Chapter 50
I stepped over Patricia's body and raised the gun.
Marcus didn't flinch. He stood in my doorway like he'd been invited, his cashmere coat unbuttoned, his hands loose at his sides. No blood on him. Never any blood on him.
"Put that down, Sloane." His voice was soft. Reasonable. "We're family."
"Yeah, no." My finger found the trigger. "Family doesn't stab people in the back."
"I didn't touch her." He gestured at Patricia's crumpled form, the knife handle protruding from between her shoulder blades like some grotesque art installation. "She was already bleeding when she arrived. I simply followed to ensure she didn't spread any unfortunate lies."
Patricia's chest rose and fell. Shallow breaths. Still alive.
"Get out."
"In four hours, the board votes on your inheritance." Marcus took a step inside. Just one. Testing. "In four hours, your brother's location becomes... negotiable. Let's be practical about this."
I cocked the gun. The sound was louder than I expected, sharp and final in the small apartment.
Marcus smiled. "You won't shoot me. You're not a killer, Sloane. You're a bartender who got lucky."
"That tracks." I aimed for his chest. "Lucky girls with guns are dangerous."
"Are they?" He moved again, angling toward the kitchen. Casual. Like we were discussing the weather. "Or are they simply desperate? Tell me—did Dominic explain why he's been lying to you for weeks?"
My hand wavered. Just a fraction.
"Ah." Marcus's smile widened. "He didn't. Of course he didn't. My nephew has always been better at omission than outright deception. It's almost admirable."
"Stop talking."
"He's been working with Vivian since before you even knew you had an inheritance." Marcus reached the kitchen counter, his fingers trailing along the marble. "Planning. Strategizing. Using you as their perfect little pawn while they positioned themselves to take everything Father built."
"I know." The words came out steady. Stronger than I felt. "He told me."
"Did he tell you why?" Marcus picked up my coffee mug from this morning. Examined it like it was interesting. "Did he explain that the moment you sign those papers, you become the largest shareholder in Ashford Industries? That you'll have the power to destroy me, to elevate him, to reshape the entire company according to whatever vision Vivian has been whispering in your ear?"
"Put that down."
He set the mug down. Gently. "Did he mention that he's been in love with you since the day you walked into that boardroom? That every decision he's made has been about keeping you close, keeping you dependent, keeping you exactly where he needs you to be?"
The gun felt heavier. My arms were starting to shake.
"No?" Marcus tilted his head. "How surprising. I thought honesty was so important to you both."
Patricia moaned. A wet, horrible sound.
"She needs a hospital," I said.
"She needs to learn discretion." Marcus glanced down at her. "Patricia has always been too eager to play both sides. It makes her useful, but ultimately disposable."
"You stabbed her."
"I told you—"
"You're lying." I moved between him and Patricia's body. "You're always lying. That's the only thing you know how to do."
"And yet you're the one holding a gun on your own brother." His voice dropped lower. Intimate. "Think about that, Sloane. Think about what Father would say if he could see you now. His daughter, threatening family over a woman who's been selling information to the highest bidder for months."
"James isn't at Pier 6."
"No." Marcus's expression didn't change. "He's not."
"Where is he?"
"That depends entirely on what happens in the next four hours." He checked his watch. Three fifty-seven a.m. "The board meeting starts at eight. You have two choices. Sign the papers, accept your inheritance, and I'll tell you exactly where James is. Or refuse, walk away, and spend the rest of your very short life wondering if he's still breathing."
"You'll kill him anyway."
"Perhaps." Marcus moved toward the door. Slow. Deliberate. "Or perhaps I'll let him go. Perhaps I'll even apologize for the inconvenience. You'll never know unless you trust me."
"I don't."
"Then we're at an impasse." He paused beside Patricia, looking down at her with something that might have been regret on anyone else's face. "She really did have proof, you know. Documents. Recordings. Everything you'd need to bury me. Such a shame she won't be able to share them."
He stepped over her body and walked out.
I didn't lower the gun until I heard the elevator doors close.
The 911 operator's voice was calm. Professional. She asked questions I barely heard.
"Stabbing. My apartment. 2B. She's still breathing. I don't know. I don't know. Just send someone."
I hung up before she could ask my name.
Patricia's eyes fluttered open. Unfocused. Glassy.
"Don't move," I said. "Ambulance is coming."
"Coat." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Inside pocket."
I knelt beside her, careful not to jostle the knife. Her designer coat was torn, expensive fabric shredded like tissue paper. I found the inside pocket. A flash drive.
