“I’m sure so many revelations are tough to digest, but I’d really love to finish this as soon as possible. Iris and I have a plane to catch to Atlanta.”
“That’s right!” Eian says suddenly, and gives me one more minute to process. “You were all supposed to be in fucking Georgia, Harry. Why aren’t you?”
“Well, you sent that damn message just as we were leaving the house for the airport. And when I checked your location and saw where you were, I knew I needed to go save your ass.”
“Save my ass? I had it handled,” Eian lies.
“You did not.” They banter back and forth until Harry holds up a hand. “In any case, as far as any official records show, Iris and Iwereon that plane, so no one knows we’re even in the city.”
“That’s good,” Eian grumbles.
“Okay, Colby, are you ready to pay attention?” Harrison asks me.
“Yes. I think. I’m pretty sure.” I nod at him to start but slide down to kneel on the floor and make myself a cup of coffee. I know for a fact I’ll need it.
As he goes through a pretty quick and dirty explanation, my coffee cup is forgotten on the table, and I can only stare when he finishes—super lamely. “So now Eian is going to do the work of the Chair of the People, and you are hisheir.”
“What?” I ask. Okay, maybe scream. “Me? Why me? When?”
“You have a lot more questions than Eian,” Harrison mumbles then shrugs. “But then again, I should’ve known you would. Oh, hell, pour me a coffee while you get your shit together,” he tells me.
And I . . .
Well, I pour the man a coffee, then allow Eian to drag me over so I’m sitting between him and Harrison on the couch.
“What are your questions?” Harrison asks after two sips.
“What the hell is Chair of the People, and you said the mayor was the roof? What does that mean? Is Brent going to blow the whistle on this Turris thing? What happened to him after we left? And why am I an heir? I doubt I’ll outlive Eian.”
An adorable grumble rumbles out of Eian’s chest, I can feel it in my arm, so I reach over and pat his leg. He might not like it, but I think it’s a strong possibility, after all he’s a healthy, ripped hunk of a man, and I’m... well, a reporter. Yeah, more than ten years younger, but still.
“You’re the same age as my husband, did you know that?” Harrison asks.
“No, I didn’t,” I mumble distractedly.
“I’m sure you’ll make Eian happy and die after he does,” he says as if waving that last part away. “But to answer your questions, let me go over some of it again. Turris means tower in latin. Our ancestors built this whole diagram you could say, where we’re all stacked on top of each other, and when they had to bring in the mayor around a hundred years ago, they invented a freaking roof, so he’d still be part of that symbolism. The Turris is made up of nine chairs, and previously eight heirs because the Chair of People didn’t have an heir, naturally.”
“Naturally,” I repeat, a bit breathless, but damn it, I’m doing my best to take all of this in.
“Now it will have one, but let’s table that for a moment. Brent is in the custody of the FBI... that’s what happened after you left his house. He won’t tell anyone about the Turris, not only because he’d sound insane, but because he cares enough about his family. He signed a lot of very binding legal documents that will put his family’s future at risk, so he’ll be disgraced and let his family still have a somewhat stable future. I can assure you the FBI is very satisfied with the confession they got from Brent, and they’re already working on tracking down the hacker he hired to keep the auction site working. As far as they know, there’s no mafia involved in this whatsoever.
“The Crawfords are the Chair of Foundation, the Walls are the Chair of Wealth, the Altons are the Chair of Law. Therest are Sports, Information, Art, Theatre, and Residence which is really just their fancy way of saying hotels.”
“Barclay, Ellsworth, Windsor, Blackwell, and Cockerton,” I mumble, remembering all the people who were there.
“Precisely,” Harrison agrees with a very wide smile.
“What’s with the ring?” I ask, nodding in the direction of the stack of papers.
“Ah, another silly tradition, but it has its purpose. So I have this one.” He reaches under the collar of his shirt and pulls out a gold chain with a ring on it. He shows it to me, and when I lean in, I can make out the shape of a... a rook. Like in chess.
Well, I suppose that’s a tower.
“The Crawfords hold the tower.”
“The Chair of Foundation,” I whisper, almost to myself. “Ah, because you own the land, and the buildings?”
Again, Harrison smiles and leans around me to smirk at Eian.
