Page 20 of Diamonds (Aces Underground #2)

MADDOX

A nother long day at the haberdashery.

Don’t get me wrong. I love working here. Have loved working here for nearly two years now.

I rebuffed my family’s legacy and forged my own path. Followed my passion.

But things have been tight. Dad sucks up half of my profits, and almost all the money I make goes right back into the shop.

My regular expenses? Groceries and gas?

That all just goes onto a credit card, and my debt is slowly growing.

I’ve done my best to budget, which was an adjustment after living in the Hathaway mansion for the first eighteen years of my life. But I’ve tightened my belt to minimize my expenses.

Luckily, I’ve met a great woman. Laurie Caulkins. She’s given me a shoulder to lean on through these hard times. I haven’t ever asked her for any money, but I’ve let her cover the bill every so often when we go out for dinner.

Every penny counts right now.

I check my watch. Time to start closing things down for the day.

I’ve had a few customers. One solid sale. Enough to keep the lights on for another day once my old man takes his half.

I’m bringing the blinds down over the front windows when my cell phone starts vibrating. I pull it out of my pocket.

It’s Mom.

I don’t hear much from Mom anymore. Not since the divorce. She checks in occasionally, but lately she’s been drowning her sorrows in booze. I don’t call her much. It just makes me too sad.

I could support her if I’d gone to Yale. But the way things are right now, I can barely support myself.

Dad’s prenup was ironclad. Even though he was the one who initiated the divorce, Mom got next to nothing. Her lawyer managed to get her enough maintenance to cover the rent for a one-bedroom apartment downtown. But it’s not nearly enough for her.

I answer. “Hey, Mom.”

“M-Maddox.”

Something is off about her voice. And not in the normal, drunk-at-ten-in-the-morning way. There’s a listlessness, a resignation to it.

“Mom, is something wrong?”

“I’m afraid I have some…bad news.”

“Oh, God. What is it?”

Fuck. I bet she’s sick. Or injured. And she needs money. Money I don’t have.

“It’s… It’s your father.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What? What about him?”

There’s no way he needs money. He blew a lot on legal fees, first when he was defending himself against the myriad women who claimed he sexually harassed them, and then the divorce. But he still has plenty of dough to his name.

“Your father… He’s dead, Maddox.”

What? What?

I drop the phone. It lands face down, of fucking course.

I pick it up. The screen is shattered.

Great. I’ll have to take it to a repair shop now. Another damned expense.

I bring it back to my ear.

“Did you hear me, Maddox?”

“Yeah, I heard you. I dropped the phone.”

“Honey… I understand you had a complicated relationship with him…”

“Mom, he fucking disowned me.”

“He gave you the shop.”

“Yeah, and he’s been sucking me dry from the moment he did.”

“Maddox. Your father is dead. You know there wasn’t much love lost between us at the end, but you should allow yourself to grieve him. To mourn him.”

“What do I have to fucking mourn, Mom? He wrote me off and then trashed the entire city of Chicago.”

The fucking HOUSE bill. I still have no idea what the old bastard was thinking when he signed that idiotic piece of legislation.

The so-called Hathaway Overhaul for Urban Safety and Equity bill.

It was sold to the city council as an effort to redevelop the older neighborhoods in the city to improve safety and crack down on criminal enterprises, but it backfired completely.

Most of the bill had absolutely nothing to do with housing.

The legislation introduced new regulations that nightlife spots would have to meet to renew their business licenses.

Dad somehow got it into his head that these businesses were fronts for organized crime, and they were forced to implement added surveillance and submit financial disclosures quarterly.

This led to mass shutdowns of independently owned bars and entertainment venues that struggled to meet the conditions of the law, leading to countless job losses.

The legislation also included anti-corruption whistleblowing incentives including cash rewards for any reports of illegal activity in any bars or nightclubs, no questions asked.

Of course, this led to a lot of people who owned these businesses calling in with phony claims about their competition.

They’d snag the tidy little cash award and watch with grinning eyes as the police raided the bar across the street from them.

Those bars would then return the favor, and investigators were overwhelmed within a week.

So many legitimate small businesses had to shut down.

The only businesses that could afford to fulfill all the requirements to keep their doors open were the big ones, and a lot of decent working-class folks lost their jobs.

Dominos started toppling, and evictions and homelessness in the city skyrocketed.

Yeah. The HOUSE bill led to a lot of people being un housed.

Dad paid for it dearly. His approval ratings took a nosedive, and he lost his bid for reelection in a landslide. Then came the accusations of sexual harassment, and the divorce sealed his fall from grace.

And now he’s dead.

“How did it happen, Mom?”

“According to the coroner, a heart attack. Likely induced by stress.”

“Makes sense.”

“But Maddox… I can’t help wondering if there’s something more to this.”

“Why?”

“Your father… He made a lot of enemies, especially that last year in office. But even before that, when he was successful, there were still people who wanted him dead.”

“Sure, but you could say that about any elected official.”

“But your father was in good shape for a man in his fifties. He didn’t smoke, and he rarely drank. He ate well. But the coroner insists it was his heart.”

