Page 177 of Forsaking Midnight
“When you called me and told me about the email you found. About your firing, and Art convincing you to move. I knew things weren’t safe. You were in danger, most likely because of me.”
I already knew this. I’ve known it since the email in Art’s office, since Lance confirmed it, since my father used the code word and told me to stay put. But hearing him say it, hearing his voice go thin and precise the way it does when he’s holding himself together with sheer will, is different.
“I went to Cameliard, and Chef Michel told me the truth. That he was forced to fire you. Threatened. His children,mon chou, they had pictures of them at school. Badon Hill engineered it,” he continues. “Getting you blacklisted fromevery restaurant in Boston. Every connection I had, every favor I’d ever called in for your career, they dismantled it systematically. And then a convenient opportunity appeared in a small town in Connecticut, connected to Arthur Penngrove, who was connected to the Round Table Tavern, which was connected to everything I’d spent a decade pretending I didn’t see.”
“So I was insurance,” I say.
“You were leverage.” The word comes out like he’s swallowing glass. “If I cooperated with the FBI, they had you. If I testified, they had you. If I so much as hinted that I was anything other than a loyal soldier, my daughter was living under the thumb of the dangerous men. But I didn’t know, Genevieve. I had no idea that Frederick Lawrence and Arthur Penngrove came with ill intentions. Had no idea who Brutus Myrddin and Badon Hill really were.”
Lance hasn’t moved. His breathing is steady, but his hands are flat on his thighs, fingers pressing hard enough that the tendons stand out.
“That’s when I went to the FBI,” my father says. “Not as a cooperating witness offering client records. As a father who’d just learned his child was being held hostage by the people he’d spent a decade defending.”
“What did you give them?”
“Not privilege. Never privilege. What I gave them was my own testimony. What I’d seen. What I’d been asked to do. The patterns, the names that weren’t my clients, the connections between organizations I’d observed as an attorney moving through their world. There’s a distinction, legally, between betraying client confidence and reporting criminal activityyou’ve personally witnessed. My lawyers and I have walked that line very carefully.”
“Your lawyers,” I repeat. “You have lawyers.”
“Genevieve, I’m a defense attorney cooperating with a federal RICO investigation against the most dangerous people I’ve ever known, while my daughter is being used as collateral. Yes. I have lawyers.”
The sharpness in his tone doesn’t sting. It sounds like relief. Like he’s been holding this in for months and the words are finally finding air.
“The phones,” I say. “Why didn’t you answer?”
“Because they’re listening.” He gestures to the burner phone. “I have reason to believe my primary phone is compromised. Every call you made, every voicemail you left, there’s a possibility it was monitored. The FBI cleaned the house, but advised me to limit contact. To go dark. To let you believe I was simply busy or distracted. If you acted normal, they wouldn’t have reason to believe anything was amiss.”
“You let me think you were hurt, Papa.”
“I let you think I was negligent. There’s a difference.”
“Not from where I was standing.”
He closes his eyes. When he opens them, they’re glassy.
“Every night,” he says. “Every single night, I sat at this table and stared at your name on that phone and it took every ounce of discipline I have not to call you. Not to get in my car and drive to Connecticut and bring you home. But if I did that, if I broke protocol, if they saw me coming for you, the case falls apart and we both end up in a situation I can’t lawyer our way out of.”
My vision blurs. I blink and tears slide down my face.
“The code word,” I whisper. “When I called you about the email. You said to the moon.”
“I had to warn you. It was a risk. The phone was likely tapped, but you needed to know. And I needed you to do what we agreed: Stay calm, stay put, and trust that I was working.”
“I did trust you. I just didn’t know what I was trusting youwith.”
He reaches across the table and takes my hands. His fingers are cold and thinner than I remember, and I grip them hard.
“You’re here now,” he says. “And you’realive. And the case is almost ready. The FBI has enough to move, but they’ve been waiting for one more piece. Physical evidence of the underground operations. The fights, the coercion, the trafficking. They have my testimony. They have financial records. But they need something concrete.”
“The footage,” Lance says.
It’s the first time he’s spoken since we sat down, and my father’s attention shifts to him.
“What footage?”
“Every fight I’ve been forced into for six years is on a hard drive somewhere. They record everything and hold it over my head to keep me in line. I’m sure I’m not the only one. If any of us ever tried to talk, they’d leak it and we’d go down as willing participants.”
My father leans back in his chair, his lawyer’s mind working behind his eyes.