"Marcus... doesn't know." Patricia coughed. Blood on her lips. "Copies. Everything. Eight years."
"Save your strength."
"He'll kill you." Her hand found mine. Weak grip. Desperate. "Sign the papers. Take the company. It's the only way to stop him."
"I don't want the company."
"Doesn't matter." Another cough. More blood. "He thinks you do. That's enough."
Sirens in the distance. Getting closer.
"Why are you helping me?" I asked.
Patricia's laugh was wet and broken. "I'm not. I'm helping myself. If you die, he wins. If he wins, I'm next." Her eyes closed. "Enlightened self-interest. That's all any of us have."
The sirens were right outside now. Footsteps in the hallway.
I pocketed the flash drive and opened the door.
The paramedics asked questions I couldn't answer. The police asked more. I told them a man broke in, stabbed Patricia, ran. No, I didn't see his face. No, I didn't know why. No, I didn't have security cameras.
They didn't believe me. I didn't care.
By the time they left with Patricia on a stretcher, the sky was turning gray. Five thirty-three a.m. Two and a half hours until the board meeting.
I called Dominic again. Still voicemail.
I called Vivian. No answer.
I called the one person I'd been avoiding for twenty-three days.
"Sloane?" My mother's voice was thick with sleep. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Everything. I don't know." I sat on the floor where Patricia had been bleeding. Someone had cleaned it. Me, probably. I didn't remember. "Mom, if you could go back—if you could choose not to know Dad, not to have me, would you?"
Silence. Long enough that I thought she'd hung up.
"No," she finally said. "I wouldn't."
"Even knowing how it ends?"
"Especially knowing how it ends." She was waking up now. Alert. "Sloane, where are you? What happened?"
"I have to make a choice." My voice sounded strange. Distant. "And I don't know which version of me makes it. The one who walks away, or the one who stays and fights."
"Then maybe you're asking the wrong question."
"What's the right one?"
"Which choice lets you sleep at night?" She paused. "Your father never could. All that money, all that power—he died exhausted, Sloane. Worn down by secrets and compromises and deals with people like Marcus Ashford. Is that what you want?"
"I want James safe."
"I know." Her voice softened. "But baby, you can't save someone by destroying yourself. That's not love. That's just a different kind of dying."
The apartment was too quiet. Too empty. Catherine's blood was still on my shirt. Patricia's blood was still under my fingernails.
"I have to go," I said.
"Sloane—"
I hung up.
The flash drive contained exactly what Patricia promised. Eight years of Marcus's crimes, meticulously documented. Bribes. Blackmail. Three suspicious deaths ruled accidental. Financial fraud that made my father's embezzlement look like petty theft.
And at the bottom of the folder, a video file dated two weeks ago.
I clicked it.
Marcus's office. Night. The camera angle suggested a hidden device, something small and easily concealed. Marcus sat at his desk, and across from him—
My breath stopped.
James.
My brother looked thin. Tired. But alive. Unharmed.
"You understand what I'm asking," Marcus said.
James nodded. "You want me to convince Sloane to refuse the inheritance."
"I want you to tell her the truth." Marcus leaned back in his chair. "That our father was a monster. That the Ashford name is poison. That she's better off walking away and never looking back."
"And if I do this, you'll let me go?"
"I'll do better than that." Marcus smiled. "I'll pay off your debts. Set you up somewhere far from Boston. Give you the fresh start you've been chasing since you were sixteen."
James was quiet for a long moment. "What if she doesn't listen?"
"Then I'll have to be more persuasive." Marcus's smile didn't waver. "But I don't think it will come to that. You're her weakness, James. You always have been. She'll do anything to protect you."
"Even walk away from forty billion dollars?"
"Especially that." Marcus stood. "Money means nothing to Sloane. But you? You're everything. It's almost touching, really. The way she's spent her entire life trying to save you from yourself."
The video ended.
I played it again. And again.
James wasn't kidnapped. He was working with Marcus. Had been from the start.
My phone buzzed. Unknown number.
I answered.
"Sloane." Vivian's voice was crisp. Professional. "I assume you've seen Patricia's files by now."
"How did you—"
"I gave them to her." A pause. "Well, copies. I've had the originals for months. Patricia was supposed to deliver them to you yesterday, but Marcus got to her first. Unfortunate, but not unexpected."
"James is working with Marcus."
"Yes." No surprise in her voice. No sympathy. "He has been since Marcus paid off his gambling debts three weeks ago. Approximately two hundred thousand dollars. A small price for leverage."
The apartment tilted. I gripped the edge of my desk.
"You knew."
