Page 70 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
“The shit… Look, Hendrick, it’s not my business to get caught up in the family dramas of key witnesses, but the shit she saw, the shit she did her best to shield you from... The shit he did to her… You should forgive her. She wasn’t perfect—I get it. But she was younger than you when she married the senator. Your age when she had you. It’s a lot to overcome when you’re that young. Think about it, at least.” There was a muffled sound of him covering the mouthpiece of his phone. Then he came back on the line. “I have to go. We’ll be in touch.”
He hung up. Basically, he just dropped a bombshell on my life and ran.
My whole world shifted on its axis one more time.
Chapter34
Aviva
After the bombshell about Hendrick’s mom, and the fact she was the key witness in his father’s trial, Hendrick was subdued. We all rallied around him, but I felt like the hits just kept coming over and over again. Soon, one of us would go down and not get back up.
Even just the suggestion that person might be Hendrick made my heart ache.
He probably needed to talk to her, but while he didn’t have the same deep-seated hatred for his mother that he did for his father, he’d still wiped her from his life. In his mind, she’d made her bed years ago, and while she wasn’t the Devil himself, she was still a demon.
At one in the morning, when both of us were still awake and staring at the ceiling, he’d told me things that made me hate her too. Like the time she’d watched as Hendrick’s father had broken his arm. He remembered the fear in her eyes, but he also remembered the gin martini in her hand. The fact she’d done nothing to stop his dad, just turning away so she couldn’t see. But he also remembered her taking him to Aspen and teaching him to ski, and the holidays with his grandparents, where she’d finally looked happy.
When I’d suggested it was because his father would never have acted out in front of the man who held his daughter’s purse strings—and therefore Ted Kenley’s entire fortune—Hendrick had sighed.
“I know. And in the early days, despite the small outbursts, the violence wasn’t constant. That came after my grandparents died and left me as the primary beneficiary to their money. Something snapped in my dad, like both my mother and I had been a means to an end, and me getting the money had blown that all up for him. So he took it out on us, with his fists and his words.”
I’d just held him then. And most of the day after. We’d ordered room service and chilled in the room, no one wanting to face the world just yet.
However, on the third day, we’d organized to meet up with Mitch Goetz, and that was a meeting we had to keep. I picked up the last book that Nemo had left his mark in, tucking it gently into my bag.
Evan pulled me close and rubbed his hands down my back soothingly. “If he asks to keep it, will you let him?”
I’d thought about that a lot over the last couple of days. The answer was probably, though it wouldn’t be easy. We’d been through a lot, but it felt like Nemo had wanted this one to get back to Mitch. “I think so.”
I met the rest of the guys at the door. We were all going, because while I was the driving force behind this insane crusade, we’d all been affected by it and we all wanted answers.
Sampson had organized a town car to take us over to Mitch’s office. For some reason, when he’d said he was a lawyer, I imagined him in a dingy little office with cheap vertical blinds. However, the building we arrived at was a modern, architecturally designed highrise made of chrome and glass.
“Fancy,” Hendrick had murmured, guiding me through a revolving door.
Goetz & Wesley legal firm was on the seventh floor, and when the elevator doors opened up, it was to a minimalist reception area with a long glass and marble front desk.
“How may I help you?” The smiling receptionist had the perfect shade of red lipstick. It was the shade that would look fierce on every single person.
“We have an appointment with Mitch Goetz for Aviva Kenley?” Otto said, smiling politely.
She looked between the five of us, that cool professionalism slowly melting off her face. “Oh. Oh, you’re them.” Her face crumpled a little, and she blinked rapidly. “Please, come straight through. I’ll put you in the conference room, seeing how there are so many of you.”
She led us past several glass-walled offices, filled with people working with such laser focus that they didn’t even glance up as we passed. She ushered us into a meeting room with a long wood and resin table that seemed to be at odds with the rest of the building. Around it were leather high-back office chairs.
“I’ll get Mr. Goetz and be right back. I’ll grab you some water as well.”
The receptionist power walked off in heels so high, I envied her. They would have given me vertigo. Or I would have walked like a praying mantis with knives for feet.
Otto held out my chair, and I sat down, swinging a little from side to side because it was comfortable as hell, and I would defy anyone to sit in a padded office chair without giving it a test spin.
“Nice table. Definitely a custom design. Would have cost a few dollars,” Hendrick muttered, running his fingertips over the resin. It looked like it was filled with metal, but I was fairly sure it was just dyed silver.
The building had a nice view over the city, and I wildly reassessed Mitch Goetz. I’d kind of imagined him as a disheveled, stressed out, small-time lawyer.
“Mrs. Kenley. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I spun on the chair toward the voice and was so shocked that I just kept spinning. Mitch Goetz was hot, and not even close to disheveled. He looked like he’d just stepped off the front page of a men’s business magazine. I did two full rotations in shock before Sampson put out a hand and stopped me.
