He had smiled at me in the mirror. It was not a warm smile. “Everything is a coronation when my father is involved.”
That was true.
Randolph had built his entire life around being witnessed. He was one of those men who believed money was not just freedom but proof of moral superiority. He had made his first real fortune in commercial real estate when Philadelphia’s waterfront was changing faster than the people living near it could keep up. He bought blocks, displaced tenants, built glass towers, smiled for magazine covers, funded museum wings, and convinced himself that because he could put his name on buildings he had also earned the right to decide what kinds of people belonged inside them.
From the moment Prescott brought me home, Randolph had decided I did not belong.