Page 26 of Where Light Cannot Follow

"No, it won't be anything. Not worth your time. It's just an opportunity for me to ask how he could walk out of his son's life and abandon him. You don't need to get to know someone that I have no intention of making part of our life."

He softens for a moment, places a kiss against my jaw right where it makes me shiver. "All right then. Come eat your tasteless dinner."

I laugh and join him.

I can feel it, the moment wanting to loop, to repeat itself. Instead of fighting it head-on or sinking into it, I do neither. Instead, I think of Virgil.

"I'm here," he says, whisper-soft.

Perhaps I spoke his name aloud without realizing it.

The next scene. A restaurant so far beyond my pay grade, I shiver to pass through the doorway. My father stands and clasps my hand. There's a moment of artificial pleasantries with the man who looks like me—sharp nose, firm jaw—but older, his dark hair threaded with silver, his hands broad and sure.

“How could you abandon me?" I ask as the bread course arrives.

"Oh, Michael..." He sighs. "I tried to fight for custody of you, son. But you know how the damned court system is in this country. Always favors the damned women."

This pulls me up short. "You wanted to raise me?"

His mouth parts, and he brushes off the waitress offering to refill our waters. "Of course. I made some mistakes, mind. I had a temper in my younger years. I have regrets, son.”

A gasp escapes me. Despite usually disciplining my expressions, I can't help it.

“Imagine my surprise," he says, buttering a roll, "when I hear through the grapevine that a Michael Dante graduated top of his class at NYU and works for a competing firm. I had to reach out and see if it was you."

He searched for me. He found me.

"I want you," he says, and my breath catches. "To come work for me at my firm."

Once again, I don't fight the shift of memory falling as another forms around me. Virgil's eyes have narrowed, and he stands still and stiff. When I glance at him, I catch something in his expression. It’s not judgment, but recognition. The look of a man who understands what it means to be seduced by the promise of legacy. Who knows exactly how such bargains end.

A new scene. I wear a sharp suit, custom, Brioni. I shake hands on another closed deal, leather gloves smooth against my palm. Christmas lights gleam in storefronts beyond us.

"Mr. Dante," the business associate—I've long forgotten his name—says. "We'll be in touch. Papers signed tomorrow."

"Happy holidays to you."

"And you." He nods to my father. "Evening."

He walks away, and my father and I stand in silence for a moment. Then he grins. "Another one in the bag. You're a chip off the old block, as they say. Let's crack open that Macallan 25."

I follow him back inside, up the elevator, through to his office with its fine leather chair and bookshelves gleaming with glass-cut trophies. The city glitters from the walls of windows as though it bows to his desires.

He pours a glass. "I have more news as well."

"As do I."

I'd finally decided to tell him about Matthew. We'd argued more lately. Despite my moving us into Manhattan, providing him with all the time in the world to pursue his art, a credit card for whatever restaurants he wants, he's grown less happy than ever. My late hours. The fact that I've yet to tell my father about him.

So much has happened, though. I've worked myself down to the bone, closed more deals than I ever thought possible, and doubled the value of my father's hedge fund. The right time hadn't presented itself. And—secretly, in a way I can't hide from this realm, in a way I know Virgil can sense—I fear my father will be ashamed of me. I've finally had him after an entire lifetime of absence that I don't wish to lose him again.

“Me first. You know Meridian Capital?" my father asks while pouring generous measures of scotch.

"Of course." They're the behemoth in our sector, commanding more than sixty percent of the market. A cowardly part of me is grateful for the delay of my portion of this conversation.

"Well, I'm out to lunch with none other than Richard Castellane this week, and I find out he has a daughter... around your age." He looks at me with a decided gleam in his eye. "Our two funds combining. Now that would be quite the merger."

Damn it. I should have spoken first. “Father, there's something I should tell you. I'm⁠—"