Episode 40

The air in the Saco diner was thick with the smell of stale coffee and fried onions, a scent that clung to Douglas Michael like a second skin. He stirred his lukewarm coffee, the spoon clinking against the ceramic mug, a nervous habit he’d never quite shaken. His gaze drifted to the window, watching the rain streak down the glass, blurring the already drab landscape. It had been years since he’d last seen her, years since the whispers had turned to shouts, and the carefully constructed facade of family loyalty had crumbled into dust.

He’d built his empire, or so he liked to think of it, on the back of his sisters’ inheritance, a truth that gnawed at him in the quiet hours of the night. While Kim amassed his own fortune from that same tainted wellspring, and Jeffrey carved