Page 227 of Five Brothers

She wants to be free. She’s still young, after all.

Besides, Bateman and I have been taking care of the kids 85 percent of the time for the past nine months anyway. She’s already gone.

“Okay,” she says. The tone is clipped, but she agrees.

She turns and takes out a pan, setting it on the stove. “Can I make you some lunch?”

“Pack,” I tell her. “Go now.”

She twists around, shocked.

I start to walk away. “I’ll let you know when I talk to Dad.”

I take a right out of the kitchen and head toward my father’soffice, passing the hidden room under the stairs. I don’t look, and I don’t look back to see if she’s coming after me for a fight. I know she’ll leave. She wants what I promised.

And I wouldn’t fight anyway. I feel no anger. That’s for people still trying to make it work.

I walk into my father’s office, leaving the door open as I traipse over the area rug to the desk. Sitting in his chair, I yank open the bottom left drawer and sift through all the files until I come across one labeledAuto. I slip it out.

I need to find my car title so I can sell it. An old Rover won’t support us forever, and I will still need a car of some sort, but I don’t need that expensive one. And I don’t want my dad’s old car. I don’t want anything of his. I should be able to get forty thousand for the Rover. Finding it, I slip it out and set it aside, replacing the folder in the drawer.

But I spot another one labeledFinancials. I pause my hand over it. I’m sure he took anything of any consequence, but then again, how would we know? My mother and I aren’t very smart with this stuff. If he hid money—assets—it would be worth a look. Then I’ll know what I can ask him for, because he won’t want my mother’s divorce lawyer discovering that on their own. Hiding assets is illegal.

Stealing a cigarette from the box on his desk, I light it as I start to sift through the papers, but my stomach sinks almost as soon as I start.

It’s going to take forever to make sense of what I’m looking at, and there are so many accounts. Things for his businesses, papers for his family’s investments, stocks, bonds, real estate, and while everything is in his name, except our house, which he gave to her, I have no way of knowing if there’s anything she’s not aware of. She didn’t stay involved. She let him do what he wanted. Trusted him with the money.

I stuff it all in a folder to keep it in my possession in case hecomes back for it and pick up my phone to call Clay’s dad. He might be able to help me understand this.

But then I see the word “Assets”and pause. Peering down into the drawer, I spot another folder and pick it up.

Household Assets.

Flipping it open, I scan a slew of certificates of authenticity and insurance policies—for art, antique silver, jewelry, even items of clothing.

But I see my name.

Then I see it again.

And my heart starts racing as I piece together what I’m looking at.

I grab my phone and bring up the screenshots that I took from his email. I didn’t study everything yet, but I swipe through the pictures, remembering seeing something.

I stop.No, it was a text.

I go through the texts with his girlfriend, reading one that I glimpsed but didn’t think anything of when I originally saw.

Was that everything?she asks him.

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but they must’ve just talked in person and are continuing a conversation.

There’s more,he tells her.It’s not in her or my name, though. I’ll get it back from Krisjen afterward.

Something builds, climbing my throat, and I start shaking. And then … I laugh.

I plant my hands on the desk, cigarette smoke streaming up into the air as I bow my head and break into laughter that I can’t keep quiet.

I pick up my phone and text Clay and Aracely.