Chapter 111
Chapter 111:
He didn’t make any move to open the gates, simply staring at them with an unreadable expression.
“You still own it?” Camille asked.
“No.” Alexander’s mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “My parents sold it after I cut them off completely. Some new-money tech family bought it.” He paused, looking at the gates. “But I wanted you to see it. To understand where I came from, before I show you where I went.”
He put the car in reverse, backed away from the gates, and continued down the road. After several minutes of silence, he spoke again.
“The Pierces go back five generations in New York finance. Old money, very established. Appearances were everything.” His voice carried a bitterness Camille had never heard before. “I was the second son. The spare. My brother Thomas was the golden child—perfect grades, perfect manners, Harvard-bound. Everything my father wanted.”
Camille watched his profile, seeing emotion flicker across his normally controlled features.
“And you?” she prompted gently.
“I was… difficult. Creative. Asked too many questions. Wanted to build things instead of just moving money around.” Alexander’s mouth quirked. “The black sheep. The disappointment.”
He turned the car onto another road, this one leading away from the estate toward a more modest neighborhood. “When I was seventeen, Thomas and I were driving home from a party. He’d been drinking, not much, but enough. He insisted on driving anyway.”
Alexander’s hands tightened on the wheel. “We crashed. Thomas walked away with barely a scratch. I was in the hospital for months. Three surgeries. Physical therapy for a year after.”
Camille felt sick imagining it. “Your family…”
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“Closed ranks around Thomas. Made sure no one knew he’d been drinking. Paid off witnesses.” Alexander’s voice hardened. “My father made it clear that the family reputation was more important than anything, including the truth. I was expected to go along with the story they created. To protect Thomas.”
“That’s horrible,” Camille whispered.
“It was clarifying,” Alexander corrected. “I saw my family for what they really were. The moment I could walk well enough, I left. Took the trust fund money they couldn’t legally keep from me and disappeared.”
He pulled the car to a stop in front of a small brick apartment building. Nothing special—just one of thousands of such buildings in Boston.
“I came to Boston. Rented an apartment in this building. Started over.” He nodded toward the building. “I was determined to make it on my own, to build something my own way. Got a job on the loading docks at Atlantic Shipping. Minimum wage.”
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