Chapter 4

Evergreen Ridge was quiet. Old trees, birds, nothing in a hurry.

He found Edmund in the back garden, moving through a slow set of exercises.

Edmund had stepped back from running things years ago.

But on the board of Ashmore Meridian Group, his vote could still kill anything.

He walked up without a word of complaint, without the tears any other boy would have brought.

He was calm in a way that was almost frightening.

He took the allergy report out of his briefcase and set it on the stone table.

Then he opened his phone and played the recording from the night before.

He'd started it before he ever walked into that private room.

Victor's flat, cold "Drink it, or don't call yourself my son."

Tristan's eager little push right behind it.

Both of them carried clearly across the quiet garden.

Last, he laid out a copy of Ray Kessler's statement from that morning.

He set every piece of it down in front of his grandfather, in order.

Edmund listened to the recording and read the word "fatal" on the report.

He started shaking with it.

The end of his cane came down on the stone and cracked like a shot.

"Garbage. That's all he is.

"Victor. My own son, and he's an animal.

"He'd let a boy with none of our blood put my grandson in the ground."

He held his grandfather's eyes.

His own were red at the rims, and he wouldn't let them go further than that.

I knew what he was doing. He was letting the old man see just enough.

"Grandfather, I didn't come here just to stay alive.

"I came because of what this family spent a hundred years building.

"Daphne and her son have him so turned around he can't tell right from wrong anymore.

"If the company ends up with the two of them, it won't survive a year."

Edmund looked down at this calm, hard-edged grandson of his.

He was nothing like the timid, small-town nobody the family had been whispering about.

The old man looked him over again, and what he saw clearly pleased him.

He bent and pulled him up with both hands, knuckles and veins and all.

"Good boy. You've carried too much for too long."

Edmund decided it right there.

He was going back. Personally.

He'd stand behind his grandson, and he'd clean his own house.

Meanwhile, Victor was tearing through the executive suite at headquarters.

He had the thirtieth-anniversary gala for Ashmore Meridian going up the next night, no expense spared.

And he had an announcement planned, in front of everyone in Briarport who mattered.

I was disobedient, I had no character, so he was cutting me out of every trust and beneficiary line he still controlled.

Tristan would be named the only heir the Ashmore name recognized.

At the estate, Tristan and Daphne were trying on suits that had been flown in that morning.

They preened at the mirrors and laughed until they had to hold each other up.

As far as they knew, the real son was already dead on some road outside the city.

And if he'd somehow lived, he was finished anyway.

All of it, all that money, was about to be theirs.

The gala went ahead exactly as scheduled.

The grand ballroom of the Briarport Grand filled with money, jewelry, and perfume.

Every camera in the room was pointed at the center stage.

Victor stood under the lights in a suit cut to the millimeter.

He arranged his face into the expression of a heartbroken father.

Then he leaned into the microphone.

"I've lived my whole life straight. Everyone in this room knows that.

"And I had the misfortune of getting back a son who's reckless and has no gratitude in him.

"For the future of this company, and out of respect for every shareholder here, I'm announcing tonight that Tristan Ashmore, the boy I raised myself, becomes executive vice president.

"And he's the only heir this family will recognize."

The applause came up like a wave, and the guests fell over themselves agreeing.

Tristan stood there in his custom suit like a prince waiting on a crown.

He straightened his tie, proud and glowing.

He put one polished shoe forward to go up and take it.

The bang shook the chandeliers.

It went through the whole ballroom.

Both rosewood doors swung wide as two rows of security walked them open.

The room turned as one and looked at the entrance.

Caleb came through in black, perfectly cut, and the air moved out of his way.

On his arm, steady, silver-haired, and radiating quiet menace, was Edmund Ashmore.

"I'm not dead yet.

"Since when does this family answer to you, boy?"