Graham, of course, was still performing.
He’d pulled out his phone to show Paige something.
Some picture of a rooftop bar in Manhattan he wanted to take her to.
She was smiling at him like he hung the moon.
And look, I love my sister.
Despite everything.
Despite her laughing at Graham’s digs.
Despite the years of her treating my career like it was quaint.
I love her.
Which is exactly why I couldn’t let this go.
My mom passed around slices of pie, and everyone started eating.
Small talk floated around the table.
And then Graham, because he simply could not stop being himself, decided to go for one more round.
He looked across the table at me and said, “So, buddy, what’s the endgame? You going to be fixing routers until you’re 60? Or is there a master plan I’m not seeing?”
The table got quiet.
Even Paige seemed to sense he’d pushed it a little far this time.
She put her hand on his arm and said, “Babe, come on.”
But she said it gently, like she was soothing a mischievous toddler, not calling out genuinely rude behavior.
I set my fork down.
I looked at Graham, and I said very calmly, “Actually, Graham, I’ve been wanting to ask you something all night. What did you say the name of your consulting firm was?”
He blinked.
Just once.
But I caught it.
That tiny flicker behind the confidence.
“I didn’t,” he said smoothly. “I’m independent right now. Building something new.”
I nodded.
“Right. Building something new. Because the last thing you built didn’t work out so well, did it?”
The room went dead silent.
Paige looked at me with confusion.
Evan set his coffee cup down slowly.
My mom stopped midbite.
Graham’s smile tightened, but he held it.
“I’m not sure what you mean, buddy.”
“I mean Prescott Capital Advisers,” I said. “Based out of Fairfax, registered with the state in 2020, dissolved in 2023 after roughly 40 of your clients filed complaints alleging mismanagement of funds, undisclosed fees, and falsified return statements. Ring any bells?”
The color left his face so fast it was like watching someone pull a drain plug.
His mouth opened, but nothing came out for a good 3 seconds.
Then he forced a laugh.
A bad one.
The kind of laugh that sounds like it’s being squeezed out of a tube.
“I don’t know where you’re getting your information,” he said. “But that’s completely out of context.”
“Is it?”
I didn’t raise my voice.
I didn’t lean forward.
I just kept looking at him.
“Because about 18 months ago, my firm was contracted to do forensic data recovery on the digital infrastructure of a collapsed investment company in Northern Virginia. We pulled emails, server logs, transaction records. I spent 3 weeks in that data, Graham. 3 weeks looking at the exact trail of what happened to those people’s money.”
Paige’s face had gone from confused to pale.
“Zach, what are you talking about?”
I turned to her.
This was the hardest part.
Not confronting Graham.
Confronting my sister with the truth about the man she’d brought into our home.
“Paige, I recognized him the minute he walked in, but I couldn’t place it until just now. Your boyfriend ran an investment firm that imploded because he was taking money from clients under false pretenses. People lost their retirement savings. A couple in their 60s lost over $200,000. It was in the Northern Virginia Business Journal. There are court filings. This isn’t a rumor. This is documented.”
Graham stood up.
His chair scraped against the floor with a sound that cut through the silence like a knife.
“Okay, that’s enough. You have no idea what you’re talking about. That was a business dispute. It was a regulatory misunderstanding. Everything was settled.”
“Was it?”
I pulled out my phone.
I pulled up the article on the porch.
I set it on the table, screen facing up.
The headline read, “Fairfax Investment Firm Shuttered Amid Client Fraud Allegations.”
There was a photo.
Graham’s face.
Different haircut, but unmistakably him.