"Of course I knew." Vivian sounded almost amused. "I know everything, Sloane. That's why your father trusted me. That's why Dominic trusts me. And that's why you should trust me now."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you would have done exactly what you're thinking of doing right now—walking away. Refusing the inheritance. Letting Marcus win because you can't bear the thought of your brother betraying you." Her voice hardened. "But here's what you need to understand. James didn't betray you. He made a choice. A selfish, short-sighted choice, but a choice nonetheless. And you don't owe him your future because of it."
"He's my brother."
"He's a grown man who's been using you as his safety net for a decade." Vivian's words were surgical. Precise. "How many times have you bailed him out? How many debts have you covered? How many times has he promised to change, to get clean, to be better—and how many times has he lied?"
I couldn't answer.
"The board meeting is in ninety minutes," Vivian continued. "You have a choice to make. Sign the papers, take control of Ashford Industries, and use Marcus's own crimes to destroy him. Or walk away, let him consolidate power, and spend the rest of your life wondering if James was worth it."
"Where's Dominic?"
"Dealing with a situation." Evasive. "He'll be at the meeting."
"What situation?"
"That's not relevant right now." She was using Dominic's phrase. Deliberately. "What's relevant is that you show up, you sign those papers, and you stop letting the men in your life make decisions for you."
The line went dead.
I showered. Changed clothes. Put on the one professional outfit I owned—black pants, white blouse, blazer I'd bought for my father's funeral and never worn again.
The gun went in my purse.
The flash drive went in my pocket.
Six forty-five a.m. Seventy-five minutes until the board meeting.
I called James's number. The one I'd been calling for weeks. The one that always went to voicemail.
He answered on the second ring.
"Sloane." He sounded relieved. Happy, even. "Thank God. I've been trying to reach you—"
"Stop." My voice was flat. Empty. "I know about Marcus. I know about the money. I know everything."
Silence.
"Sloane, listen—"
"No." I was walking now. Out of my apartment. Down the stairs. Into the cold morning air. "You listen. I spent three weeks thinking you were kidnapped. Tortured. Dead. I held a woman while she bled out. I pointed a gun at my own brother. I broke every rule I have because I thought you needed saving."
"I did need saving." His voice cracked. "I was drowning, Sloane. Two hundred thousand in debt. They were going to kill me. Marcus offered me a way out—"
"By selling me out."
"By telling you the truth!" He was shouting now. Desperate. "The Ashford family is toxic. That money is blood money. I was trying to protect you—"
"You were trying to protect yourself." I reached my car. Got in. "That's all you've ever done."
"That's not fair."
"No, yeah, it's not." I started the engine. "But it's true. And I'm done pretending it isn't."
"Where are you going?"
"To sign the papers." The words felt strange in my mouth. Final. "To take the inheritance. To become exactly what you were trying to prevent."
"Sloane, please—"
"Marcus lied to you." I pulled into traffic. "He was never going to let you go. He was going to use you until you weren't useful anymore, and then he was going to kill you. Just like he's killed everyone else who got in his way."
"How do you—"
"Because I have proof. Eight years of it. And when I'm done, Marcus is going to prison, and you're going to have to figure out how to live with what you did."
I hung up.
The Ashford Industries building looked different in the early morning light. Smaller, somehow. Less intimidating.
I parked in the visitor lot. Checked my reflection in the rearview mirror. I looked tired. Scared. Young.
I looked like my father.
The thought should have bothered me more than it did.
Inside, the lobby was empty except for security. They recognized me now. Waved me through without checking ID.
The elevator ride to the fortieth floor took forever. I counted my breaths. Tried to slow my heart rate. Failed.
The boardroom doors were closed. Voices inside. I checked my phone. Seven fifty-eight a.m.
Two minutes.
I reached for the handle.
The elevator dinged behind me.
I turned.
Dominic stepped out, and he wasn't alone. Vivian was with him, her silver hair perfect, her expression unreadable. And between them, supported by Dominic's arm, was my father.
Not dead. Not buried. Very much alive.
"Hello, Sloane," my father said, and his voice was exactly as I remembered it—warm and terrible and full of lies. "I believe we have a board meeting to attend."
The boardroom doors opened from the inside, and Marcus stood there, his face going white as he saw what I saw, and behind him the entire board was rising from their seats, and someone was screaming, and I realized it was me, and my father was smiling, and Dominic was reaching for me, and Vivian was saying something about proof and resurrection and the greatest con in Ashford history, and the gun was in my hand though I didn't remember drawing it, and I was pointing it at my father's chest, and he was still smiling, and Marcus was laughing, and the whole world was