“Who did the autopsy?”

“Bill Lassard. The head coroner. You’ve met him.”

“Bill’s a good guy, Mom. He was a close ally to Dad. One of the few people who stuck with him to the bitter end.” I rub at my forehead. “Literally.”

“I don’t know. Something just isn’t sitting right with me about this.”

I rake my fingers through my hair. I have to ask the obvious. “Have you been drinking?”

She scoffs. “What does that have to do with anything?”

And I have my answer.

These are the ramblings of a bitter and drunk ex-wife. A woman who hasn’t been in the right mind since the day her husband screwed her over.

She should be celebrating his death, not questioning it.

* * *

If the papers I hold in my hands are correct, my mother was fucking right.

Dad didn’t die of a heart attack.

Dad. Henry fucking Hathaway.

My heart clenches.

Once I tell Alissa about my father, I won’t be able to take the words back.

She will forever know that I’m the son of the disgraced former mayor of Chicago.

I just hope she’ll be able to look past that and still want to be with me.

She won’t care. It’s Alissa. We’ve been through so much already, and she hasn’t left my side yet.

“I’ve already mentioned that my family was into politics.”

She nods. “You did.”

“What I didn’t mention—and I’ll admit, I buried the lead pretty fucking deep here—is that my father was a man named Henry Hathaway. And he was the mayor of Chicago.”

She drops her jaw. “The mayor? ”

“Yeah. The top dog. My family has a bunch of city councilmembers, state senators, even a few members of Congress in Washington. But my dad was the only one who ever got the mayorship. The mayorship of a big city like Chicago is powerful. More powerful than a lot of elected positions in Washington. Sometimes more powerful than the governor.”

“That’s crazy.” Alissa furrows her brow. “Why didn’t you mention it until now?”

“Because”—I rub at the back of my neck—“he didn’t exactly leave office at the top of his game.”

“Meaning?”

I sigh. “He passed this bill. The HOUSE bill, it was called, even though it had very little to do with housing. I’ll spare you the details—you can google them if you want—but it led to crazy unemployment and homelessness numbers. He lost reelection in the biggest landslide in a century.”

“My God.” She scratches the side of her head. “But why would I care about what your father did, Maddox? I’m not dating him. I’m dating you.”

“Because… Now you know what I left behind. For a fucking clothing store. Most women who’ve dated me in the past have either been after my looks?—”

“Which is valid.” She elbows me in the ribs.

“Or for my family name. And they went running for the hills the moment they learned I was worth next to nothing.”

“You have a successful shop. That’s hardly nothing.”

“It wasn’t always successful. The first couple of years were pretty lean.”

“Any new business would be. You had to build a clientele, find your niche.”

“There’s something else, though.” I run a hand through my hair.

“My father left me a nice chunk of change. But only on the condition that I go to Yale, pursue a degree in political science. A little over ten million bucks. It’s been sitting in a trust for over a decade now.

I haven’t touched it. I can’t leave the shop. ”

She pats my hand. “Of course you can’t. It’s your baby.”

Her words warm me.

Laurie left me because I stuck up my nose at my dad’s riches.

But Alissa doesn’t care. She likes—perhaps even loves—me for me . Not for my family name, not for the money I could claim at any time.

I lean over, give her a peck on the lips. “Thank you, Alissa.”

“Thank you , Maddox.” She eyes the papers in my hands. “So what does that report have to do with this?”

I shuffle through the papers in my hands.

“These were on Bill’s desk when I was sneaking around his office, hoping to find something about May or Svetlana.

Right out in the open. He must have been looking over old files when the test results came in for May.

” I pull out a sheet of paper. “According to this coroner’s report, my father died of a heart attack, likely brought on by stress from the last year of his life.

Not only did he lose his popularity and his office, but there was also a slew of sexual harassment claims, and he divorced my mom. ”

“Goodness. That would kill just about anyone.”

“You’d think.” I grab another piece of paper.

“But according to this nearly identical coroner’s report, also about my father, two hundred milliliters of dark liquid were found in his stomach upon his death.

Toxicology identified the substance as a”—I read the words directly off the page—“potassium-channel blocker with atropine-like qualities, commonly associated with cardiotoxic plant alkaloids.”

“In English, please?”

“Yeah, it’s meaningless to me, too. Luckily, Bill clears it up on the next line.” I point. “The substances in his bloodstream mimic the effects of a heart attack. A doctor treating him wouldn’t be able to tell the difference while it was happening. Only the autopsy reveals what actually happened.”

She gasps. “So your father was poisoned?”

I nod. “Probably by a political enemy. Which, at the time of his death, was basically the entire city of Chicago. Anybody who had access to what he was eating or drinking could have done it. But I’m not trying to solve my old man’s murder.

I couldn’t give a rat’s ass how the bastard kicked the bucket.

” I tap the pieces of paper. “What I do care about is that Bill buried this.”

“Which means…?”

“I was wrong. Bill can’t be trusted.” I narrow my eyes. “Which means he’s probably hiding information about May as well.”