Page 73 of Gray Area

“Where?”

“They’re dead, Declan,” my father says. “His lawyers, my lawyers, the notary, anyone that had any involvement in any part of that contract I signed are no longer above ground.”

“Dad, I’m not following you.”

My father, the greatest man I have ever met, who has only ever wanted to do the best for his family, heaves out a large breath of air and looks absolutely defeated. “I was trying to make you guys have an easier, better life than I did,” he says and pins me with a look, “and I fucked up, Declan.”

“Dad, it’s fine. We do have a good life,” I tell him.

My father shakes his head. “No, it was supposed to be better, legitimate. I promised your mother.”

My heart hurts for this man who has given everything to us, yet feels like he has failed us. “Dad, who is it? Who did you make this deal with?”

My father looks me in the eyes. “Palmer Lexington.”

Shock is usually a reaction I can smother and hold back, but this is a bombshell, and I feel my eyes bulge out of my head. “No fucking way,” I tell my father. Palmer Lexington is a household name, a billionaire who supposedly made his money from nothing, who the news was just talking about being in the area for something for his kid at freaking Harvardandgoingaround to support local spots like a golden boy. Or at least that’s the story he had put out. And his name has been all over the news because he is running for office in Massachusetts. He’s an investment banker who turns everything he touches to gold. And he has his hands and money in tons of companies.

“He’s a walking con man,” my father informs me. “And the deeper I dig, the more stuff I uncover about the guy.”

“Like what?” I ask. How can someone so public have so many skeletons, I wonder?

“The guy doesn’t know shit about money or business.”

“Dad, he’s a billionaire,” I remind him. “He has to know something.”

My father shakes his head. “No, he has charisma and he’s a good liar. He takes money and invests it in shit deals or he gambles it away. Then he scrambles to get money from wherever he can. He starts these small businesses and gets investors, and then when they don’t work out, the investors lose their money.”

“How come they haven’t sued him or gone to the feds about him then?”

“Because he doesn’t use big investors or businesses. He gets regular Joes excited and interested and then he takes their life savings. He’s busted up families, and I’ve heard some guys have killed themselves from it. He does legitimate deals with their money and lets the small businesses flop. He has them sign all kinds of NDAs so they can’t break them or talk without ridiculous repercussions.”

I cannot wrap my head around the fact that my father knows and has done business of sorts with the guy who was on the cover ofTimemagazine last year.

“Okay, so he came to you for a loan, and he got you to sign a contract for shares?” I ask, trying to keep my head on straight. My father nods and I continue, “And you’ve gotten no payment and the anniversary of the contract is coming in five weeks. Butone of the clauses is that you can have no felonies within six months of the end of the contract.”

“In the last four months, we had drugs sold at our place, setting us up in the middle of a drug war, the house was broken into, and Vivian’s apartment went up in flames,” my father says.

I feel myself freeze. “What does Vivian’s apartment have to do with this?” I ask.

“I put in an offer to that sleazebag of a landlord—a lowball offer, but an offer. He told me to fuck off.”

“Why did you offer to buy it?” I ask.

“Because I knew you cared about her, and I knew you hated her in that place. I thought maybe we could buy it and fix it up. But I wasn’t going to pay top dollar for a shithole.”

“And then it went up in flames?” I ask him. Making it look like my father torched the place. “But why would you torch it? That wouldn’t have benefited you,” I say, trying to process everything.

“From my sources, things haven’t gone the way Lexington has wanted them. First it was with Eddie. He was supposed to say I was selling the drugs, either getting me killed and out of the picture or getting the cops’ attention and getting me convicted, effectively removing me. But Eddie used it to try and create a war between Tony and the Vavitos. Thought he could outsmart him. So Lexington got rid of him.

“And Runge, well, he was supposed to make sure my real estate offer went through on Vivian’s building. He heard Falco had been there and assumed it was me, getting my offer straight. Then once the deal was signed, Runge was supposed to torch the building, because then it would have been me trying to get the insurance money. But Runge got impatient. Had another job to do, and just heard me make the offer. So he got offed for his fuckup too. I’d heard Runge was on Lexington’s payroll, and this just confirms it. They would have probably been killed no matter what. That’s his MO. He uses low-level criminals, people no onewill miss or who won’t make a big wave, and has them do his bidding.”

“He sounds like the scum of the earth,” I tell him.

“Yeah,” my father agrees. “He’s what happens when the wrong people get rich. Which happens all the time.”

“So how do we handle him?”

My father shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I should have just let it all go,” Dad muses, rubbing his chin and looking away. “I probably should have said fuck it and dropped it, but I couldn’t leave you boys, knowing there was that kind of money out there.”

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