Julian was the founder and majority shareholder of Mercer Capital, the private equity firm that was, at that very moment, bankrolling Vance Development’s flagship high-rise expansion project in downtown Chicago.

He was, in other words, the man who held my father’s company in the palm of his hand.

He was also, I happened to know, the man my father had spent the previous six months begging, in increasingly desperate meetings, for an extension on the debt.

“Julian,” Thomas stammered, his executive composure evaporating into nothing.

“We, we had no idea.

Chloe never mentioned, she told no one who the father was.” Julian did not even look at him.