Page 70 of Plum

“To be frank?” He pauses. I nod, my gaze even. “It was difficult enough, ensuring that you were worthy of the Wade name. But you never quite accepted us—never accepted me as your father. Even after the adoption. I didn’t think Ryan Morrison would help you embrace your new life. And I’ll admit; my motivations weren’t entirely selfless.”

“What do you mean?”

There’s a look, almost like chagrin, on my stepfather’s face. “Well, God doesn’t often gift you with a second chance.” His lips turn up in a wry smile. “I didn’t do my best by Eric. I can admit that. His mother was…” He sighs. “I thought indulgence was love, and by the time I was wiser, well, it was too late. And then I met your mother. And you. You were this tough,brilliantyoung man with a mind like nothing I’d seen before. And grit. You had suchgrit. Everything I gave you, you took as an opportunity, and you didn’t just do well. You dominated.”

I shift in my seat, uneasy. We don’t talk like this. At least, he never has before.

“All I wanted was to share my legacy with you. My son.” He raises his glass. “But you never saw yourself as a Wade. As my son.”

“Thomas, that’s—”

“It’s true,” he interrupts. “You think I don’t know that you and Eric plot together about leaving Wade-Allyn?” His eyes go hard, the sentimentalism gone.

I won’t deny it. “We want to build our own legacy.”

“You alreadyhave. I gave you the keys to the kingdom, and you made this company your own. Do you think I actually understand what we do here now? But that’s not enough for you.” He sets his drink down with a thud. Rage fills his flinty gray eyes.

“I gave you all this, I gave you my name, and you drag it through themud.” He leans forward, his face growing red. “Playing house with awhore.”

“Don’t you—”

“Do you even know who she is?” He grabs a manila folder from an end table. “Public indecency. Prostitution. Shoplifting. Did you even look at her health records?” He flips through the papers in the file. “She’s been passed around this biker club foryears. How can you touch her without your skin crawling?”

I rise to my feet, fingers curling into a fist. “You need to leave.”

He stands, dropping the file to his empty seat. “Do yourself a favor and read that. Think about how far you’re really willing to go to reject this family. To turn your back on all I’ve done for you.” A vein bulges in his forehead, and his hands shake.

“This isn’t your business.” My fury and disgust wars with old desires, old longings. The respect of this man was once everything to me. The imprint of that feeling is powerful, almost a muscle memory.

“Youare my business.” My stepfather smooths his hands on his slacks and squares his shoulders. “And if you spit in my eye one more time, so help me God, I am done with you. You’re out. You won’t have to quit Wade-Allyn; I will put you out on your ass. If what I’ve given you means so little, we aredone. Your mother is with me on this. Make a decision, Adam. You can’t go on with one foot in. It’s not fair to anyone.”

My stepfather exhales as if he’s said his piece, and heads for the door, and then he stops as if he remembered something. “And son? Your mother and I both read that.” He nods at the file. “If you choose to force that woman into our lives, you do so with the full knowledge that we can never accept her. You cannot expect us to stand by and watch you debase yourself and shame this family.” He nods firmly, as if to himself, and walks out the door.

I stand there a long time after he leaves, staring out the window at the wind rippling the river and the buildings rising beyond it. And then I sit at my desk, and I open the file.

There, in black and white, is everything I’ve been averting my eyes from. Justifying. Pretending it didn’t matter.

This report is much more thorough than the one from the company’s background service. Thomas hired a real investigator. This level of detail, they must have been working on this since I met Jo-Beth.

Public indecency. It was a plea. The original charge was prostitution.

Prostitution. There are two counts. She was eighteen both times. The first time, she got probation and court costs. The second time she paid a thousand dollar fine. Both times, she was arrested at a rest stop on Route 29.

Then there are her school records. Copies of letter after letter warning her mother that if her attendance didn’t improve, action would be taken. The letters keep coming after her mother dies in hospice, but they stop when Jo-Beth drops out.

My gut is tied in a knot, acid scoring my throat.

There are screenshots of her health records. Definitely illegally obtained. It’s mostly bronchitis and sinus infections, but there’s a thick circle hand drawn around an antibiotic prescription when she was nineteen. Chlamydia.

And then there are newspaper articles about a foster father, published long after she would have left the home. He was arrested in a vice sting, soliciting underage girls. His son showed the police a cache of videos. In most, the face of the girls weren’t visible, but police do identify one victim as a former foster child. Not Jo-Beth. A woman a few years older.

A wave of powerlessness saps me of energy, and I slump in my chair. How does a person survive this? How do you live through this with your heart intact?

The answer, of course, is staring me in the face.

You don’t.

In the part of the report for “associates,” the only people listed are members of the Steel Bones MC and employees of The White Van. No family. No friends apart from the MC. No boyfriends or lovers. Not one.

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