“Her history is none of your concern.”
“Everything you do is my concern!” he hisses. “I built this empire on control and predictability! Not on reckless gambles! You will end this embarrassing spectacle, and you will do it tonight. You will accept the engagement to Caroline Davis. Her family is old power. They are stable. She is stable. The arrangements have been made.”
I laugh. It’s not a sound of humor. It’s a cold, sharp, brutal sound that echoes in the sudden quiet between us. It’s the sound of a chain, stretched taut for a decade, finally snapping. It makes him flinch.
“Arranged?” I repeat, the word dripping with disbelief and contempt. “You think you can arrange my life? You think, after all this, you can still tell me who I can and cannot have?”
“I have controlled every aspect of your life since the day your pathetic, weak-willed father put a gun in his mouth, and I will not stop now!”
“Yes, you will,” I say, the words like chips of ice. The rage that has been simmering for ten years as a low, constant fire, finally boils over, a white-hot inferno. “You’re done. I’m done. I’m done with you, I’m done with Monroe Industries, and I’m done being your goddamn puppet.”
Asher’s face, already florid with anger, darkens to a dangerous shade of purple. “You will do nothing. You have nothing without me, youarenothing without me!”
“I have myself,” I snarl, leaning into his face, invading his space for the first time in my life. “And I have her, and that’s allI need. I’m declaring for the NHL draft. I’m taking my trust, and I’m gone. It’s over, Asher. You lose.”
“You ungrateful little bastard!” he sputters, his voice hoarse with a rage so profound it seems to choke him. “I made you! I will destroy you! I will freeze your trust! You will never—”
He stops. Abruptly. The word hangs in the air, unfinished. His eyes, which had been burning with fury, suddenly go wide with a look of profound confusion. A strangled, gurgling sound escapes his throat, and his impeccably manicured hand, the one that has signed billion-dollar deals and ruined countless lives, claws at the starched collar of his shirt as if he’s being strangled.
He stumbles back a step, his face a grotesque mask of shock and dawning pain. “West…” he gasps, my name a wet, garbled plea.
I don’t move, I don’t help. I watch, a cold, detached curiosity washing over me. I am a scientist observing a specimen’s final, fascinating moments.
His breath becomes a ragged, rattling sound, like air being forced through water. His left arm goes limp at his side, then begins to twitch. He looks at me, his eyes pleading, terrified. The mask of power utterly stripped away, revealing the pathetic, frightened man beneath. He tries to speak again, to issue one last command but only a wet, guttural noise comes out. He clutches his chest, his whole body seizing in a violent, spastic tremor.
Then, with a final, shuddering gasp that seems to suck all the air from the balcony, his eyes roll back in his head. He collapses, not like a man, but like a building imploding. He falls sideways, his head hitting the marble railing with a sickening, percussive crack before his body slumps to the ground, a discarded suit filled with nothing.
In the sudden, absolute silence that follows, a strange, hollow ringing fills my ears. For a split second, my brain refuses toprocess what my eyes are seeing. The man who was a mountain, a monolithic force that shaped every contour of my existence is now just… a heap of expensive fabric and cooling flesh on the cold marble. The sheer, anticlimactic simplicity of it is a physical blow. My breath hitches.Is that it? Is it over?
The wave of stunned disbelief washes over me, cold and vast. It’s the shock of a prisoner who has spent his life tunneling out of his cell, only to have the wall unexpectedly dissolve into dust before his eyes.
Then, just as quickly, the wave recedes. It leaves behind a vast space, immediately filled by a cold, crystalline clarity. I stare down at the body. The king is dead. The war is over, and I didn’t have to fire a single shot.
The heavy glass door to the balcony slides open. A woman, one of the senator's wives, steps out for a breath of air. She sees the body. Her mouth opens, but for a second, no sound comes out. Then she lets out a piercing, blood-curdling scream that shatters the night.
Chaos erupts. People rush out, their faces a mixture of horror and morbid curiosity.
My only thought is Kinsley.
I turn my back on Asher’s body, on the gasps and the screams, and walk back into the ballroom. The orchestra has stopped mid-note. The room is a maelstrom of panic, a churning vortex of screaming, crying, and people shouting into their phones. And in the center of it all, I see her.
She stands alone, a statue of emerald and pale skin, a still point in the swirling chaos. Her eyes, wide with shock, are searching for me. Our gazes lock across the pandemonium.
I push through the panicked crowd, my path unwavering. They are nothing but obstacles. The body on the balcony is nothing but a problem that has solved itself. All that matters is her.
I reach her and pull her into my arms, shielding her body with mine, turning her away from the horrifying spectacle on the balcony. She trembles, her hands gripping the front of my tuxedo like she’s drowning.
“West, what happened?” she whispers, her voice shaking. “They’re saying… Asher…”
“He’s gone,” I say, my voice a low, steady anchor in the storm.
My eyes scan the room and I catch the gaze of David, my personal security, who is already moving toward the balcony. I give him a sharp, almost imperceptible nod. He understands.
“Listen to me,” I murmur into Kinsley’s ear, my voice firm, commanding. “I can’t leave. It would look… wrong, but I need you away from this. Now.”
I pull back, my hands framing her face, forcing her to look at me. “There’s a private office behind the bar. I’m taking you there. You will wait for me. You will not talk to anyone. Do you understand?”
She gives a jerky, terrified nod.
