The Trillionaire Chapter Ten: Passing Years and Cancelled Compassion

No sooner had Tori ended the call with the security company than Kal's phone began ringing downstairs.

She heard him answer.

His voice immediately dropped.

Tori couldn't make out the words, but his tone had changed. The indifference was gone.

For once, Kal sounded worried.

Less than ten minutes later, headlights swept across the windows.

Another security team arrived.

They entered quickly, accompanied by a supervisor Tori had met only once before. Nobody raised their voice. Nobody needed to.

The supervisor came upstairs.

"Miss Pontius, we're relocating you."

Tori looked around the bedroom.

"My things—"

"They'll be collected."

"My purse is downstairs."

"We have it."

That was apparently the end of the discussion.

Tori followed him.

Downstairs, Kal stood in the foyer arguing with two members of the replacement team.

"She specifically told me not to shadow her."

Tori stopped.

Kal saw her.

"Tori, tell them."

She stared at him.

"You told me I was paranoid."

His expression changed.

"I said there was no credible threat."

"Then a woman followed me home and grabbed me in the doorway."

"You left without protection."

"Because you refused to come."

"That's not what happened."

Tori almost laughed.

It was astonishing how quickly a person could rewrite an event that had occurred only hours earlier.

The supervisor stepped between them.

"That's enough."

Kal tried again.

"Tori—"

She walked past him.

He reached toward her, perhaps intending to stop her or perhaps merely wanting her attention. One of the guards immediately intercepted him.

"Do not touch the principal."

Principal.

Tori had always hated that word.

Now she understood why it existed.

In this moment, she wasn't Kal's girlfriend, companion, employer or confused teenage mistake.

She was the person he had been contracted to protect.

And he had failed.

Outside, another member of the team waited beside a vehicle.

Tori climbed in.

As they pulled away, she looked back once.

Kal remained on the lawn arguing with his supervisor.

Dayton was nowhere in sight. Police had been called regarding the assault and would deal with her separately.

Tori turned forward.

She considered suing Kal.

Then dismissed the idea.

She didn't want damages.

She didn't want revenge.

She wanted him gone.

That was all.

Back in New York, Tori remained shaken.

For years afterward, she would remember New Hampshire less for the college than for the

lesson.

Peeters had been right about one thing.

Her circumstances changed ordinary interactions.

Not every stranger was dangerous.

Not every friend wanted money.

Not every employee would betray her.

But Tori no longer had the luxury of assuming people's intentions were harmless merely because she wanted them to be.

That realization hardened her.

So did her experience with college admissions.

Tori abandoned the idea that prestigious institutions represented some perfectly meritocratic world waiting to judge her intellect fairly. Wealth bought tutors, consultants, preparation, introductions and time—the same advantages it bought everywhere else.

But she also knew that didn't make education meaningless.

If anything, it made her want genuine knowledge more.

What Tori didn't yet know was what she wanted to learn.

So she did nothing.

That became its own habit.

In the months after Kal, Tori attempted to normalize her life.

She became friendlier with the household staff at first.

That didn't work.

They were too agreeable.

If Tori disliked a restaurant, everyone disliked it.

If she liked a painting, everyone admired it.

If she made a joke that wasn't funny, somebody laughed.

She began wondering whether anyone around her ever said what they actually thought.

Kal had made intimacy with employees feel dangerous as well.

A lingering smile made her uncomfortable.

A compliment that became too personal ended a conversation.

Any employee who crossed professional boundaries was reassigned away from her residence rather than given an opportunity for familiarity to become something more complicated.

Eventually Tori requested rotating household shifts.

Nobody remained constantly in her orbit.

At first, the arrangement brought relief.

Then came silence.

The penthouse became an efficiently maintained place populated by people Tori barely

knew.

Exactly as she'd requested.

Years passed.

That was the strange thing about unhappiness when money removed most emergencies.

Nothing forced it to end.

Tori could continue indefinitely.

She became loneliest during spring.

Spring belonged to New Mexico.

As a girl, she'd loved the brief eruption of desert color. Flowers appeared where the earth

had looked incapable of producing anything.

In Manhattan, spring came differently.

Beautifully.

But differently.

Sometimes Tori caught herself in a mirror and stopped.

The face looking back wasn't the one she expected.

She was no longer fifteen.

More than a decade had passed since she'd lived in the trailer.

Kal had been gone from her life for years.

There had been other lovers since.

None lasted.

Tori eventually understood that Jesse had become less a man in her memory than a symbol.

He represented the last romantic relationship she'd had before money complicated every introduction.

She remembered him as safe partly because he had known her when there was nothing to

gain.

That didn't necessarily mean they would have lasted.

It meant she would never know.

Kal became something else in her memory.

An embarrassment.

She heard occasional stories about him through security circles. He'd returned to contract work after losing his position with her detail. Whether he succeeded or failed no longer interested her.

She had spent enough years blaming herself for other people's lives.

Kal could be responsible for Kal.

Tori wasn't entirely alone.

She maintained acquaintances through business, museums, galleries and the handful of social engagements she still attended.

She had also become a significant patron of the arts.

Lars Dillion remained one of the more familiar faces.

Years earlier, Tori had bought several of his paintings at a charity auction because she'd recognized humiliation on his face.

His career had developed since then.

To Tori's surprise, their conversations remained pleasant.

Lars talked about paintings.

Artists.

People they both disliked.

Occasionally complete nonsense.

Most importantly, he rarely discussed her portfolio.

Tori valued him for that.

Even more surprising was the person she'd gradually come to respect most.

Mr. Peeters.

She had once regarded him as nearly monstrous.

Age had not made him warmer.

He was still calculating.

