Then the sky threw a new grenade.
Someone — someone with skill and reach — leaked a five-year-old police report tied to Dad’s company. It suggested James Carter had once used a hush fund to bury a complaint about employee misconduct. It was a document with a paper trail that looped in on itself, and Julian’s team pushed it into every inbox like an oil stain. The paper suggested a pattern, and people who had wanted to believe the harshest versions of us found fuel.
Dad shredded into a place I hadn’t seen since the first night. He sat at his desk and opened drawers that had been closed for decades, looking like a man excavating his own bones. “I did what I thought I had to,” he said at one point, and it was both confession and accusation rolled together.
“You don’t have to carry it alone,
