Page 229 of Toxic Temptation
“Fuck you.” I spit at his feet. “I’m not scared of you.”
Ihor sighs and taps at his chin. “That’s disappointing. I had hoped you’d be more like your father.”
“What the hell do you know about my father?”
He licks his lips, his eyes homing in on me. “More than you do, it would seem. Would you like to hear a story?”
I shake my head, but he doesn’t care. He keeps talking anyway. “When we first started this business, we needed a surgeon, of course. Someone respected, trustworthy, someone who could win over patients and command loyalty.”
He can’t be… Surely he’s not… There’s no fucking way.
“Wh-what?” is all I can manage to stammer out.
He pushes off the desk and starts to walk toward me. “Who better than the finest San Francisco had to offer? Who better than Thomas Fairfax? A respected physician, beloved father, pillar of the community.” Ihor’s voice drips with false sympathy. “Also one of the founding members of our little organization. The first of the Keres, as it were.”
“Y-you’re lying.”
“Am I? Well, who do you think taught Jeremy everything he knows? Who do you think recruited Dr. Fleming in the first place?” Ihor comes closer and closer and there’s nowhere for me to run. “Your father built this operation from the ground up. Every technique Jeremy uses, every contact we have, every system we’ve put in place—it all came from Dr. Thomas Fairfax.”
I’m falling. Not literally, but everything inside me is collapsing like a building with its supports cut away.
“No,” I rasp. “My father was a good man. He dedicated his life to helping people.”
“He dedicated his life to helping therightpeople. Usually, the ones who signed his paychecks.”
I clutch the edge of the desk to keep from falling. “Stop.”
“He made quite a fortune over the years. How do you think he afforded to send both his children to the best schools? How do you think you got your clothes, your cars, the food on your table, the roof over your head?”
“Stop talking.”
“The best part? He convinced everyone he was a saint. Even convinced himself, I think.” He pauses and clicks his tongue. “Toward the end, he started getting squeamish about the business, though. Wanted out. He couldn’t live with the guilt anymore.”
My father’s words echo in my memory:I’ve made choices I’m not proud of. Choices that kept you and your brother safe, but that I’ll have to answer for someday.
I thought he was talking about working too much, for God’s sake. About missing school plays and soccer games.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“He refused the liver transplant because he thought hedeservedto die,” I whisper in dawning horror.
“Probably. Guilt has a way of eating people alive from the inside out.” Ihor tucks his hands in his pockets. “But his work lives on. Every organ we harvest, every life we save by providing transplants to those who can afford them—it’s all built on your father’s foundation. We owe him a great, great debt of gratitude.”
I sink into Jeremy’s chair, my legs no longer capable of supporting me. Everything I believed about my family, about my father, about the man who raised me to value life above all else—it’s all been a lie.
“Why are you telling me this?” I rasp.
“Because I want you to understand that this isn’t about good versus evil. You think medicine is such a high and mighty pursuit, but at the end of the day, it simply is not. It’s just about money, dear. Like everything else. Your father understood that. Jeremy understands that. And deep down, I think you understand it, too.”
I’m speechless now. It’s like a vacuum has opened up in my head, a black hole, and it’s sucking into its gut everything I ever believed in.
“We could use someone with your skills, Vesper,” he continues. “Think about it—you could make enough money to ensure Luka never wants for anything. You could secure your own future, Kovan’s future. It would be very, very easy.”
I stare at Ihor’s face, searching for any sign that this is all some elaborate prank. But his eyes are completely serious.
He actually thinks I might say yes.
“You want me to help you murder children.”
