Page 55 of Faking Ever After

“Think, Finn, think. Their first company,” Kim said. “It was an encryption software. Percy was a cryptographer before he was rich. That was his first calling. And then he got sick of it. Who better to help you than the man who created the encryption our government relies on?”

The man I left behind when I ran, thinking he couldn’t possibly be a good guy after all?“Oh, Kim,” I whispered. “I gotta think.” My heart pounded quickly in my chest. “Do you think Percy would turn against Richard?”

Kim inhaled as if to answer, then hesitated.

She didn’t know either.

Nobody knew for sure.

I got tangled in such a freaking mess that nobody knew where it began and where it ended.

“I gotta go, Kim,” I said. I needed to close my eyes and pray for a piano to fall on me and knock me out. That way, I might be able to sleep on this. “And remember what you promised.”

“I’ll remember,” Kim said. “Love you, Finn.”

“Love you, too,” I whispered before hanging up.

Going back to Percy for help was not an option. I wasn’t the kind of guy that would use others. I hadn’t left because I didn’t want Percy to be mine for the rest of the days but because I feared he would hate me when he found out the whole truth.

I didn’t doubt whether or not Percy was a good guy.

I doubted whether or not I was.

CHAPTER 20

Finn

I debatedwith myself for the next sixteen hours. My options were limited and none too soothing for my murmuring, aching heart. The split that ran through it was all of my own making. Had I not run, I could have given Percy a decent shot at doing the right thing instead of assuming he would side with his old bestie. Had I not fled from Dick Harrison, I never would have gotten to Naxos in the first place. I never would have fallen so stupidly and hopelessly in love. I never would have reached the point of wrecking everything that was good in my life. I never would have let my guard down.

But now it was too late. I had made my rash decisions and left a trail of ruin everywhere I meddled.Starting with giving your father a blessing to chase those promised returns, I thought.

I had this silly notion that rich men could be trusted with business matters. “We both make a nice profit,” Richard had said to my father over the phone while I listened with pupils dilating greedily. “This pie is big enough for everyone,” he’d promised. And, “I come from nothing, my good man. I worked two jobs in college just to get by. That’s the only reason I put my time into this project. To give people a leg-up that I had neverbeen given. We’re going to show those selfish pricks on Wall Street that their time is up. Are you with me?”

We all were. But the last lingering apprehension in my father’s eyes only disappeared once he looked at me and received a small, hopeful nod.

I had tried to forget it ever since. I had tried telling myself that I hadn’t known any better than everyone else swept up in the scheme. I had tried convincing myself that it was the skill of the trickster that had fooled us all. But the truth was, I had been greedy. In the span of that phone call—where the head of the fund himself took the time to speak to my father—I had seen my comfortable life play out before my eyes. Julie’s college problems were solved, my parents’ leaking roof fixed, my life in the big city guaranteed…

“Is it safe enough for our savings, Mr. Harrison?” Father had asked in the last line of defense.

“My friend, I have staked my house and my car. Banks are old news, giving you interest that is equal to what they take in fees; all the while, inflation eats your money away like the waves of the sea would eat a cliff. I say to people they might as well sow their cash in their mattresses; it would take the same amount of economic literacy. We are talking about a disruptive technology. We’ve had enough of banks taking our money and selling last year’s snow. This will show them that we won’t play by their rules. We make the rules.”

Very well. The savings were safe.

And so four lives were changed forever in my home alone, with tens of thousands of homes just like ours.

This memory replayed itself over and over before my eyes throughout the first night in Hermes’ Hearth. The next morning, when I finished my breakfast in the inn downstairs, I pushed away those nasty thoughts and the endless game of what-could-have-been in favor of something more productive. I went downto the docks to ask about ferries to Mykonos or Athens or anywhere else from where I might be able to go home.

Home.

That was such a distant, abstract idea. Where was that place anyway? It sure as hell wasn’t the den I lived in back in New York. And the mere thought of returning to my parents with nothing to make things right made my heart clench.

So, I explored. I went through the harbor-side offices and asked about ferries until I had more information than I could make any sense of. With a rumbling stomach and too many dates, times, and prices to keep in line, I headed back to the inn. Desperate for a shower, I climbed the stairs to the rooms above the inn and passed through the small parlor.

By right, I should have known right away. I should have recognized the spicy scent of his cologne or the pleasant silence around him that differed so much from the lonely silence that surrounded me since last night. But I hadn’t expected to be discovered so easily and so quickly. Money drilled where drill bits couldn’t.

Percy lifted his hollow, tired gaze from his hands to me when I stepped into the parlor. “Finn,” he whispered as I took a surprised step backward. “Wait. Please.”

I blinked fast, my throat growing tight instantly. “P-Percy?”

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