Todos los capítulos de The Real Heir Returns: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

My soul hung weightless above the table.I watched the man from the other world snap his eyes open inside my body, and all at once I was seeing through him.The same round table. The same full glass of high-proof liquor sitting in the middle of it.The smell of it went straight to the back of my skull.At the head of the table, my father, Victor Ashmore, held his face flat and cold and pushed."Drink it, or don't call yourself my son."Don't make me think bringing you home was a mistake."He didn't go pale the way I had.He didn't reach for the glass to make anyone happy, either. He just laughed, short and cold.The eyes that had never been anything but gentle had gone hard.Tristan Ashmore, the son who wasn't, leaned in from the next seat and kept fanning the fire."Come on, don't make Dad angry."Just drink it. He's giving you a chance to show him something."Tristan smiled like a good boy. Behind it, the arithmetic was vicious.He picked up the glass without a second's

Daphne went straight out to the balcony and dialed a number she was sure couldn't be traced.She'd done this before. The man on the other end was Ray Kessler, and Ray took money to do things other people wouldn't.The plan was a traffic accident on the road he'd have to take to reach his grandfather.She wanted the real son gone, and she wanted it permanent.Early the next morning he checked out with one bag and a face that gave away nothing.He didn't call a car, and he didn't take the back road the original story sent him down.He knew where they'd be waiting. He took out his phone and called it in."I'd like to report a truck on South Belt Parkway. Driver looks impaired, and the plates don't match the vehicle."Heavy construction rig. He's been sitting there a while and he's making me nervous."Ray had barely gotten the truck into position at the intersection.He never got it moving. The sirens came first.Cruisers boxed him in from three sides.They had Ray facedown on

Edmund's voice filled the ballroom without a microphone anywhere near him.Victor's smile locked in place and the blood went out of his face.Tristan went white and stumbled back two steps.His shoe turned under him and he sat down hard on the red carpet.Leaning on Caleb's arm, Edmund climbed the steps to the stage.Victor rushed to meet him, voice unsteady."Dad, why are you here? Your heart, you shouldn't—"Caleb doesn't understand any of this. Don't listen to him."The slap cracked through the room.Edmund put everything he had into it.Victor's gold-rimmed glasses went flying off the stage.Nobody in the ballroom made a sound.Even the reporters forgot to press their shutters.Edmund threw a thick stack of paper in Victor's face.It was security stills from the private room, and the police report on the truck.Pages came down all around his shoes."You stand up here and call that boy reckless."Do you have any idea what your wife and your precious son did last nig

Victor stared at the photographs on the screen.His eyes went bloodshot in seconds, and the cords in his neck stood out like they'd tear.He was shaking all over when he turned to look at Daphne.The crack of it went off like a gunshot.It bounced off all four walls.Victor put his whole body into the slap, and it took her off her feet.She screamed, hit the corner of the conference table, and split her lip open.Then he went after her like something that had stopped being a man.He got on top of her, eyes red, and brought his fists down over and over."You. You did this to me."You stole my money to keep some kid on a boat."Daphne, bleeding and swelling shut, screamed back and gave as good as she got.Her nails opened four lines down the side of Victor's face.The model couple, the ones who did the magazine spreads holding hands, were rolling around a boardroom floor with nothing left of either of them.His suit tore. A handful of her hair came away in his fist.Two do

Daphne and Tristan both went to prison.What waited for them was years of it, without much daylight.When the news broke, Victor came apart for good.The perfect family he'd been showing off for two decades turned into a joke the whole city was telling.The devoted-father act he'd spent half his life building went down with it.In the top-floor boardroom at Ashmore Meridian, the temperature dropped through the floor.The executives who used to follow him around waiting to agree with him weren't pretending anymore.They came at him together and threw the removal papers across the table into his face."Four hundred and fifty million in market value, Victor. Gone, because of your family."The board voted unanimously. You're out of every office and every committee."And the company's coming after you for what it can prove you cost us."Victor sat down in a chair with nothing behind his eyes.He reached for one of their sleeves and got shaken off like something unpleasant.Cour