Fuck.
I go into the office.
It’s a time capsule of their old life. The antique rug. Books on the shelves. An antique lamp glowing in the corner. It shines down on Cyrus Van Kempt, who stands behind his desk.
Behind the gun on his desk.
He’s not holding it, but it’s there between them.
The glow from the lamp glides down over Cyrus, the gun, and Charlotte, who turns to face me.
“Don’t do this, Mason. I think we should all sit down and talk. I know he’s done wrong. I know he’s done—he’s done the worst possible thing to you. It doesn’t have to end this way.”
She’s pleading, bargaining, begging. All of her offers blend into pure sound, the words indistinguishable. It’s not that I don’t want to listen to her. It’s that I can’t. All I can see is the man who murdered my parents. Did he do it himself, or did he hire someone? Why, for God’s sake? Was he ever even friends with my father or was it all a lie? I might never know. I might die without answers to any of these questions.
“Leave us,” Cyrus says.
Charlotte goes still. She’s afraid to turn her back on me, so she steps back and angles herself toward the desk. “No, Daddy.”
“This is a conversation between men.” It’s an old-school, piggish thing to say. I’d laugh out loud if there wasn’t such fear in his eyes. This prick. This piece of shit. Is he afraid for himself or is he just afraid that she’ll see me kill him? He doesn’t want that for his daughter. He only wanted it for me.
“It’s not safe for me to leave.”
“Step outside, Charlotte.”
“It’s better if—”
“Go.”
She closes her mouth, cutting off a final protest. Cyrus is beginning to sound strained. As if he can’t have this argument forever.
“Okay,” Charlotte says. “I’m going to be right outside. In the hall.” On her way past me, she flashes me huge, terrified eyes, and my stomach turns. It makes me feel like a monster. Like I’ve become the villain.
Cyrus watches her leave. He waits until the door closes with a barely audible click. Then he lets out a breath. He pulls out the chair from behind his desk and sits. I don’t. My knee is killing me, but I’ll be damned if I sit down for this. The last time I sat across from Cyrus Van Kempt—
I’m not going to think about the last time. Fuck it.
I nod toward the gun instead. “Are you going to use that?”
I’m not particularly worried about it. I can be across the room and throttling the life out of Cyrus even with a bullet in my stomach.
Cyrus considers the gun like he’s never seen it before. “Maybe. If you’re going to hurt Charlotte. I know you made the contract to screw with her, but I won’t let you hurt her. You want to kill someone? Kill me. I’m the one you want.”
“I have no intention of hurting Charlotte.”
It’s a lie. I had every intention of hurting her, and I still do. What I’ve done to her, forcing her to fuck me and take my punishments to save her family—that will leave a mark regardless of what happens in the next five minutes. Will you look at that? I am the villain. I am the monster in this story.
I look him in the eye. “What happened?”
The question is pulled from the depth of me, without my consent. I didn’t come here to interview this motherfucker. I came here to kill him.
Cyrus nods. He expected this. “You deserve answers at least, before you…”
Before I kill him. He knew I’d kill him when I found out. He’s accepted his death. The gun is only on the table to protect Charlotte from my rage. I can accept that. Even respect it, begrudgingly as fuck.
He puts his fingertips on the desk, and the gesture is so familiar it tears something in my chest. My dad used to do the same thing when he was about to explain something. Fingertips to a desk calendar. Concentrating on the past.
“We formed a consortium.” He glances up at me as if to make sure I’m following. I am fucking following. “We really thought it would go well. James and I—” He stops and clears his throat. I’ll be damned. Tears in his eyes. New ones. “James and I were friends. Closest friend I had. He was—he had an enthusiasm for projects like that. He was always so sure it would work out. And I regret…”
“What?” My heartbeat ratchets up. Cultivating patience has been difficult. Waiting for these details is impossible.
“I regret that I was in a worse financial spot than James was. Than your parents were. So when the real estate tides turned and the consortium got fucked, it meant that James was going to be in trouble, but I was going to be ruined.” He shakes his head. He must have thought about this a million times. He’s been alive to think about it, unlike my parents. “Victoria—she lived for her committees and charities. And Charlotte was in a fancy girls’ school. I couldn’t—”
“You couldn’t disappoint them? You had to kill my parents instead?” I’m louder than I intended. It’s a struggle to regain control.
“I begged James to reconsider.” Cyrus gets louder, clearer, though he stays seated. “Begged. I went to the house—I begged him. He refused. His principles were going to take us both down.” He laughs, the sound rough. “I guess they still will.”
“Did you set the fire?”
“No. We hired someone.”
“You and Victoria?”
“The consortium.”
He keeps talking about this consortium. Realization dawns.
“It wasn’t just you and my father.”
“There were five of us. Hill. Van Kempt. Bettencourt. Chambers. Newhouse. Five families. We all thought getting the insurance payout was the safest bet.”
“Five families and the best you could come up with was insurance fraud?”
“Only your father disagreed.” Of fucking course he did. He didn’t like scams or fraud. He’d rather take it on the chin. My father always told us that risk was part of any venture, and you had to be willing to pay the consequences. “I should have stood with him. I know that. I was so afraid of losing everything, but look at me—my wife left. My daughter hates me. My business is in shambles. It’s over anyway. I lost everything anyway.”
I don’t feel bad for him. “You were all in on it?”
“Yes. It was Bettencourt’s idea. I’m not—” He puts a hand in the air like he’s going to stop me from commenting. “I’m not defending it. You want to know what happened, so I’m telling you. Bettencourt said we needed to burn the building. I agreed, but we knew, we all knew, that if there was some mysterious fire, James would know it was one of us. His principles would keep us from collecting the payout. So Bettencourt hired someone to set the fire and lure your father there. I signed off on it.”
Rage crumples my bones, burns them to ash. My skin feels singed. Pain sears across my knee. “Motherfucker.”
“I deserve whatever you’re about to do to me.” The whites of his eyes are huge. He’s afraid to die. Cyrus pushes the gun across the desk toward me and stands. He’s decided to die on his feet. “Go ahead.”
I should do it. I know I should. I should pick up the gun and put a bullet through his head. No more breathing for the man who signed my father’s death warrant.