Chapter 6
I met Nathan alone.
No Duncan.
No Claudia.
No capos.
He stood when I entered the guesthouse sitting room.
We looked alike.
Not enough for strangers.
Enough for brothers.
Same jaw.
Same way of holding shoulders.
Different eyes.
He spoke first.
“You’re taller.”
I almost laughed.
Forty-two years and that was the opening.
“You’re older.”
“Still.”
Good.
We sat.
The red box rested on the table.
Closed.
Untouched.
Interesting.
“You didn’t open it?”
Nathan shook his head.
“Duncan brought it yesterday.”
“Why wait?”
He looked at me.
“Because it wasn’t mine to open alone.”
That told me more about him than anything Duncan said.
I asked:
“Do you want Sterling?”
He frowned.
“My surname?”
“Yes.”
He thought.
“Maybe.”
“Command?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Good.
Then:
“I wanted Dad to have wanted me.”
There it was.
Not empire.
Father.
Duncan had misunderstood everything because men obsessed with power assume everyone wants the same currency.
Nathan told me our father visited twice a year until he was ten.
Then less.
Then stopped.
Sent money.
Letters.
Never brought him home.
Rebecca died when Nathan was twelve.
Relatives raised him.
He learned the truth early.
Sterling existed.
He simply was not inside it.
“Did Dad ever explain?”
“No.”
Duncan’s discovery reopened everything.
Nathan agreed to come only because the red box might contain his father’s final explanation.
I nodded.
“Open it.”
He looked surprised.
“Together.”
We broke the old clasp.
Inside were three bundles.
NATHAN.
MATTEO.
CLAUDIA.
Not succession.
Children.
My father had not stored power.
He stored guilt.
Nathan opened his bundle.
First letter:
I was a coward.
May you like
My brother closed his eyes.
That one sentence did more than Duncan had managed in two years.
