He hid it to protect me from it.

That is the kind of man he is.

Chapter 9 — This Is Evidence

Gerald tried, the way powerful men always try, to reach for the frame that had always saved him before.

“Thomas,” he said, straightening, forcing his voice level.

“This is a family matter.”

My father finally looked at him.

He looked at him for a long moment, and then he said the thing that told me exactly how this was going to go — not the way Trent feared, not the way the old stories about Grayson might have suggested, but something better, something my father had clearly decided long before he walked through that door.