Ashes of Betrayal
At my father's wake, my wife came in carrying her son. The boy was less than two years old. He was not mine.
In front of me, in front of every person there to mourn my father, she opened the urn and held the boy over it.
I screamed and lunged for the urn. The Vance security team was on me before I cleared the aisle. They held me on the floor. My father's ashes, mixed with the boy's urine, smeared across my face and into my mouth. I could not stop crying.
Stella Vance straightened her skirt.
"Zane has been crying every night. Our adviser said the ash of an honored elder will calm a child like that. Good for his health."
The taste of metal came up the back of my throat. Before I could move, she was already at the door.
"Have his ashes dried out by morning. Zane will need it again tomorrow night."
By the time I came back to myself, she was gone.
I held the rage in. I sent her one message.
"You think you're going to do this to my father. You're insane. The divorce papers are coming."
After that, every message I sent was blocked.
I turned to the woman next to me, the woman who had stood beside me my whole life. And I said, "I will sign the company over to you. Help me bury Vance Group."
Cassia Wynn looked at me a long time.
"I don't want the company. I want you."
I went still.
Then I said, "Yes."