I don’t bother waiting for his reply before I ride back to the stable, where I take time tending to the horses. I’m hoping Mercedes will be asleep by the time I’m back, but as I near the house I see her light is on, and she’s standing at the window. She can’t see me, though. So I study her as she looks off into the distance while brushing out her long hair. And I swear I see a tear roll down her cheek.

But no, she wouldn’t be crying. She got what she wanted tonight. She wouldn’t be crying. She’d be celebrating.

32

Judge

I instruct Paolo to keep an eye on Theron as he moves out of my mother’s cottage and into his own. Mercedes is on strict watch as well. Her freedom has been curbed, and I know she’s pissed about it, but I don’t trust Theron. She’s left word with Lois that she needs to speak with me, but I haven’t seen her in four weeks. I go to work early. Get home late. Long after everyone has gone to bed. Because I can’t trust myself around her.

Paolo is one of the few people who knows what happened five years ago. He was here. Carried me to the car to drive me to the private clinic where my grandfather paid god knows what amount of money for my injuries to be treated. My life saved. Discreetly, of course.

I could have died in the back of the car. I wonder how he’d have covered that up.

My secretary left a few hours ago, and although I should be home, I’m still here, holed up in my office. I drink a long sip of scotch as I remember how it happened. It was Theron’s twenty-fifth birthday. The day he would have gained access to a large portion of his inheritance. My mother was at the house. That itself was rare. By then, my father was long gone. My grandfather had gone out of his way to prepare for the celebration.

Theron had sensed grandfather’s distance, his dislike of him, for years by then. I’m sure of it. I’d known the truth since I was sixteen. Ten years. I hadn’t realized what my grandfather was planning. I should have, maybe, but I didn’t. Maybe I’d stupidly thought he wouldn’t hold Theron responsible for his mother’s actions. Or naïvely thought he’d loved him.

I’d been away at school a lot those years, and when not at school, I traveled quite a bit. Perhaps I’d have known how far things had deteriorated if I'd been home.