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I open the door to find the space exactly as we left it. Mom releases my arm and crosses the room slowly, stopping beside the bed. She reaches out and smooths a strand of silver hair away from Roman’s forehead. “I told you twenty years ago your heart would kill you before any of your enemies managed to. But you never did listen.” She leans over the gurney and presses a chaste kiss to his cheek. “I love you,” she whispers before pulling away and letting her hand trace along his beard with the back of her fingers.

Mom straightens her shoulders and turns to face us. Whatever vulnerability she’d allowed herself lasts no more than thirty seconds before disappearing behind decades of well-rehearsed composure.

“When is he being transferred?”

“The funeral home will collect him shortly,” Kaden answers.

“And the board?”

“I’m sending an email when I get home,” I answer. “We’ll have an emergency meeting by the end of the week.”

She nods approvingly, her eyes flitting over all her sons. “Your father spent his life building an empire,” she says quietly. “Now everyone will wonder whether his sons can keep it.”

“We can,” I answer for all of us.

“Yes.” She smiles faintly, stepping closer to straighten my tie as though I’m still ten years old, preparing for school instead of thirty-nine and about to inherit one of the largest private corporations in the country. “I’m sure you will.”

She smooths my lapel one final time before lowering her hand, her eyes briefly drifting toward Roman’s body before returning to each of my brothers. “You’ll be the men he wanted you to be.”

Yeah… that’s what I’m afraid of.

THREE DAYS LATER

With Gothic arches, stained glass filtering light into jewel tones, and the scent of incense and lilies heavy in the air, the cathedral is magnificent. It should feel sacred and heavy with grief. Instead, it’s like a board meeting with better floral arrangements.

The pews are filled with Chicago’s elite—politicians, judges, real estate developers—the kind of people who have Roman Ashford’s name saved in their phones and their blood on his hands. They wear black appropriately, murmur condolences politely, but their eyes are calculating, all of them jockeying for his power.

After smoothing my black dress down, I sit in one of the few empty seats. I should be figuring out how to position myself for the transition that is inevitably going to follow his death. Instead, I’m hiding at the far end of a pew, watching the Ashford family bury their patriarch with the emotional investment most people reserve for folding laundry. It’s mesmerizing and deeply unsettling.

Vance sits closest to the closed casket, wearing a black suit that probably cost more than my car. He could be a statue, because he hasn’t moved in the past twenty minutes. Cora, Roman’s widow, sits beside him, draped in Chanel, with actual sorrow etched into her impeccable features. She’s the only one, though; her other sons all appear to be more invested in the whispers being passed between them.

The priest—Father Michael, according to the program—drones on about God’s mercy and eternal rest. “Roman Ashford was a giant among men,” he intones. “A devoted husband, a loving father, and a pillar of the community.” I almost laugh. The sound catches in my throat, and I quickly disguise it as a cough, lowering my head when a few nearby mourners glance my way. This man clearly didn’t know Roman very well, because those are awfully generous words for a man who built his empire through intimidation and considered religion little more than a con for the weak.

As my cough dies away, I look up to find Vance has turned in his seat, and his gaze is fixed on me. It lingers just long enough to make my pulse stutter as I try to read the expression on his face. It’s certainly not amusement, but it’s not irritation, either. I mouth a silent, “Sorry.” Without the slightest acknowledgment, other than the tightening of his jaw, he turns his attention toward the altar.

The service ends with a prayer and a hymn that none of his family sings. The pallbearers—his sons and a man I’ve never seen before—carry the casket out to the waiting hearse. It’s a black Rolls-Royce, gleaming and ostentatious, the kind of final ride Roman would have approved of.

I follow the crowd out into the chilly afternoon, throwing on my coat and pulling it tight against the wind. The cemetery is a short drive away, a private Ashford family plot on a hill overlooking the lake. I take my car—a sensible Honda that’s seven years old and has a crack in the windshield I’ve been meaning to fix—and drive alone, trying to process my emotions.

Roman Ashford is dead.

I park on the narrow paved road in the cemetery and walk up the hill, my heels sinking into the soft earth. The grave is open, a dark rectangle in the well-manicured grass, with the casket beside it on the mechanism to lower it into the ground. Cora sits in a wooden chair before it, her sons in a loose semi-circle behind her. I position myself at the edge of the group, close enough to be respectful, yet far enough to observe.

The priest invites the family up to say a few final words, and Vance steps forward. “My father believed a person’s legacy to be measured by what they built, not by what they said. By that criterion, Roman Ashford’s life speaks for itself. The Ashford Group, the lives it has touched, and the city it helped shape stand as monuments to his ambition and determination. His standards were exacting, his expectations uncompromising, and his vision unwavering. My brothers and I have inherited the responsibility of protecting what he spent a lifetime creating. We intend to prove ourselves worthy of that responsibility.”

That’s it… No anecdotes or fond memories. No, I loved him, or We’ll miss him. His words a press statement, not a eulogy.

One by one, the family members step forward to drop red roses onto the casket, and the few non-family members who followed to the cemetery begin to dissipate. I should leave, too. Instead, I find myself walking toward Vance, who is standing slightly apart from his brothers with his hands tucked into his pockets. The wind blows, ruffling his dark hair as I approach.

“Mr. Ashford,” I manage when I’m close enough. “I wanted to offer my condolences.”

He stares at me for a long moment before extending his hand. His grip is firm and warm when his fingers wrap around mine with a pressure that lingers just past the point of propriety. He doesn’t shake my hand so much as hold it, his thumb brushing once over my knuckles in a gesture that’s almost intimate. “Thank you for coming, Ms. Bennett,” he says, his voice low, pitched for only me to hear. “Roman thought highly of you. He mentioned you often in the last months.”

Vance’s words catch me off guard, and for a moment, all I can do is stare at him like a deer caught in headlights. Roman… talked about me? My mind immediately jumps to the only explanation that makes sense. The promotion.

He’d been grooming me for quite some time, inviting me into meetings I had no business attending, and asking my opinion in front of executives with twice my experience. I hadn’t imagined he’d been discussing me with his sons, but a couple of years ago, I also wouldn’t have fathomed this promotion would even be a possibility.

“He did?” I ask quietly, still in disbelief.