flashing with suppressed fury. “I was accepted into Northwestern University. You promised the family you would pay my tuition. But in private, you told my mother that if she wanted ‘her charity project’ to go to college, she had to pay for it herself. She refinanced the Lincoln Park brownstone—the house left to her by her late father—taking on a second mortgage while you bought a new German sports car.”
“You don’t understand adult business!” Richard hissed, his eyes darting frantically toward Arthur Sterling, who was now sitting back in his chair with a face made of stone. “Margaret wanted the boy! It was a private arrangement!”
“And item three,” Ethan said, ignoring the interruption completely. He pulled out a yellowed piece of paper with a dark signature at the bottom. “The coerced legal agreement dated November 14, 2004. An agreement where you threatened to abandon a three-day-old infant in a state ward unless my mother waived her legal rights to her own ancestral home.”
I sat frozen, tears pouring silently down my face. Twenty years of swallowed shame, twenty years of quiet nights spent weeping over unpaid bills while Richard slept soundly, were being laid bare in front of the most influential people in the city.
