Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
She should be celebrating his death, not questioning it.
If the papers I hold in my hands are correct, my mother was fucking right.
Dad didn’t die of a heart attack.
Dad. Henry fucking Hathaway.
My heart clenches.
Once I tell Alissa about my father, I won’t be able to take the words back.
She will forever know that I’m the son of the disgraced former mayor of Chicago.
I just hope she’ll be able to look past that and still want to be with me.
She won’t care. It’s Alissa. We’ve been through so much already, and she hasn’t left my side yet.
“I’ve already mentioned that my family was into politics.”
She nods. “You did.”
“What I didn’t mention—and I’ll admit, I buried the lead pretty fucking deep here—is that my father was a man named Henry Hathaway. And he was the mayor of Chicago.”
She drops her jaw. “The mayor?”
“Yeah. The top dog. My family has a bunch of city councilmembers, state senators, even a few members of Congress in Washington. But my dad was the only one who ever got the mayorship. The mayorship of a big city like Chicago is powerful. More powerful than a lot of elected positions in Washington. Sometimes more powerful than the governor.”
“That’s crazy.” Alissa furrows her brow. “Why didn’t you mention it until now?”
“Because”—I rub at the back of my neck—“he didn’t exactly leave office at the top of his game.”
“Meaning?”
I sigh. “He passed this bill. The HOUSE bill, it was called, even though it had very little to do with housing. I’ll spare you the details—you can google them if you want—but it led to crazy unemployment and homelessness numbers. He lost reelection in the biggest landslide in a century.”
“My God.” She scratches the side of her head. “But why would I care about what your father did, Maddox? I’m not dating him. I’m dating you.”
“Because… Now you know what I left behind. For a fucking clothing store. Most women who’ve dated me in the past have either been after my looks—”
“Which is valid.” She elbows me in the ribs.
“Or for my family name. And they went running for the hills the moment they learned I was worth next to nothing.”
“You have a successful shop. That’s hardly nothing.”
“It wasn’t always successful. The first couple of years were pretty lean.”
“Any new business would be. You had to build a clientele, find your niche.”
“There’s something else, though.” I run a hand through my hair. “My father left me a nice chunk of change. But only on the condition that I go to Yale, pursue a degree in political science. A little over ten million bucks. It’s been sitting in a trust for over a decade now. I haven’t touched it. I can’t leave the shop.”
She pats my hand. “Of course you can’t. It’s your baby.”
Her words warm me.
Laurie left me because I stuck up my nose at my dad’s riches.
But Alissa doesn’t care. She likes—perhaps even loves—me for me. Not for my family name, not for the money I could claim at any time.
I lean over, give her a peck on the lips. “Thank you, Alissa.”
“Thank you, Maddox.” She eyes the papers in my hands. “So what does that report have to do with this?”
I shuffle through the papers in my hands. “These were on Bill’s desk when I was sneaking around his office, hoping to find something about May or Svetlana. Right out in the open. He must have been looking over old files when the test results came in for May.” I pull out a sheet of paper. “According to this coroner’s report, my father died of a heart attack, likely brought on by stress from the last year of his life. Not only did he lose his popularity and his office, but there was also a slew of sexual harassment claims, and he divorced my mom.”
“Goodness. That would kill just about anyone.”
“You’d think.” I grab another piece of paper. “But according to this nearly identical coroner’s report, also about my father, two hundred milliliters of dark liquid were found in his stomach upon his death. Toxicology identified the substance as a”—I read the words directly off the page—“potassium-channel blocker with atropine-like qualities, commonly associated with cardiotoxic plant alkaloids.”
“In English, please?”
“Yeah, it’s meaningless to me, too. Luckily, Bill clears it up on the next line.” I point. “The substances in his bloodstream mimic the effects of a heart attack. A doctor treating him wouldn’t be able to tell the difference while it was happening. Only the autopsy reveals what actually happened.”
She gasps. “So your father was poisoned?”
I nod. “Probably by a political enemy. Which, at the time of his death, was basically the entire city of Chicago. Anybody who had access to what he was eating or drinking could have done it. But I’m not trying to solve my old man’s murder. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass how the bastard kicked the bucket.” I tap the pieces of paper. “What I do care about is that Bill buried this.”