Page 109 of The Ruling Class

“Are you attempting to blackmail me?” Keyes said. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he sounded pleased.

“I prefer to think of it as a negotiation,” I said. “You want to see your son in the Oval Office someday, and I want the governor of Arizona to issue either a pardon or a permanent stay of execution for Damien Kostas’s son.”

Now that the cards were on the table, I saw how easily this could go either way. William Keyes might not give me what I wanted. Adam might not evenbemy father.

I needed this to work.

Ivyneeded for this to work.

“When were you born?” Keyes issued the question like a demand. Those four words—and the laser-sharp focus with which he assessed my features—told me that he wasn’t dismissing my claims outright.

I can do this. I have to do this.

I told him when I was born, and then where. I told him, again, what Ivy had told me: my father was young and recently enlisted.

“Adam joined the military after college.” William’s grip on the back of the chair relaxed slightly. “He met your sister when he was home on leave. She’d just turned twenty.”

I felt like a balloon that had been scratched with a knife. There was one moment of tightness in my chest, like I might explode, and then I felt the fight drain out of me. This was supposed to be my Hail Mary pass.

This was supposed to be me saving Ivy.

Adam met Ivy after I was born.As I forced myself to process that fact, I realized that I hadn’t just thought Adam was my father, I hadn’t just believed it—I’d wanted it to be true.

If Keyes was telling me the truth, Adam couldn’t be my father. I wasn’t anything to him but Ivy’s daughter.

I stood up and turned sharply to the door.

“I suggest you sit back down.”

I stopped in my tracks but didn’t sit.

“Tess, isn’t it?” the older man said, coming around to stand in front of me. “Is that short for Tessa?”

I wondered what game he was playing.

“Theresa,” I said finally.

Keyes studied me, eyes sharp. “My late wife’s name was Theresa.”

The game had changed—but I wasn’t sure how.

“I never quite figured out how Adam and Ivy met,” William Keyes continued. “She was at Georgetown. He went to see her. I’ve wondered, over the years, if there was something romantic between them.” He paused. “I see now that there’s not. That there couldn’t be.”

He walked over to a shelf on the opposite side of the room and returned with a picture. In it were two young boys. The older one had a serious expression on his face.Adam. The younger boy—he had dark hair, a shade too light to be black. He was laughing, smiling.

His eyes were hazel, a familiar mix of brown and green.

“You look like him,” William Keyes said. I had no idea what he was feeling. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the picture—away from the boy.

“Adam said he had a brother,” I said slowly. The memory washed over me. “The first time we met, Adam said he had a brother.”

He’d said that his brother had never cared for school, that he had preferred to spend his time outside.

Like me.

“You know what I think, Tess?” Keyes said, putting the picture down. “I think that my youngest met Ivy during basic training. I think they were young and stupid and, if we want to be generous, maybe even in love. Tommy was like that. If he fell, he fell hard.”

Was, I thought dully.Tommywaslike that.The past tense hit me with an almost physical force.