Page 52 of Denying Davis
The word thundered in my head, and I didn’t like the sound of the word “silence.” At all. In fact, it stood out to me almost as much as my grandfather’s reveal of the criminal actions of my father. Criminal. I’d known he wasn’t a great man for a long time, but I’d never considered he might have gone that far.
“Silenced it?” I croaked. “Did I just hear you correctly?”
“You did.”
“What…what happened to her?”
He studied me for a moment. “Your father had a lot of problems. Many flaws. That’s well documented, and I know it’s no surprise to you. But I also took care to conceal some of those traits from you because you were a minor at the time.”
“Oh, God…”
“Let me finish before you make any conclusions.” He took a deep breath. “Some of those flaws always seemed to come out around women. And he’d always had a thing for the help. One night, he acted on it with Samantha’s mother.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed. My mind raced as I guessed where he’d head next. And every cell in my body told me it wouldn’t be good.
“He didn’t get far that night—but he got far enough. In fact, I later watched some of it play out on the surveillance system of the house.” My grandfather sneered. “It wasn’t pretty. He might have been drunk that night, but she had a decent criminal case. Had she gone to the police, she might have been able to destroy our family.”
I moved forward on the chair. “So…what? You bought her off? Bought her silence?”
“We offered her the same package we’d offered some of your father’s previous—um—transgressions.”
“Excuse me?” My tongue thickened as my mouth went dry. “Previous transgressions? How many are we talking about?”
Grandad shrugged. “A few dozen, perhaps. Maybe more. Enough that it was a problem, and we had to have something in place to deal with it. After a while, it became rote. We had a playbook, and we followed it. The team of lawyers had a few important documents on standby. All we needed to do was change a few details, and the problem would often take care of itself.”
“My God,” I murmured. “Dear fucking God.”
My father…he was a criminal. And my grandfather let him get away with it. A few dozen fucking times. What. The. Hell?
“We had to look out for our better interests.” My grandfather regarded me with cold, unfeeling eyes. “Neutralizing the problem was the only choice we had.” He waved a hand. “And I was thoroughly unwilling to risk what we had.”
I rubbed my face. The implication was coming into focus, and it made me sick, angry, and disgusted. No, it was more than that. I was furious. Not only was my father a fucking disgrace, but my grandfather had shown me that he was too. He had no morals, and no values other than those that centered on making money and advancing the family interests. He didn’t care about the people hurt along the way.
And I knew one thing at that moment. I wasnotlike him. I didn’t share that part of his DNA.
“If you want me to do go along with the status quo, I won’t do it,” I said. “I won’t be part of a coverup. We’re talking about sexual harassment here, and—”
“No, wearen’ttalking about harassment here. We are talking about a history of sexual assault and predatory behavior.” He paused. “And in some cases, rape. Simple as that.”
“Simple as that?” I yelled. “What the fuck?”
Shock pulsed through me. Again, it was worse than I thought. And he was so damn blasé about it, as if the accusations were as common as a missed quarterly earnings forecast. “Rape?Sexual assault?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” My grandfather sighed. “I don’t have to tell you that in today’s culture, this could have ended our family. Ended our company.”
“And that’s all you care about. Some stupid bottom line.”
“The company is not a bottom line. Far from it. It’s everything we have.”
“You can’t dismiss this kind of behavior.That’sa crime.”
I stared at him, as the reality of it pulled into view. I’d been lying to myself about the people around me for years. Even my own family. They were horrible. The kind of people I despised.
“He didn’t rape Samantha’s mother, did he?” My question came out as a warning.
“No, it didn’t get that far.” My grandfather ranked a hand over his forehead. “Thankfully.”
I pushed back in the chair. Anger boiled in my veins.How dare he act so dismissively of Samantha’s mother? How dare he blow this off? And how dare my father inflict that kind of pain? “And yet, somehow, you find offering her a bribe acceptable.”
