HIS SECRET ADDICTION

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Alex's POV

Catherine's suicide note was three pages long and named my father.

"This doesn't make sense," I told Detective Chen, reading it for the third time. "My father's been out of my life for fifteen years. He's a construction worker in Ohio. How would he even know Catherine?"

"We're looking into it." Chen pulled up a file on her laptop. "When's the last time you spoke to him?"

"I was twelve. He walked out after my mom died, and I went into foster care."

"And you never wondered why he left so abruptly?"

"He was an alcoholic who couldn't handle single parenthood. There wasn't a mystery."

"Maybe there was." She turned the screen toward me. "Richard Parker. That's your father?"

I looked at the photo. Older, grayer, but still him. "Yes."

"He's been working as a consultant for Ross Industries for eight years. Facility management, building contracts, vendor relationships."

My stomach dropped. "That's impossible."

"It's in the employment records. Catherine hired him personally." Chen pulled up more documents. "And according to her note, he approached her five years ago with information about Eleanor's offshore accounts. Information he got from your mother before she died."

"My mother never worked for Ross Industries."

"No, but she worked for their accounting firm. She was Eleanor Ross's personal accountant for six months before she got sick." Chen watched my face. "You didn't know."

"I was seven when she died. She never talked about work."

Damien had been silent beside me. Now he spoke. "Eleanor never mentioned knowing Alex's mother."

"According to Catherine's note, she didn't know until recently. Your father discovered the connection and kept it quiet." Chen closed the laptop. "We need to find Richard Parker. He's disappeared. Last known address in Cleveland was abandoned three weeks ago."

We left the station in shock.

"My father knew your grandmother," I said in the cab. "My mother worked for her. This whole time—"

"It doesn't mean anything," Damien said.

"Doesn't it? What if I didn't randomly apply to Ross Industries? What if he orchestrated the whole thing?"

"Why would he?"

"I don't know! But nothing makes sense anymore." I pulled out my phone, searching for my father's name. Social media showed nothing. No digital footprint at all. "It's like he doesn't exist."

"Or like he's hiding."

Back at our apartment, Maya was waiting with her laptop.

"I did some digging," she said. "Your father's been working under three different aliases over the past decade. Richard Parker, Rick Patterson, and R.P. Collins. All construction-related jobs, all at companies that eventually worked with Ross Industries."

"He's been tracking the company," Damien said.

"Tracking or targeting." Maya pulled up more files. "Every job he took positioned him to access financial records or building plans. He was systemically gathering information."

"For Catherine?"

"Maybe. Or for himself." She showed us bank records. "Catherine paid him two hundred thousand dollars over five years. But there are other deposits. Larger ones. From offshore accounts we can't trace."

My phone rang. Unknown number.

"Don't answer," Damien said.

I answered. "Hello?"

"Alex." My father's voice. Fifteen years older, but unmistakable. "We need to talk."

"Where are you?"

"Somewhere safe. Listen carefully. Catherine didn't kill herself. They got to her before she could tell everything."

"Who's they?"

"The same people who killed your mother. The same people who've been using Eleanor's company to launder money for twenty years." He paused. "Meet me tomorrow. Alone. I'll explain everything."

"I'm not meeting you alone."

"Then people you love will die. Just like your mother. Just like Eleanor." He gave me an address. "Tomorrow, noon. Come alone or don't come at all."

He hung up.

Damien grabbed my phone. "You're not going."

"He said people we love will die."

"He's manipulating you."

"What if he's not? What if there's something bigger happening?" I looked at Maya. "Can you trace that call?"

"Already on it." She typed rapidly. "Burner phone, bounced through three towers. He's in New York. Manhattan somewhere."

"We're calling Chen," Damien said.

"No. If he sees police, he'll run. And we'll never know what he knows about my mother." I grabbed my jacket. "I'm going. You can come with me or not, but I'm going."

"Then I'm coming."

"He said alone."

"I don't care what he said."

We spent the night planning. Maya would track us remotely. Damien would stay close but hidden. I'd wear a wire. We'd get answers and get out.

The address was a warehouse in Red Hook. Abandoned, graffitied, perfect for an ambush.

"This is a terrible idea," Damien said from the car.

"All our ideas are terrible. They usually work out." I checked the wire. "Stay in range."

