Chapter 6 - The Price of Silence
Patrick looked completely broken, trapped between the raging fire of his wife’s indignation and the icy wall of my resolve.
“Mom, please,” he choked out, running a hand through his hair. “Think about Leo. Think about your grandson. If we walk out of here today, you won’t see him again. Kristen means it. Don’t do this to our family.”
It was the ultimate card. The threat Kristen had used like a scalpel for years to keep me compliant. Every time I had wanted to object to a rescheduled holiday, an excluded family portrait, or a snide remark about my aging home, the unspoken threat hung in the air: *Cross me, and you lose Leo.*
I looked at seven-year-old Leo, who was sitting quietly in the living room holding his iPad, oblivious to the storm raging around him. My heart ached, but the fog of fear had completely lifted from my mind.
“If you use your son as a hostage to force me to accept emotional abuse,” I told Patrick, my voice unwavering, “then you are a far worse father than Gerald ever was.”
Kristen gasped, grabbing her purse off the console table. “That does it. We’re done. Patrick, get the car. We’re going to a restaurant. And don’t ever expect another phone call from us, Eleanor. You can die in this empty house all by yourself!”
“Before you walk out that door, Kristen,” I said, walking over to the secretary desk in the corner of the foyer, “there is one more matter we must settle.”
I pulled out a manila folder from the top drawer and placed it squarely on the console table.
“What is that?” Patrick asked, frowning.
May you like
“That is the quarterly authorization for the family business trust,” I said evenly. “The trust that supplies the operational credit line for your marketing firm. The firm that has failed to turn a profit for the last fourteen months.”
Patrick’s face turned from pale to completely translucent.
