“Ethan?” my father said. “What… what is this? Did you steal this? Are you driving for someone?”
He was looking around for the real owner. The actual important person. The one this scene would make sense for.
I walked past him and stopped in front of Martin Holloway.
“Good morning.”
He straightened.
“Good morning, Mr. Chairman,” he said clearly. “I brought the termination papers, as requested.”
Everything stopped.
My father blinked.
“What did he just call you?”
I turned back toward them.
“I’m the majority shareholder of NorthStar,” I said. “The chairman. The one signing off on the decisions that kept you employed these past three years despite your numbers.”
Silence.
“Three years ago I won the lottery. Four hundred and fifty million dollars. After taxes, about two hundred eighty million. I put it behind a blind trust and kept working. I wanted to see who you really were when there was nothing to gain from treating me well.”
I pulled out my phone.
“I paid Mom’s credit cards. Eighteen times. Two hundred forty-seven thousand dollars.”
Another folder.
“I protected your job.”
Another.
“And Tyler—your debts, your lawsuits, the elderly couple you defrauded? That was me too. Every escape hatch, every miracle, every unexplained piece of good fortune. Me.”
Tyler had gone pale.
My mother looked less devastated than calculating, which somehow hurt less than it should have because it was exactly what I expected.
My father lifted a trembling hand. “Son, if we had known—”
“Would it have mattered?” I asked. “Would you have treated me with respect if I’d been poor forever? Would you have loved me in that basement? Or only in this suit?”
No answer.
I handed the foreclosure envelope to my mother.
“You have three days to vacate. The mortgage is due.”
I nodded toward Holloway.
“And Robert, you’re terminated effective immediately.”
Tyler found his voice in a burst.
“You can’t do this. We’re family.”
I laughed once.
“Family? Where was family when you laughed while my cake went in the trash? Where was family when you charged me rent to live in mold? Where was family when you threw me out?”
My father looked like the world had turned against gravity.
“I was trying to make you stronger,” he whispered. “I thought if we were hard on you—”
“You thought wrong.”
Then he clutched his chest.