Chapter 4: The Brother at the Door
Thomas hadn't aged the way Richard had.
Where Richard carried his years in the set of his shoulders and the lines carved deep around his mouth, Thomas still looked somehow unfinished, like a man who had never quite been asked to account for himself.
He stepped into the ballroom and the crowd parted without being asked.
"Richard, let me—"
"Sit down, Thomas."
"I'm not going to just—"
"Sit.
Down."
Thomas sat.
Richard placed the letter on the table between them.
Then he placed the photographs beside it, face up, one by one, like he was laying out a hand of cards.
Thomas looked at the photos.
His jaw shifted.
"Those aren't what they look like," he said.
"Which part?" Richard asked.
"The part where my wife is in them, or the part where you clearly took them yourself?"
"Richard, I need you to hear me out before you—"
"How long have you been taking money from this family?"
Thomas's mouth closed.
"The letter," Richard said, tapping it with one finger.
"Seven years of transfers.
And Diane's been signing off on them.
So I'm going to ask you one more time.
How long?"
Thomas looked across the table at Diane.
It was a quick look, a checking look, the kind that confirms whether the story is still holding.
Diane looked back at him without expression.
That was when Claire spoke.
"He was the one who sent me the letter," she said.
Every head turned.
Thomas went very still.
"Three years ago," Claire continued, her voice even and measured.
"I got an envelope in the mail.
No return address.
Inside was a copy of that letter and a note that said — I still remember the exact words — 'Ask Richard what his family has been taking from him.'" She looked at Thomas without flinching.
"I recognized the handwriting.
I'd seen it on the card you sent us for our wedding."
"That's not—" Thomas started.
"I still have the card," Claire said.
"It's in my car."
The room made a sound that was not quite a gasp and not quite a murmur.
Something between the two.
Richard looked at Thomas.
"You sent it to her."
Thomas said nothing.
"You sent my wife evidence of the transfers.
Evidence of your own arrangement with Diane." Richard picked up the photographs and held them.
"And then what?
You got tired of sharing?
You wanted her for yourself?
Or did you want me to find out about the money on your terms, through her, so you could control what happened next?"
"It wasn't like that."
"Then tell me what it was like."
Thomas leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his voice dropping to something that tried to sound reasonable.
"Richard, your father set up that arrangement because he was worried about you.
You were overextended.
The Singapore expansion nearly bankrupted the company in 2014 and you never told anyone.
Dad knew.
He asked me to help stabilize the reserves quietly so the board wouldn't find out.
He asked Diane to sign because she was the only one he trusted to keep it private.
That's all it was."
"And the photographs?" Richard asked.
Thomas's reasonable tone didn't last.
"Diane and I—" He stopped.
Started again.
"What happened between us was separate.
It had nothing to do with the money."
"How convenient," Richard said, "that the person managing the account your father trusted no one to know about also happened to end up in your bed."
"Richard—"
"Did she come to you?
Or did you go to her?"
Silence.
Helen, still seated, said quietly, "Thomas.
For God's sake."
Thomas looked at his sister.
Something in his face shifted.
Not remorse exactly.
More like the particular exhaustion of a man who has been managing a lie for so long he can't quite remember what the truth felt like.
"It started after Dad died," he said finally.
"We were both grieving.
It was—"
"I don't want your explanation of how it started," Richard said.
"I want you to look at me and tell me how much money you've taken from this family."
Another silence.
Richard waited.
From his jacket pocket, he produced his phone.
He opened it, turned it so Thomas could see the screen.
On it was a banking application.
A series of transactions highlighted in red.
"My accountant called me forty minutes ago," Richard said.
"While I was still standing in this room.
Because I texted him a photo of that letter the moment I read it." He looked at the screen.
"Do you want to tell me, or do you want me to read the number out loud in front of everyone here?"
Thomas's face went the color of old plaster.
Diane's hand had left the table entirely.
It was in her lap now, out of sight.
"Don't," she said.
She wasn't speaking to Richard.
She was speaking to Thomas.
Thomas looked at her.
Then at Richard.
Then at Claire, who was watching him with the same calm, patient expression she'd worn since the cake hit her face, like she had always known it would come to this and had simply been waiting for the room to catch up.
He reached into his jacket.
He pulled out his own phone.
"I have something," Thomas said slowly, "that you need to see."
He placed the phone on the table, screen up, and slid it toward Richard.
Richard picked it up.
His expression did not change.
May you like
But his hand, for just a moment, was not entirely steady.
He looked up at Claire.
