Chapter 8 - The Ledger Balanced
Three hours later, the satellite laptop blinked a single green word across the screen: TRANSFER COMPLETE.
One hundred and forty-two million euros. Every last cent of Vance’s ill-gotten gains, routed directly into the newly established endowment fund bearing my son's name, with Emily Parker listed as the sole managing trustee and chief medical director.
Vance was sitting on the floor by the bar, his expensive suit wrinkled, his head in his hands, staring blankly at the shattered champagne glass on the marble. He looked like a man who had already died and just hadn't stopped breathing yet.
"Leave him," I told Frank, turning away from the desk.
"You're just going to let him walk?" Frank asked, his eyebrows raising in mild surprise. "After all that?"
"He doesn't have a passport, he doesn't have a bank account, and he doesn't have an employer," I said, walking toward the private elevator. "Let Omega deal with their own failures. That's a much worse fate than anything we could do to him."
Emily followed me into the elevator, the satellite laptop tucked securely under her arm like a weapon. The doors slid shut, sealing off the penthouse as the car descended smoothly back toward the lobby.
Neither of us spoke until we were back inside the black Mercedes van, rolling through the quiet, rain-slicked streets of Zurich toward Kloten Airport.
"You really did it," Emily said, looking down at the laptop screen, where the foundation's balance sheet glowed in the dim light of the cabin. "One hundred and forty million. That's enough to fund pediatric trauma research across New England for the next fifty years."
"Your father wanted a lab," I said, staring out the window at the blurred neon lights of the city. "Now he has one."
Emily turned her head, studying my profile in the shadows of the car. "You aren't what I expected, Michael."
"Nobody is," I replied. "When you spend your whole life building walls to keep the world out, you eventually realize you've locked yourself in a cage with the very things you were trying to escape."
She didn't say anything to that. She just reached out, resting her hand softly on the armrest beside mine—not touching me, but close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from her skin.
"The jet is ready," Frank announced from the front seat, tapping his earpiece. "Direct flight back to Boston Logan. ETA six hours."
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the gentle, rhythmic hum of the van wash over me.
May you like
My son was alive. The monster who tried to kill him was stripped of everything. And the woman who had walked into my house as a ghost was now sitting beside me as an equal.
The ledger was balanced.
