THE MUSIC BOX MILLIONAIRE

Charles turned slowly toward the camera lens mounted on a tripod in the corner of the room.

On my end, sitting in the kitchen, a shadow moved behind me.

David, my son, stepped into the frame of the webcam, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. He was dressed in his work suit, his jaw set in a hard, unforgiving line.

"Hello, Dad," David's voice echoed through the restaurant speakers.

Charles flinched. "David. Son. Turn the camera off. This is corporate business."

"It's family business now," David replied. "You fired me last week for asking too many questions about the riverfront permits. You told me I was ungrateful. You told me I didn't understand the sacrifices you made."

I squeezed David's hand. He had been so devastated when Charles threw him out of the company.

"David, please," Charles begged, ignoring the room full of outraged investors. "Let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain," David said. He reached into his suit pocket. "You thought you were so smart, Dad. You thought you cleaned out the home office before you moved out."

David held up a heavy, gold-plated Montblanc fountain pen.

Charles let out a strangled gasp. It was his lucky pen. The one he used to sign every major deal for two decades.

"The police are very interested in this pen, Dad," David continued. "Especially since it still has the unique blue ink you use for all your personal signatures. The same ink found on Mom's forged transfer documents."

"I didn't forge anything!" Charles screamed, his composure completely gone. "I am trying to save us! The company is underwater!"

The investors gasped.

The $72 million celebration. The record-breaking year. It was all a lie.

"We are sixty-five million in debt!" Charles confessed, his chest heaving as he looked at the bankers. "The supply chain collapsed! The contractors walked! If I didn't liquidate the riverfront, the banks were going to seize everything by Friday!"

He looked back at the screen, tears of desperation in his eyes. "Eleanor, please. I did it for us."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I leaned toward the microphone. "You did it for yourself, Charles."

David placed something else on the kitchen island, right next to the webcam. It was a faded, child's drawing of a house, framed in cheap plastic.

"You didn't do it for us, Dad," David said, pointing to the drawing he had made when he was seven. "Because if you cared about this family, you wouldn't have used this to hide the truth."

David flipped the frame over, tearing the paper backing away.

Taped to the inside of the cardboard was a small, red USB drive.