Strange to be at the prison without Callum. Ash glanced around at the visitors, all so eager to see their confined friends and loved ones. Callum was the only one who could talk to their father these days. Every word between Ash and his father was strained with the knowledge of the conflict between them.

He didn’t want to be here, but he had to. He’d sent Lucas off to talk to his father, but knowing Jed Phelps, that conversation wouldn't result in anything but frustration. Lucas insisted that his father was playing the role of a dim-witted country gentleman…but Ash wasn’t so sure. He wondered if Jed Phelps had a real medical problem, one that Lucas couldn’t see because he was too close.

At least Lucas’ dad wasn’t a sociopath, unlike Archibald Cray, who came out wearing his khaki uniform and a confident grin…although that grin flickered when he saw that Ash was on his own.

Still, his father seemed at ease as he slipped into the metal chair. “When they said my son was here to see me, I assumed it was the one who still liked me.”

“Let’s skip the banter,” said Ash. “I’ve got news about the company.”

“Interesting. Callum was here by himself yesterday. He seemed worried. Seemed like he had something he wanted to tell me, although he wouldn’t come out with it. The fact that you’re visiting separately told me something was wrong.”

“I know who’s trying to buy our land,” said Ash.

His father sighed. “You said it was news about the company. I don’t care who is buying the land, as long as they pay up. My lawyers are hungry.”

Ash put it into as few words as he could, so he could get them all out before Archibald had anything else cutting to say. After outlining his conversation with Ricky, he ended with, “And he’s not going to be satisfied until he has crushed us into the dust. That means the company, too. Not just the land.”

Archibald looked toward the ceiling and rubbed his chin. “Let me understand this. Some boy from your past has returned, and is threatening everything important to you.”

“That’s it, yes.”

His father laughed then, a soulless, empty laugh. “You’re a hypocrite, Ash. All your talk of me ruining the company, ruining our legacy, and here are you are at risk because of your own poor decision-making.”

Ash narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think my teenage dating history compares to your embezzlement. If you hadn’t stolen the money, we wouldn’t be in a position where Ricky could threaten us.”

“If I ever taught you anything about business, it’s that blame is irrelevant. It’s a waste of time. Once you see the problem, you focus on the solution.”

“Convenient that the man in prison would want us to forget about blame.”

He didn’t like the smile his father gave him then.

Only a year ago, he would have regarded his father as…perhaps not a friend, but one of his closest confidants. A man who shared his goals, his methods, his outlook. Someone he could talk to about nearly anything.

When did you become such an alien to me? Have you always been this cold and strange, hiding it behind a three-piece suit?

“Have you come for my advice,” said Archibald, “or just to remind me why I’m here?”

“I don’t need your advice. I need you to call off the sale. Don’t let Ricky get a foothold.”

“Ash, Ash, do you think I’m that foolish? You’re asking me to stay in jail, to not pursue my appeal.”

“I’m asking you to protect what you worked your entire life to build.”

“A company that you and your brother snatched away from me.”

“You made a mistake, okay?” Ash kept his voice low even though he wanted to scream. “How many times are we going to go over this? You failed. You couldn’t save the company from going under, so you broke the law. Here’s your chance to make it right. To save Cray Reliable, to preserve everything you and Uncle Leonard built, everything that Callum and I have worked for.”

“What noble words. Everything you worked for. You worked for me, Ash. Never forget that. There would be no Cray Reliable if it weren’t for me. You don’t care about that. Deep down, I don’t think you even care about the company.”

Ash paled. I knew I shouldn’t have come. I knew it would be useless talking to him. He’s insane.

He’d hoped for so much more. Surely an appeal to the survival of the company itself would get through to Archibald, even if nothing else would? It wasn’t like he cared about his own son, his own flesh-and-blood.

Maybe that was the problem. When a man lets himself become so inhuman, then no request will work on him.

No request…except, perhaps, to appeal to his basest, most selfish desire: The desire for power.

I could offer him the company.

The idea was ludicrous. Absurd and shortsighted.

Write him a check to fund the lawyers. Promise him the company as soon as he gets out.

At least then there will still be a Cray Reliable, and we’ll be united against anything else Ricky throws at us.

But that would mean Archibald would be in charge again…and ready to take revenge on his son.

Ash shuddered.

I wonder if Lucas is having an easier time with his dad? He missed Lucas so much right now.

Lucas didn’t make him feel confident—if anything, his new feelings for his old enemy seemed to throw him off-balance. But there was a safety to that feeling. A sense that Lucas was going through it too, a sense that neither of them could begin to understand the deep connection that had formed between them.

“I see you got lost in thought,” said Archibald. “Precisely when I challenged whether you cared about the company.”

“Don’t go there,” said Ash. “You know, better than anyone, how much I care—”

“Callum told me about Phelps, Ash. You can drop the charade.”

Callum, you son of a bitch!

“I don’t know what my brother might have told you—”

“It’s sickening. You and Lucas Phelps, loud enough for the entire top floor to hear. You should never have allowed that to happen. You can think whatever you want about my attempts to use Evan’s trust fund to keep the company afloat, but never once would I have sullied our offices with such foolishness. And with a Phelps.” Archibald shook his head. “Now, here you are, telling me to stay in jail, telling me my company is at risk, while you tear down the soul of the company, of the family itself, with your behavior.”

“My personal life is none of your business.”

“If you understood business at all, you’d know there is no personal life. Not at our level. Every moment of the day, you are the company, and the company is you. Didn’t you learn anything, Ash?”

How was this turning into Ash being the villain? Why did he let his father’s words affect him at all?

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Archibald was right, and he had committed a grievous error.

He stared at his father. Was there anything left there at all? Any humanity, any paternal feeling? Ash had spent his whole life thinking of himself as a logical machine…how much of that came from watching his father and wondering if there was a soul behind those cold dark eyes?

“Dad…listen. I need your help. I don’t think we will ever get back to the way things used to be. Too much has happened. But I don’t want to lose the company, and I don’t want to lose the land. Help me. Stop the sale.”

“And stay in jail.”

Ash shook his head. “Let’s figure this out. Name your price. What do you want?”

Bargaining with his own flesh and blood.

Archibald regarded him the way a snake might look at a mouse. Impossible to know what thoughts could be slithering inside his head.

But finally he spoke.

“You will pay for my legal team so I can get this appeal going. Once I am out, you will insure I am returned to my former position in the company. And…you will stop seeing Lucas Phelps.”

Ash had been nodding until that last sentence.

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean. I don’t know what you think you’re doing with that boy. But when I get out, things are going back to the way they were. We’re turning back the clock. Your entanglement with Phelps is as humiliating as it is disgusting. But there is a deeper point: I need to see that you are committed. Committed to the survival of this company above all other things. Committed to our legacy.” Archibald leaned over the table and whispered. “The legacy is more important than anything. More important than the law, more important than infatuation. This will be how you prove you are ready for the company to survive.”

“But I—but Lucas—”

Archibald sat back in his chair, his arms crossed. Even in his khaki jumpsuit, he had the aristocratic air that used to chill the boardroom. He had made his offer, and there was nothing else to say about it.

Lose Lucas to gain my legacy.

Or lose my legacy to keep Lucas.