Chapter 23

Allen

 

“Look at you,” Orson says with a disgust so pure, if I weren't so accustomed to my father’s insults, I would flinch. His finger waves indifferently toward my face, my taped nose.

I don't react.

Not bothering to answer, I pour myself another shot of eight-hundred-dollar-a-bottle scotch.

“Have I not instructed you on how to play the victim?”

Exhaustively.

“Then do that.”

“I've ruined it. Got overeager.”

“Did you?” Orson struggles with clear impatience. “Have you hurt Krista?”

I shake my head. Goddammit. “I did shove her against the door, instead of through it, like I wanted to.”

“Imbecile. Not only have you damaged the only thing you're good for—the good fortune to be born looking like a Greek god—you've made the perfect bride candidate as skittish as a colt.”

Fuck. “She doesn't want me.” That’s unbelievable, but true. I shoot the expensive whiskey down my throat without tasting it, setting my belly on smooth fire.

“Of course she does.”

I turn, facing Orson. “Krista has her eyes set on some moron she's teaching during a forced sabbatical.”

“Explain.”

I do, in great detail.

Orson captures a jaw artificially unsoftened by age between a curled index and thumb. “This poses a problem.”

I jerk my head back, snorting derisively. “Don't pretend you care about me gaining your billions.”

Orson hits me with a look of disgust. “It's not about the money, fool. My fortune has always been a tool of manipulation to perpetuate the family lines. There are very few females who will do.”

I search his face. He’s bluffing, but about what isn’t clear. Suddenly, a slow realization dawns. “This is about the family fortune. If I do not marry a predetermined female, you lose the money too.”

His silence tells me I’m right.

Having the upper hand for perhaps the first time in my life, I move in for the metaphorical kill. My experience as an attorney is no small thing in tightening the rope around his neck.

“What clause or loophole is attached to our family's money?”

My father turns on his heel, moving to a thirty-foot-long set of custom-built bookshelves that span the entire wall. A ladder that reaches ceiling hooks onto a solid copper rod across the top of the bookshelves. Instead of climbing the ladder, Orson rolls the wheeled ladder out of the way and pulls out the Holy Bible about halfway up.

As the books spine tips outward, the entire bookshelf slowly swings open to reveal a dim room.

Sudden brightness bursts to life as minuscule LED lighting illuminates a huge vault. I follow Orson across the threshold.

Curiosity killed the cat.

 

*

 

The room appeared bigger from the vantage point of the library. However, since it's use is nothing more than a vault, the space doesn't need to be large.

The darkened area is roughly circular, perhaps fifteen feet in diameter. Vaults of many sizes run floor to ceiling, touching one another in a more or less jigsaw array.

Some look antique. Some modern.

“What is this?”

Orson says without turning. “What does it look like?”

Secrets kept. Out loud, I guess, “Something I won't like.”

“Oh, I don't know. I've come to admire the precepts of our ancestors. Though it does cause certain dilemmas.”

I don't know what the fuck he's talking about, but Orson has always spoken in riddles. It's probably the singular thing that made me such a gifted attorney. My God-given bloodthirsty nature didn't hurt, either.

“You ask why it's so critical that you marry Krista Glass.”

I just stare at him, waiting. Orson adores the sound of his own voice, so I'm certain he'll answer all my questions when he's ready.

He turns back to the oldest-looking safe in the room and with a few practiced turns of his wrist, he silently opens the smooth, round door.

He extracts a single rolled piece of paper.

Striding to a table that sits in the exact center of the room, he carefully unties the ribbon that surrounds the middle and unfolds it.

I was wrong—it isn't a single sheet.

There are many of the same size.

“These are copies, of course. The originals have faded but were copied over a hundred years ago to preserve them.”

“A fucking family tree?” I laugh. Not a small chuckle but a genuine belly laugh.

“Foul language doesn't become you, Allen.”

I roll my eyes. “Your good opinion doesn't matter. You've made that abundantly clear.”

