Page 37 of Devil's Riches

Nate stood stock-still, face frozen in an expression of horror and revulsion. “No,” he muttered. “No fucking way.”

“Yes.” Greg’s smile widened. “I’m your real father. Not Francis.”

Sickness washed over me. I clamped a hand over my mouth and retched, legs almost buckling under me.

Greg laughed uproariously. “Christ, you two actually believe me, don’t you?” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, I’m just kidding. I’m not your father, Nate. Like I said before, it was only a matter of time before one of Francis’s babies stuck inside Annalise.”

“That’s your idea of a joke?” I choked out, throat burning from the bile that had risen into it.

He snorted. “Yes. I never wanted children. I had a vasectomy when I was twenty.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed. “So everything you just said is bullshit?”

“Only the part about me being your father. The rest is true.”

I moved closer and smacked my hand across his face with a resounding crack. “You need to stop fucking around and start answering our questions,” I hissed. “One more sick joke like that and I’ll cut your precious Annalise’s fingers off when she gets here.”

The amusement vanished from his face. “I don’t even remember what your questions were,” he said icily.

“We want to know about the murders, and we want to know about the Golden Circle. Now.”

“Fine.” He let out a huff and rubbed his jaw. “The reason I killed all those people—the main reason, anyway—and the purpose of the Golden Circle are actually two sides of the same coin.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, luckily for you, we have all fucking day,” Nate said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Greg sighed and rubbed his face again. “I’m sure you both know enough about history to know that there have been a lot of disruptions to world economies over the years because of wars, political unrest, and natural disasters?” he said.

I wrinkled my forehead, wondering why the hell he was suddenly talking about the economy. “Yes.”

“Well, back in the 1950s—long before I was ever born—my family got together with some other families that lived here on Avalon. They formed a syndicate and called themselves the Golden Circle. Their goal was to find a way to maintain their vast fortunes despite all the economic ups and downs the world was going through in the post-war period. See, it wasn’t all booming back then, like some people will have you believe. A lot of wealthy families lost their fortunes in those years. Even dynasties that had money and property stretching back to the Gilded Age were ruined.” Greg paused and scratched the back of his head, brows knitted. “It wasn’t entirely their fault,” he went on. “The stock market has always been unstable, and crashes happen. The property market is just as bad. In fact, most industries are unstable in some way. It’s rare to find something that will always turn a profit and remain completely stable no matter what’s going on in the world.”

“Can you get to the fucking point?” Nate said, narrowing his eyes.

Greg lifted a hand. “I’m getting there. This is all relevant,” he replied. “Anyway, the families dabbled in a few things here and there, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that they found their true calling. It was in an industry that had been around for quite some time but hadn’t gone very far due to lack of medical advances, failed experiments, low survival rates, and so on. By the time the 60s rolled around, things were starting to take off, and the syndicate saw a gap in the market.”

“What market?” I asked, curiosity piqued.

“Organ transplants,” he said. “By the 60s, surgeons were capable of transplanting kidneys, livers, hearts, intestines, and lungs. Nowadays, they can do even more. They can even use certain parts of people’s eyes to restore vision in patients who need it. But there’s always been a major problem—lack of donor availability. So the waiting lists for people who need organs are far too long.”

The look on his face was so grim, so dark, that I felt my flesh crawl.

“You’re saying the Golden Circle were organ traffickers,” I said in a low voice.

He smiled thinly. “I suppose you could call it that,” he said. “Anyway, as I was trying to say before, the waiting lists for organs are far too long. But the well-heeled people of this world have something that others don’t. Something very obvious.”

“Money to pay for organs on the black market,” Nate said, shaking his head with disgust. “So they don’t have to wait.”

“Exactly. Like I said, the Golden Circle saw that gap in the market, and they swooped in and stuck their claws right into it. By the early 70s, things were running very smoothly for them.”

My guts twisted with revulsion. “What’s your idea of things running smoothly?” I said, folding my arms.

“They worked in three-month cycles. In each period, every family would find a donor to use. That way they were all equally culpable, so if one family ever felt guilty and decided to squeal to the authorities, they would go down right along with the rest of them.”

“What do you mean when you say they’d find a donor to use?” I asked, even though I already knew what he meant. I just wanted to hear him say it out loud.

---