“Wow,” I said, stepping out. The view was indeed spectacular. Miles of rolling hills, bathed in gold.
“Come over to the edge, Dad,” Tobias called out. He was standing near a crumbling stone wall that marked the precipice. “Let’s get a photo with the valley behind you.”
I walked toward him. My hand was in my pocket, fingers wrapped around the panic button Gregory had given me. I tapped it twice. Signal sent.
“Stand right there,” Brittany said, holding up her phone. “Back up a little more. The light is better if you’re closer to the edge.”
I took a step back. My heels were inches from a three-hundred-foot drop.
“Tobias, get in there with him,” Brittany commanded.
Tobias stepped next to me. He was trembling. I could feel the vibrations of his body. He put his arm around my shoulder. It felt heavy, like lead.
“I miss Mom,” he whispered. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself of something.
“I miss her too, son,” I said, looking at the horizon. “She wanted so much for you. She wanted you to be happy.”
“I know,” he choked out.
Then, I felt his muscles tense. His grip on my shoulder shifted. He wasn’t hugging me anymore. He was positioning himself for leverage. He was shifting his weight to shove me backward.
“I’m so sorry, Dad,” he whispered.
“Don’t do it, Tobias,” I said calmly.
He froze. “What?”
“I said don’t do it. There’s no coming back from this.”
“I have to,” he cried, tears suddenly streaming down his face. “I have no choice!”
He lunged.
I stepped to the side, grabbing his arm and using his own momentum to spin him away from the edge. He stumbled, falling onto the dusty ground.
“NO!” Brittany screamed, dropping the phone.
Before Tobias could scramble up, a roar filled the air. A black helicopter crested the ridge, the wind from its rotors whipping dust into a blinding cloud. At the same moment, two unmarked cars tore up the gravel road, screeching to a halt.
Men in tactical gear poured out.
“FEDERAL AGENTS! DROP TO THE GROUND! NOW!”
Tobias curled into a ball, sobbing. Brittany stood frozen, her mouth open in a silent scream of disbelief.
Agent Stone stepped out of the lead car, his gun drawn but lowered. He walked over to me.
“Mr. Sullivan,” he shouted over the noise of the chopper. “Are you injured?”
I looked down at my son, who was now being handcuffed by an Italian officer while an FBI agent read him his rights.
“No,” I said, my voice feeling like it belonged to someone else. “I’m not injured. But I think I just died inside.”
The interrogation took place in the hotel suite. The Italian authorities had granted the FBI temporary jurisdiction due to the conspiracy originating in Atlanta.
Tobias and Brittany sat on the velvet sofa, handcuffed. Stone stood by the door. I sat in the armchair across from them, sipping the scotch I had ordered on the plane.
“Why?” I asked again.
“The crypto crash,” Tobias whispered, staring at the floor. “We leveraged everything. The house, the cars. We borrowed from… from the Russians in Miami. We thought it would bounce back. It didn’t. They said if we didn’t pay by Friday, they would cut Brittany’s face. Then they would kill me.”
“So you decided to trade my life for yours,” I said.
“We were scared!” Brittany sobbed. Her makeup was running, destroying the perfect façade she had maintained for years. “Gideon, please. We didn’t want to hurt you. We love you!”
“You tried to poison me,” I said coldly. “When that failed, you tried to throw me off a cliff. That isn’t love, Brittany. That is survival of the fittest.”
“Dad,” Tobias looked up. His eyes were red, pathetic. “Please. I’m begging you. Don’t let them take us to prison. I can’t survive in prison. If you drop the charges… if you just help us pay the debt… we’ll go away. You’ll never see us again.”
I looked at him. I saw the toddler who used to fall asleep on my chest. I saw the teenager I taught to drive. And I saw the man who had just tried to murder me.
I stood up and walked to the window. The sun was setting over Florence, turning the river blood-red.
“I made a promise to your mother,” I said softly. “She told me to take care of you.”
“Yes!” Tobias said, hope creeping into his voice. “Yes, exactly. Mom would want you to forgive us.”
I turned around. “Forgiveness is God’s job, Tobias. My job is to handle the reality.”