Our eyes meet, and I don't shift mine away. He's made me what I am, and he can deal with it.

“I pay for your playthings,” he states.

I feel a cruel smile take over my face. “It's kept precious Krista safe.”

Orson's chin rises, and even in the artificial lights of the strange room, his eyes appear to be lit from within.

That used to spook me when I was younger. But I'm all grown up now and am a diagnosed sociopath.

Orson should be intimidated by me.

“Take a look.” He taps the family trees.

I step forward and peruse the oldest. Blah, blah blah. Johnny begat Samuel who begat…

Wait a second.

The same surnames come up over and over again.

Quickly, I move the oldest sheet aside and scan the next. Then the next.

And on.

Seven sheets later, I raise my eyes to Orson.

“This was done on purpose.”

Orson nods.

“This is the most fucked up scenario of history I've ever seen.”

My father's shrug is a practiced roll of shoulders, an answer without answering.

My fist pounds the table once, and the injuries sustained from dealing with that idiot Krista is fucking sing through to my shoulder. “I see the last name is Krista's?”

Orson nods.

“What kind of sick fuckery is this, Dad?” I say with thinly veiled sarcasm.

“You share the same father.”

I blanch. I have slept with a relative? I glance back at the family tree—with branches so incestuous I can't follow them. Essentially, it’s a tree without branches. Finally, his words hit me like a sucker punch. “You are Krista's father?”

Orson nods. “Yes, and we cannot let a drop of Rothschild or Fitzgerald blood escape.”

“You were trying to get me to marry my half-sister.”

Orson lifts a shoulder. “I was not so lucky. I was married to your mother, and she was only a second cousin.”

“Lucky?” My voice holds a hysterical shriek.

“Calm down, Allen.”

“I can't calm down. There are almost four billion women for me to choose from, and you directed me toward a relative, a close one.”

“It is the way it has always been since time immortal.” His eyes peg the seven sheets. “Centuries are represented here, Allen. This gives tradition new meaning.”

I blast my fingers through my hair. “Why?” I demand. “Convince me.”

“Do you want to inherit over fifty billion dollars?”

“Yes,” I answer instantly. “What kind of inane question is that?”

Orson is silent.

“You mean I have to marry and have offspring with my own sister?”

Orson nods. “It shouldn't take much to convince her. And what is very nice is that I went outside of family lines to impregnate her mother, thereby insuring a certain”—he waves his palm in a loose circle—“longevity to the lines.”

“No, that's not it,” I say slowly, “it's more along the lines that you didn't want the potential for recessive calamity to take us all down.”

Like insanity or inherited disease risk. Ten fingers instead of ten toes.

“You're sick,” I hiss from between my teeth.

Orson smiles. “But very, very rich.”

“Why would our ancestors want a tree so polluted by the same blood?”

“We feel…” Orson chuckles, placing a tender finger to the oldest sheet. “That our family is superior because of our pure blood.”

He lets me think it through. Seconds pound into long minutes as I review Krista and what she has to offer:

Billions of dollars.

A fine, fuckable cunt. And wasn't that delectable fear I saw in those perfect charcoal eyes? Yes, yes it was.

“Fine,” I bite out. “I'm in.”

“Magnificent,” Orson says, his face brimming with my inevitable answer.

“One question.”

His eyebrow rises.

“Is Krista the only relative I can have? Are there any more female bastards out there running around without knowing they carry the precious Fitzgerald or Rothschild bloodlines?”

Orson's chin hikes arrogantly. “None. And so you're aware, every woman you've put your seed inside is dead, save one.”

This revelation should surprise me.

But it doesn't.

Father had hundreds put down like dogs. Because they didn't have the perfect genetic stock.

“Who was Krista's real mother?”

“That's two questions,” Orson smiles, but it's more a baring of teeth.

“Yes,” I grit.

“She was a very distant cousin. A Rothschild. A woman who thought she could escape our family.” He tsks.

“How'd that work out for her?”

Orson's glittering eyes meet mine, and we smile at each other.

“Badly.”