Page 48 of Silks

Chapter 15 (Teddy)

Dad pulled me aside at the bourbon tasting at my parents’ mansion that night, insisting I walk with him into his dark-paneled wooden study.

“Everything set for tomorrow?” my father asked.

“No,” I said bluntly, taking another sip out of my wine glass. I thought I could still taste my sister on my lips, feel her underneath my tongue. “It’s off. I’m not doing it.”

My father stilled, his hard gray eyes flicking over my face.

“You must be shitting me,” he said. “We’re talking $50 million dollars here.”

I shrugged.

“I couldn’t possibly give less of a shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Dad said. “Get cold feet?”

“No,” I said.

Dad scratched his chin.

“I’d encourage you to stop being a motherfucking pussy and do this,” he said. “If you pussy out, you’re not getting a cut. You’re not getting your $1 million back.”

“Do it yourself,” I said, draining the last of my glass.

I wondered if I should warn him that the there was an interstate task force of police officers working on the case and doing surveillance.

“I didn’t call you in here to listen to you hand me your balls on a platter,” Dad said. “I called you in here because there’s something else I want you to do tonight. Just in case the monkey we give to Mintmaker doesn’t work.”

He produced a container and flipped it open.

Inside was a syringe.

“This is for Sweet Pea,” he said. “Put it right at the base of the neck.”

My first thought when I saw the syringe was how completely and utterly deceased I would be if I ever dared to do such a thing to a thoroughbred and Ophelia found out about it. First she would kill me. Then she would dig up my grave and smash my bones into dust with a hammer.

So that was a total nonstarter. But this was a particularly dirty trick and it repulsed me that he would suggest it.

“No,” I said. “I’m not fucking sneaking around in the dark with a horse tranquilizer trying not to get caught by security.”

My father’s face darkened, angry spots of color appearing on his cheeks.

“What’s gotten into you, Teddy? Ever since Ophelia came back to town you’ve been acting fucking pussywhipped.”

“Keep her out of this,” I said, my fingers tightening involuntarily on the stem of my wineglass.

“Boy, you got some kind of obsession with your sister that I need to know about?” Dad asked, his eyes boring into mine.

Obsession?

You mean the fact that I rotate around my sister like a goddamn moon around her sun and have for literally as long as I can remember?

Or the fact that outwardly I might look like a normal everyday corporate finance bro but inside I burn for my sister and will do anything to keep her with me, including impregnating her?

“You’re a grown man now,” my father went on. “Don’t let your little sister lead you around by the nose anymore.”

I turned the wineglass around in my hands, looking reflectively at the crystalline shine, then I jerked my hand down and shattered it in the fireplace.