I pulled out my phone. I dialed my private banker.
“This is Gideon Sullivan. Initiate a wire transfer. $650,000. Yes. To the account number ending in 9923. Immediate authorization.”
I hung up.
The room was silent. Tobias looked at me, his mouth agape. Brittany looked like she had just won the lottery.
“You… you paid them?” Tobias stammered. “You saved us?”
“I paid the debt,” I said. “Because I will not have my son butchered by thugs in a Miami alley. That is the mercy your mother would have wanted.”
“Thank you,” Brittany wept. “Oh my god, thank you, Gideon. We will pay you back, I swear—”
“Quiet,” I barked.
I looked at Stone. “Agent Stone, take them away.”
“Wait!” Tobias shouted, struggling against the cuffs. “You said you saved us! You paid the debt!”
“I saved your lives,” I said, my voice hard as iron. “I paid your debt so the loan sharks won’t kill you. But you committed attempted murder. You conspired to kill me. I am saving your life, Tobias, but I am taking away your freedom.”
“Dad! No! Please!”
“You’re going to prison, son,” I said, watching the agents haul them up. “And while you are in there, you will have a long time to think about the difference between a father’s love and a fool’s blank check.”
As they dragged him out the door, he screamed. It was a raw, primal sound. But I didn’t look away. I watched until the door clicked shut, leaving me alone in the silence of the luxury suite.
I poured another scotch. I raised it to the empty room.
“To you, Linda,” I whispered. “I took care of him. He’s safe now. He’s in a cage, but he’s safe.”
Six Months Later
The morning sun streamed into my breakfast nook in Atlanta. The headlines on the tablet in front of me were bold and final.
HEIR TO SULLIVAN EMPIRE SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS.
I swiped the screen. Brittany had gotten eighteen years; the investigation revealed she was the mastermind behind the poison acquisition.
“Grandpa?”
I looked down. Emma, my seven-year-old granddaughter, was tugging on my sleeve. She was holding a storybook.
“Can you read to me?”
“Of course, sweetpea.”
My daughter, Stephanie—Tobias’s estranged sister whom I had reconnected with after the trial—walked into the kitchen. She poured me a fresh cup of coffee.
“You okay, Dad?” she asked, glancing at the tablet.
“I’m fine,” I said. And for the first time in a long time, I meant it.
Stephanie had been the one to pick me up from the airport when I came back from Italy alone. She hadn’t asked about the money or the will. She had just asked if I was okay. She had brought her kids over every weekend since, filling my empty house with noise and life.
“There’s a letter,” Stephanie said, pointing to the counter. “From the penitentiary.”
I looked at the white envelope. Tobias Sullivan. Inmate #89402.
I picked it up. My hand didn’t shake this time.
I opened it.
Dad,
They tell me I have a lot of time to think. They’re right.
I’m writing this not to ask for anything. You’ve given me more than I deserve by keeping me alive. I’m writing because yesterday, in group therapy, I realized something. I never hated you. I hated that I couldn’t be you. And I let that jealousy, and Brittany’s ambition, turn me into something rot.
I know I lost the right to be your son on that cliff. But I hope, maybe in fifteen years, I can earn the right to be a man you might know again.
I’m sorry. For the water. For the cliff. For Mom.
Tobias.
I folded the letter and placed it in my pocket.
“What does it say?” Stephanie asked gently.
“It says he’s finally growing up,” I said.
I picked up Emma and set her on my lap. She smelled like strawberry shampoo and innocence.
“Alright,” I said, opening her book. “Once upon a time…”
I had lost a son to greed, but I had saved him from death. I had lost a wife, but I had found a daughter I had neglected for too long.
I looked out the window at the autumn trees, shedding their leaves just like they had in Tuscany. Seasons change. Leaves fall. But the roots… the roots have to be strong to survive the winter.
I held my granddaughter tighter.
“Grandpa, you’re squeezing me!” she giggled.
“Sorry,” I smiled, kissing the top of her head. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
I was Gideon Sullivan. I had survived the trap. And now, finally, I was free.
