CHAPTER 197: The Decision

POV: Avalon Pierce

He didn’t sleep.

He lay in the dark beside Selene and thought about a man in federal custody who shared his father and had spent fourteen months trying to take everything apart and had ended the night apologising for what he’d done to Elena’s name.

At four AM he got up, made coffee, and sat at the kitchen counter with his phone, weighing his decision.

Should he meet Jonathan Reeves?

Those were the options. Well, everything else was just the space between them.

Selene appeared at five.

She looked at him.

“You haven’t decided yet, have you?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

She made herself a cup of coffee and sat across from him.

“Tell me what you’re actually weighing,” she said eventually.

“Whether meeting him gives him something he doesn’t deserve,” he said. “Or whether not meeting him gives me something I don’t want.”

“Which is,” she said.

“A brother I never knew about who I chose to ignore,” he said. “I’ve spent two years learning to stop managing things by not dealing with them. Not meeting him feels like managing.”

“And meeting him,” she said.

“Feels like rewarding fourteen months of deliberate damage,” he said.

She wrapped both hands around her cup.

“What would your father have done,” she said.

He looked at her.

“Jonathan Pierce,” she said. “Not the ideal version. The man who couldn’t look away from wrong things. What would he have done with a son he may or may not have known about?”

Avalon thought about it.

“He would have met him,” he said. “And he would have been honest about everything and he would have let the meeting be what it was rather than what he needed it to be.”

“Yes,” Selene said.

“That doesn’t mean it’s the right choice,” he said.

“No,” she agreed. “But it sounds like your choice.”

He looked at the phone.

“I need one thing from you,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“Don’t come,” he said. “This one is mine.”

She looked at him.

“Okay,” she said. 

Kim arranged it on a Thursday.

A federal facility meeting room. Lawyers were present on both sides, and the time limit was 2 hours.

Avalon drove alone.

Parked in the structure across the street and sat in the car for four minutes doing nothing in particular and then got out and walked in.

Jonathan Reeves was younger looking than Avalon expected.

Not younger than his age — he was four years older than Avalon and looked it. But younger in some other way. Less armoured somehow. Like federal custody had stripped away the specific performance he’d been maintaining and what remained was just a person.

He stood when Avalon entered.

They looked at each other across the table.

“Sit down,” Avalon said.

They both sat.

The lawyers were present and irrelevant.

“You knew who I was,” Avalon said. “When you joined the board.”

“Yes,” Jonathan said.

“Four years,” Avalon said. “You sat across from me for four years.”

“Yes,” Jonathan said.

“Was any of it real?” Avalon asked. 

Jonathan was quiet for a moment.

“The work was real,” he said. “I’m good at what I do. The rest—” He stopped. “I told myself I was just watching at first. Trying to understand who you were and what you had that I didn’t.”

“And then,” Avalon said.

“And then the foundation happened,” Jonathan said. “The acknowledgement. The question. Watching you build something out of the family name while I didn’t even carry the family name.” He looked at his hands. “I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds like you were angry,” Avalon said.

“Yes,” Jonathan said.

“At me specifically?” Avalon asked.

“At the situation,” Jonathan said. “You were just—in it.”

“I was the target,” Avalon said.

“Yes,” Jonathan said.

Avalon looked at him.

“What do you want from this meeting?” Avalon asked.

“Nothing,” Jonathan said. “I told you that.”

“People always want something,” Avalon said.

Jonathan looked at him.

“I wanted you to see me,” he said. “Not the board member or federal defendant. Me.” He paused. “I’ve been invisible my whole life. Our father didn’t acknowledge me. My mother told me who he was when I was twelve and then told me to forget it.” He paused. “I couldn’t forget it.”

“No,” Avalon said. “I imagine not.”

The room was quiet.

“I’m not forgiving you,” Avalon said.

“I know,” Jonathan said.

“What you did to Selene,” Avalon said. “To Elena’s memory. To our daughter.” He kept his voice controlled. “That’s not something I’m forgiving.”

“I know,” Jonathan said again.

“But,” Avalon said.

Jonathan looked up.

“But I’m not pretending you don’t exist either,” Avalon said. “I’ve spent enough of my life not dealing with things by deciding they’re not there.”

Jonathan was very still.

“That’s all I’m saying,” Avalon said. “You exist, at least I know you exist. What that means going forward, I genuinely don’t know yet.”

Jonathan nodded slowly.

“That’s more than I expected,” he said quietly.

“Don’t make it into more than it is,” Avalon said.

“I won’t,” Jonathan said.

Avalon stood.

The meeting was twenty-two minutes long.

He drove home, walked into the apartment and was welcomed with the sight of Selene who was on the kitchen floor with Elena on the play mat between them, talking to her about something that had clearly been important.

She looked up.

“Well,” she said.

“He exists,” Avalon said. “I told him I know that.”

“And,” she said.

“And that’s everything for now,” he said.

He sat on the floor beside them.

Elena looked at him with Nene’s expression.

“I know,” he said to her. “I know.”

His phone buzzed.

It was a text from Margaret.

Jonathan Reeves’ lawyer just called. He’s withdrawing his cooperation offer. He says he doesn’t want a reduced sentence. He says he wants to plead guilty and take what he gets.

Then: Avalon. His lawyer says he told him — I already got what I needed.