Still blunt.

Still capable of delivering unpleasant information with the emotional inflection of someone

reading train times.

But Peeters had one quality Tori increasingly valued.

He rarely lied to make her feel better.

The day he handed her the file on her mother's family changed something between them.

"I thought you might eventually ask," he said.

Tori accepted the folder.

"I'm not particularly interested."

Peeters looked at her.

"Of course not."

She hated him for knowing her so well.

Tori carried the folder home.

Then dismissed the staff early.

The moment the penthouse was empty, she tore it open.

Her mother's family had not become the magnificent people Tori had imagined as a child.

There were no secret heroes waiting in the history.

Her grandparents had spent much of their lives pursuing social standing and guarding what

reputation they possessed. Her aunt appeared to have followed a similar path.

The documents also confirmed something Tori already knew.

They had rejected Lesley.

Completely.

There were letters.

Correspondence.

Records of decisions made while Lesley was sick.

Tori read until her anger made the pages shake.

Her grandparents had died years later in long-term-care facilities.

Comfortably enough.

That detail bothered Tori more than she wanted to admit.

Her mother had died poor.

They had died cared for.

For one ugly moment, Tori wished she'd known while they were alive.

She imagined using her money against them.

Taking away comfort.

Making them understand what it was like to watch medical decisions become financial decisions.

The thought frightened her.

Not because she couldn't have done something vindictive.

Because part of her would have enjoyed it.

She closed the folder.

There were distant relatives.

Cousins.

People connected through marriage.

Names Tori had never heard.

That raised another question.

She called Peeters.

"If I die, do these people get my money?"

"No."

The answer came so quickly she almost laughed.

"How do you know?"

"Because you have an estate plan."

"What if I didn't?"

"Then succession law becomes considerably more relevant, which is one reason you have an

estate plan."

Tori looked again at the family names.

"I don't want them getting anything."

"Then they won't."

"Any of them."

Peeters regarded her.

Tori leaned forward.

"They left my mother to die."

"I am aware."

He produced another document from the file.

It was a copy of a handwritten letter from Tori's grandfather documenting his estrangement

from Lesley and requesting her removal from arrangements in which she'd previously been included.

Tori read it.

The language was controlled.

That made it worse.

Her grandfather had not written in anger.

He had thought about it.

He had meant it.

Tori placed the letter down.

"They are all to get nothing from me."

Peeters nodded.

"I assumed as much."

An outsider might have considered Tori vindictive.

An outsider hadn't watched Lesley Pontius struggle for every breath in a decaying trailer

while relatives with the means to help decided she deserved what was happening to her.

Tori had watched.

She remembered.

That evening, Tori canceled her plans.

She remained alone in the penthouse.

The rooms looked different.

She walked slowly through them.

Paintings.

Furniture.

Books.

Objects she'd bought on trips she barely remembered.

Everything represented time.

Very little represented a life.

Tori sat down.

For years, she'd believed she was protecting herself.

After the warehouse, she'd stopped trusting her instincts about helping people.

After Molly, she'd stopped believing money could rescue someone without consequences.

After Kal, she'd stopped trusting intimacy with anyone dependent on her financially.

After enough unwanted solicitations, she'd stopped trusting strangers.

After enough professional deference, she'd stopped trusting praise.

Every lesson had contained some truth.

Together, they had built a prison.

Tori had spent years eliminating risk.

She'd also eliminated surprise.

Attachment.

Vulnerability.

Growth.

She thought about Molly.

For years, Tori had told herself disappearing was an act of kindness.

Maybe Molly was better off without her.

Maybe she wasn't.

Tori had never actually found out.

She had simply decided for both of them.

That realization hurt.

She thought of Jesse.

Of the school bus.

Of helping her mother put dishes away.

Of sitting in a warehouse before everything went wrong.

Tori had spent more than a decade moving farther from the girl she'd been.

But she'd never decided who she wanted to become instead.

She was rich.

Very rich.

That wasn't an accomplishment.

It was an inheritance.

She had become knowledgeable about money without becoming educated in anything she

loved.

She had influence without purpose.

Comfort without satisfaction.

Safety without peace.

Tori looked around the penthouse.

For the first time, she admitted something she had avoided for years.

She didn't like herself very much.

Not because she was cruel.

Not because she was corrupt.

Because she'd stopped developing.

She had mistaken avoiding mistakes for becoming wise.

Night settled over Manhattan.

Tori poured herself a glass of Riesling and carried it into the bedroom.

The penthouse had once represented everything she'd wanted.

Clean walls.

A secure door.

A bed nobody was dying in.

Food downstairs whenever she wanted it.

No overdue bills.

No mold.

No fear of eviction.

It had been freedom.

Somewhere along the way, freedom had become routine.

Then routine had become stagnation.

Tori sat on the edge of the bed.

She didn't know what she wanted next.

That was fine.

For once, not knowing didn't frighten her.

She only knew that remaining here would make it too easy to continue being exactly who

she'd become.

Her eyes moved toward the windows.

Manhattan glittered below.

Beautiful.

Expensive.

Familiar.

Finished.

Tori set down the wine.

She called her aviation office.

"I want the plane ready in the morning."

"Destination?"

Tori opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

She hadn't decided.

The absurdity of that made her smile.

"Just have it ready."

She ended the call.

Then she packed for herself.

Not an assistant.

Not a maid.

Tori.

One suitcase.

The process felt strangely good.

By dawn, she was aboard the jet.

As it climbed, Manhattan fell away beneath her.

Tori watched until the city disappeared beneath the clouds.

She still didn't know precisely where she was going.

For most of her life, uncertainty had meant danger.

Now, for the first time in years, it felt like possibility.