Page 60 of Ugly Truths
My chest constricts. No wonder. This isn’t about Jeremy’s career, and it’s definitely not about guilt. My father doesn’t give a damn about what’s best for his son or for the company, for that matter. He’s doing this because it benefitshim.
Elena watches me process this idea, swinging her feet to the floor. “From what I learned in the cloud, there’s a good chance that whatever Peter is after is operations-related. If it’s something only your father is currently aware of, could that be the kind of information he’d pass on to Jeremy if he were to step into the role?” She pauses. Then, with a slight tilt of her head, she adds, her voice lower now, “Or could he be planning to use him as a scapegoat?”
It’s a horrifying thought, but one that fits far too neatly into the way my father functions. The answer churns uneasily in my gut.
Resting my elbows on my desk, I steeple my hands in front of my face as I try to untangle the mess her question just dropped in my lap.
“He could,” I admit, the words heavy on my tongue as she stands. “Both feel possible.”
Elena crosses the room to lean against the edge of my desk, right by my side. “I’m not trying to put ideas in your head,” she says, her voice tinged with worry. “There’s always the possibility I’m reading too much into this. But as an outsider, it just feels too coincidental to me.”
She says “outsider” like it’s a simple fact, and I guess I have my father to thank for that. He cast her out the moment he decided she was using me. While he wasn’t wrong about her intentions, the reasons he believed were entirely off the mark. Those reasons make all the difference in the world because they’re why she’s standing here in my home right now and not still tied to a chair.
“No, you’re right,” I admit. A restless energy pushes through me. I push back from my chair to stand, lifting my glasses to rub my eyes. “We've been disagreeing a lot. I wouldn’t put it past him to turn to Jeremy to regain someleverage there.”
Elena watches me as I readjust my glasses, and I can practically see the gears turning in her head. Her honeyed gaze flickers as she plays out scenarios, piecing together possibilities she hasn’t voiced yet. I can feel she wants to say something, but she’s holding back.
It frustrates me more than it should.
I take a step toward her, and her eyes widen a fraction as I catch her chin between my fingers, gripping it a little harder than necessary.
“What did I just say about speaking freely?” I mutter, thumb brushing over her bottom lip in a deliberate stroke. Her breath catches, but I don’t let up. My gaze narrows as I wait for her to give me what I want.
"I have a kind of deceptive idea," she finally admits, her face flushing with shame as she looks down. Something in me recoils that her first instinct is still to manipulate, but I force it down. Instead, I dip my head, silently urging her to continue.
She exhales, her voice quieter now. “I think you need to know if Jeremy has any idea what’s going. Maybe if you try to spend some time with him, he'll open up about what he knows. It could make a big difference in how you decide to handle him.”
For some reason, her words surprise me, and I find myself smiling at her despite the weight of the conversation.
“A little deceptive,” I concede, leaning down to brush my lips against hers. Her hands reach for my sides, and that new instinct of hers, the one that leans into me rather than pulling away, is something I could definitely get used to.
“But I agree,” I murmur against her mouth, pulling back just enough to meet her eyes. “It doesn’t hurt to try and clear the air between us, anyway. I’ll text him and see about getting dinner. Maybe I’ll bring Davey as a buffer. You know how he has a knack for keeping things light.”
Her expression softens. There’s a flicker of something in her gaze—pride, maybe? Or relief. Either way, it’s enough to ease some of the tension inside me, but plenty of it still lingers. I can’t ignore the resentment for my brother’s blind loyalty, or how easily he might lethimself be used as a pawn. Worse, he might know exactly what’s going on and is willingly complicit in whatever mess my father has created.
Right now, I honestly can’t decide which would be harder to accept.
Chapter 25
Elena
“We’ve identified metadata references connected to Sierra Blanca, Texas,” Ben announces through the speaker. My head snaps up from my laptop and toward Davey’s phone on the coffee table, interest piqued.
For about two weeks, Davey has made it a part of his routine to stop by Silas’s mansion in the late afternoon. His mornings are spent working on-site with Luis, Ben, and Corey until he leaves them under Paul’s supervision—along with a rotating set of Silas’s security team—so he can focus on his regular workload. Then, without fail, he comes here, settling in for the daily debrief.
Usually, Davey finds me in the music room, either on the lounge chair or by the window, laptop open, trying to keep myself busy while Silas sticks to his usual office schedule. His presence has been a welcome change of pace, considering how confusing things have been between me and Silas.
Some days, it feels like we’re making real progress. Silas asks the hard questions, and I answer every one of them. On those days, we have endless communication and understanding. There’s nothing I can or want to hide, and the approval radiates from him. By the time we’re done talking, he’s reaching for me or I’m reaching for him, trying to soothe the jagged cuts of whatever difficult conversation we had to claw our way through. And for those fleeting moments, I think we’re healing.
But those good days are inevitably followed by colder ones, and the distance feels like an impassable chasm. I can see the way his mind tries to reconcile the person I am now with the one who broke his trust. Those moments have branded me with a shame I don’t think I’ll ever get used to, but I follow his lead.
It’s the least I owe him.
In a way, Silas's going back to the office has helped. There’s something almost easier about having a clear structure to our days. It’s given us space to breathe and adjust to this strange, new state of existence together.
“Davey told me this morning,” Silas responds, voice coming through the phone. “Have you figured out what the connection is yet?”
Ben clears his throat. “No. The location markers weren’t explicitly labeled, but we found them embedded in metadata strings across several archived files. When we cross-referenced them with older logs, Sierra Blanca kept coming up. Someone intentionally embedded the location, like they wanted it hidden but still traceable if you knew what to look for.”
