Chapter 13 - My Brother Was Supposed to Replace Me
Lucas walked out.
I found him in the parking garage leaning against a concrete pillar.
“You knew?” I asked.
“No.”
“Marcus?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look guilty?”
He laughed once.
“Because I spent six years buying Blackwood debt.”
My anger sharpened.
“You built your company around this?”
“Not at first.”
“Lucas.”
“After rehab, I had nothing. Marcus gave me one of Dad’s notebooks. It showed Blackwood exposures. I started trading around distressed situations because I understood the patterns.”
“You became the Undertaker.”
“Eventually.”
“And then?”
“Then I realized Dad’s notes were leading me toward Blackwood on purpose.”
“So you kept buying.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
I wanted to be furious.
I was.
But beneath that was grief.
Every man in my life had confused secrecy with protection.
Dad.
Marcus.
Lucas.
Julian.
Different motives.
Same theft.
They stole my right to choose what I could survive.
“I’m filing the separate control election,” I said.
Lucas looked at me. “That will lock Julian out permanently.”
“I know.”
“It will also make you the target Reginald needs removed.”
“I know.”
“You’re eight steps ahead when you’re calm and three steps behind when you’re angry.”
“Then keep up.”
He smiled despite himself.
Back upstairs, Penny was drawing at a table.
She held up a picture.
It showed me, her, and a man with messy dark hair.
“Who’s that?”
“Uncle Luke.”
I froze.
“You met him?”
Penny nodded.
“He came to my school last year.”
Lucas went pale.
“I never went to her school.”
Penny frowned.
“Yes, you did. You gave me the red bird.”
She ran to her backpack and pulled out a tiny red origami bird.
Lucas took it carefully.
“There’s something inside.”
We unfolded it.
A microSD card dropped onto the table.
Lucas stared at Penny.
“Whoever gave you this looked like me?”
She nodded.
I felt cold.
Lucas and I drove to the old house where we grew up.
It had been sold after Mom died, but the new owners let us stand outside when Lucas explained who we were.
The maple tree was gone.
The cracked front step had been repaired.
Everything looked smaller.
“I used to hide your cigarettes under that porch,” I said.
“I knew.”
“You knew?”
“I hid a second pack in the gutter.”
I stared at him.
“Nine years apart and that is the betrayal you confess first?”
He laughed.
Then his expression changed.
“I was high the night Dad died.”
I waited.
“I ignored three calls from him.”
There it was. The guilt under all the money and discipline.
“You think answering would have saved him.”
“I don’t know.”
“And not knowing became your whole life.”
He nodded.
I touched his arm.
“You don’t get to use guilt as proof.”
He looked at me.
“That sounds like something you should tell yourself.”
I hated that too.
The brother I feared was becoming a stranger had come back knowing exactly where my weakest arguments lived.
Someone had not only copied Lucas’s biometric identity.
Someone had been wearing his face around my daughter for at least a year.
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