"Alex—"

I kissed him. "I'll be fine. And if I'm not, avenge me dramatically."

"Not funny."

"Little bit funny."

I walked into the warehouse. My father stood in the center, looking older and tired.

"You came," he said.

"Talk. You have five minutes before I leave."

"Your mother was killed because she found evidence that Eleanor Ross was running a money laundering operation through the company. Millions of dollars from shell corporations, organized crime, foreign governments—all cleaned through legitimate business channels."

"Eleanor would never—"

"Eleanor didn't know. Someone else was using her accounts, her authority, her signature. Your mother figured it out and they killed her. Made it look like cancer when it was poison. Just like Eleanor." He moved closer. "I've spent fifteen years trying to prove it. Trying to find who's really running things."

"And Catherine?"

"Was a pawn. Like me. Like everyone." He pulled out a flash drive. "Everything's here. Names, accounts, transactions. The real power behind Ross Industries."

"Who is it?"

Before he could answer, gunshots shattered the windows. My father grabbed me, pulling me behind a concrete pillar.

"They followed you!" he shouted.

"I was careful!"

More gunshots. Damien's voice in my earpiece: "Alex, get out! Now!"

My father shoved the flash drive into my hand. "Run. Don't trust anyone. Not the police, not the board, not—"

A bullet hit him. He dropped.

"Dad!" I knelt beside him.

"Go," he choked out. "Save Damien. Save yourself. Don't let them—"

He stopped breathing.

I grabbed the flash drive and ran as more bullets flew. Damien met me at the door, pulling me to the car. Maya was already driving, tires screaming as we peeled away.

"Is he dead?" Maya asked.

"Yes." I stared at the flash drive, covered in my father's blood. "But he gave me this."

Back at the apartment, we plugged it in.

Files. Hundreds of them. Transactions, emails, recorded calls. And at the center of everything, one name that made my blood freeze.

"No," Damien whispered.

The documents showed everything. The money laundering, the murders, the conspiracy. All of it traced back to one person who'd been there from the beginning, who'd had access to everything, who we'd trusted completely.

Maya.

I turned to look at her. She stood by the door, gun in hand, expression apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Alex," she said. "I really am. But you weren't supposed to find out this way."

Damien moved in front of me. "Maya, put the gun down."

"I can't. You know I can't." She kept the gun steady. "Your father was getting too close. Catherine was getting sloppy. Eleanor was asking questions. They all had to go."

"You killed Eleanor?" I couldn't process it. "You were my best friend."

"I am your best friend. That's why I'm giving you a choice." She pulled out her phone. "I can transfer ten million dollars to your accounts right now. You both disappear, change your names, start over somewhere nice. Or I can shoot you both and make it look like a murder-suicide. Grief-stricken couple, tragic end."

"Why are you doing this?" Damien asked.

"Because I've been building this network since before you were born. Your grandmother's company was perfect—legitimate, respected, international. I've moved half a billion dollars through it over twenty years. I'm not stopping now." She checked her watch. "You have thirty seconds to decide."

"We'll never stop looking for you," I said.

"Yes, you will. Because you're smart enough to know you can't win." She smiled, and it was like looking at a stranger. "Twenty seconds."

Damien's hand found mine. I looked at him, saw the same calculation in his eyes.

We'd survived a board coup, a murder investigation, corporate espionage. But this? Our best friend, the person we'd trusted with everything, being the villain the whole time?

"Ten seconds."

We could run. Take the money. Disappear.

Or we could fight and probably die.

"Five seconds."

"Okay," I said. "We'll take the money."

Maya lowered the gun slightly. "Smart choice."

"On one condition," Damien added. "You tell us everything. Every detail. We deserve to know what we're running from."

"Fair." Maya pulled up a chair, gun still ready. "Let's start with your mother, Alex. The woman I killed when I was nineteen years old."

The flash drive in my pocket felt like it was burning. Maya didn't know we'd already seen the files. Didn't know we'd sent copies to Chen before leaving the warehouse.

We just had to keep her talking for fifteen more minutes until the police arrived.

If we lived that long.

"Tell me why," I said. "Why kill her?"

Maya smiled. "Because she figured out what I'm going to tell you now. That the real Ross Industries isn't a tech company. It's the largest money laundering operation on the East Coast. And I'm not just part of it."

She leaned forward.

"I'm the one who started it.”