Page 36 of The Quiet After The Fall

I click and scan the documents inside. It looks like bank statements of some kind. Not the business account I’m familiar with.

A name jumps out at me. Thorne.

My pulse picks up and I lean in, opening an email to send everything in this folder to myself.

“Comfortable?”

I hold my breath but don’t move. After years of his shit, I’ve trained myself to not flinch, not respond. It only ever makes him angrier that he doesn’t get to me. My hand stops over the keys, though, and I look up at him.

My father’s standing in the doorway in a rumpled shirt, no jacket or tie. He’s sober for now. I can tell because his hands are shaking and there’s a sheen on his forehead. I’d rather deal with him drunk, at least I’d know what to expect.

“You’re here early,” I say.

“It’s my office.” He shuts the door behind him. “My desk. My machine. You want to tell me what you think you’re doing in it?”

“I want to know the truth.” I lean back in his chair. “What you and Moretti worked out. Why you’re so afraid of him, you’d sell me to his daughter to make it go away.”

“Close the computer, Knox.”

“He said he has something on you. Something that proves you weren’t the victim of the scandal.”

For a split second, it seems like he’s going to answer me. It’s in his eyes, a lightness. But then it’s gone and he’s back to looking at me with disdain.

“Close it.”

“How much of it was you?”

“Close the computer.”

“Did David take the fall for⁠—”

He crosses the room faster than a man in his condition should be able and his hand fists the front of my shirt as he slams me back in the chair, making the wheels skid until it hits the wall behind me.

He brings his face an inch from mine, heaving his sour breath directly into my nostrils. I can see the effort it’s taking for him to keep this up…his upper lip is moist, his collar is damp, and he’s trembling.

It takes a lot of energy to be a big tough guy when he hasn’t had his first drink of the day.

For some reason, I let him do whatever this is. I even crack a smile.

“You don’t get to dig in my personal business. Mine. Not yours. You think because you came home to play the martyr, now I owe you something.” His grip twists tighter. “I don’t owe you a damn thing. You were never the son I’d have chosen to be left with. Now get the hell out of my chair.”

He lets go and steps back, knowing I’m not going to argue. Richard Aldrich always gets what he wants.

I stand and straighten out my shirt, my fingers itching to wrap around his throat and squeeze until he’s no longer breathing the same air as me. Not because of what he said or that he put his hands on me. I’m used to that, it’s old news at this point.

But because I know he’s hiding something that involves the Thornes. Whatever mess he’s covering up is the reason I can’t be with Sawyer openly and that’s all I fucking care about right now.

He doesn’t know that I already sent myself that folder. That whatever he’s trying to hide in there won’t stay hidden for long.

I walk past him, balling up my fists at my side so I don’t do anything stupid. I know he’s waiting for me to leave so he can open up the bottle that’s in his bottom drawer.

“Knox.”

I stop at the door but don’t turn around.

“Whatever you think you found, leave it alone. For once in your life, listen to me. Do the easy thing.”

“Easy?” I scoff. “I’ve never had it easy where this family is concerned. Not even once.”