P.I. I’m good at following clues.”
“Funny, considering you haven’t clued in on the fact that I want you out of here.”
I didn’t.
Not yet.
I had questions.
He had answers.
“Fine.” Fika held up both palms in the universal sign for surrender. “I was only here to say thanks.”
I let him walk to the door, searched for any signs of exertion, then stopped him. “Wait.”
He did. “Yeah?”
“Emery Winthrop—”
The few wisps of hair on his head flopped forward as he shook it. “I already said I ain’t sharing more about the Winthrop family, Nash.”
“Let me ask the fucking question first,” I bit out.
In front of me, my search for the shell company had come up empty. It would always. Unlike her pigeon-brained mother, Emery had a head on her shoulders. Fika, on the other hand, possessed answers. I needed them.
Fika heaved a sigh before returning to the seat and crossing his legs at his ankles. “Fine. Make it quick.”
“Look at you, Fika.” I toyed with the business card Brandon had left me a while back. It laid at the edge of my desk since. “Did your doctors swap your chemo drugs with something to grow your spine?”
“You’re an ass. You know that?”
Original. I’ve only been asked that by literally everyone I’ve ever met.
“Shocking revelation. No wonder you’re a P.I.” I cut to the chase, “Emery Winthrop is paying a Lithuanian shell company around $20,000 a year.” My eyes inspected his face, taking the time to search him for signs of distress, a spark of knowledge. Anything. “Do you know where the money is going to?”
He did.
It was obvious.
Stiffened shoulders.
Heavy sigh.
Resignation written between the grooves of wrinkles across his face.
“Yeah.” He paused and scrubbed his eyes, aging again before me. “It’s for a scholarship fund at Wilton University. The only recipient is this kid. Demi Wilson.”
“Who is she?”
“Angus Bedford’s daughter.”
I leaned forward in my seat until the edge of my desk pressed hard against my abs. “Angus Bedford didn’t have any kids.”
“He did with his first wife. They divorced while she was a couple of weeks pregnant. She put her last name on the birth certificate over his. He didn’t learn until later in life. His ex-wife passed away, and the kid lived with her uncle but went searching for her Dad.”
“She find him?”
“When Angus figured it out, he started making trips to New York every weekend to meet with Demi and help pay the bills. Had to stop after he lost everything he invested in Winthrop Textiles. Didn’t have the money for the trip or the bills. Life kinda spiraled for him. Then, he…”
“Killed himself,” I finished.
The newspapers blamed it on the Winthrop Scandal.
I had, too.
Still did.
Emery’s involvement, on the other hand, remained fuzzy. Mostly, I couldn’t pinpoint her motivations. She reminded me of time—out of reach, always changing, never conforming to my needs.
“Yeah.” Fika clutched the chair handles, the same exact spot Dick had after picking at his nose. “Yeah, he did. Shit, this is depressing.”
“And Emery is paying for his daughter to go to college?”
“Yeah, Demi’s a good kid. They both are. Don’t go after Emery, Nash.” His hesitation invaded the space between us. “She has no money.”
I could list Emery’s sins, but I locked my jaw, counted down from three, and said, “She has a massive trust fund.”
“She doesn’t touch it.” He leaned forward until the only thing that separated us was the ebony-stained desk. “I know that makes her an easier target, but don’t you dare touch her. You get away with a lot of shit when it comes to me, but I wouldn’t be okay with it if you hurt her. Not one bit.”
“She knew about the embezzlement while it was happening.”
“No way.”
“I heard Virginia say it.”
She already knows. Why do you think I sent her to that shrink to set her straight?
Word for word, I remembered it.
“Well, you heard wrong.” A sigh laced his words, along with a determination I recognized but not on him. “Poor girl can’t even afford a damn meal.”
My eyes snapped to his. I searched his face, didn’t find what I wanted, and searched it again.
I didn’t hear wrong, Fika. She met with a fucking S.E.C. agent.
I left that argument out, because if she had, I definitely deserved it.
My brain kicked into overdrive, recalling all the fucked-up things I had done to her because I had thought she was complicit in the Winthrop Scandal.
Being a general dick.
Laughing in her face when she accidentally screwed me instead of Reed.
Stealing her wallet.
Making her buy me coffee with her twenty-dollar bill.
Forcing her to give me the change.
Ripping her photo of Reed in half.
Watching her shower.
Threatening her.
Getting her off when she was barely older than half my age.
Ripping her clothes.
Leaving her naked when we both wanted to fuck each other’s brains out.
Embarrassing her in front of her coworkers.
Giving her grunt work.
Depriving her of a meal.
Shit, the list went on, flashes of scenes I’d been able to justify at the time.
Fika’s revelation haunted me.
She can’t even afford a meal.
And I’d taken one from her.
The thing about revenge is, people feel entitled to it. Being wronged is an invitation to retaliate, but the cycle never stops. I had justified everything I did to her at the time with one sentence—Dad died. My morals didn’t exist, though I told myself I thrived on them.
I tried to fix myself by breaking her.
Fika made me promise to leave Emery alone before he left. I didn’t remember what I had muttered back, but it must have pacified him because he placed a palm on my shoulder, said something I didn’t hear, and left right after.
My new phone hit the wall as soon as the door shut behind him. It clattered to the floor, chunks of glass flying off, the screen looking eerily similar to the one Emery had crushed to pieces.
She can’t even afford a meal, and you took her money and publicly shamed her for eating a pathetic slice of turkey. She can break all your damn phones until you die, you miserable bastard.
I stepped on the glass, uncaring that the shards dug into my heels and drew blood. Kicking my broken phone to the side, I stripped off my suit, scattered it to the ground like littered trash, and stood under the shower head. It hammered scalding-hot water onto my scalp and shoulders.
My skin turned red beneath the blaze, but I didn’t let myself move. I ground the glass deeper into my skin. Blood drifted from my feet. The dark red faded into the water, diluted to pink, and swirled down the drain.
Two palms pressed against the wall, I studied the floor, placing my feet exactly where Emery had stood when I’d watched her finish her shower. My dick instantly hardened, and I was so fucked up for grabbing it.
Stroking it.
Picturing her.
For the first time in my life, I accepted the truth.
I am the villain in this story.
