Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance (59 page)

“As for witnesses, the vast majority of them were people like Maria, and it will not surprise you to learn that in the eyes of the Killanes, testimony given by brown-skinned people speaking Spanish can be safely dismissed out of hand. That left them free to see the situation in whatever light they cared to, and that light did not favor me.”

Devon picked at his cold bacon, and then pushed his plate to one side.

“The funeral and the interment of my father’s ashes took place at home in Chicago, but I was left behind in that Long Island hotel suite until it was all over. Then, once they’d successfully hushed everything up and the press had moved on to new amusements, my uncles sent for me.

“I spent another endless week shut away in the main Chicago residence of Kennan Killane, the oldest of my uncles and the one most prone to blind fits of temper at the slightest thing that displeased him.

“I rarely saw him, but I often heard him shouting in some distant part of the house, as he and my other uncles and their families conferred on what was to be done with me.

“I remember quite a lot of shouting from that time, from all of my relations – and all of it was about me, the troublesome, hated, and thoroughly unwanted nuisance Kevin Killane had left behind to plague them.

“Uncle Sheridan told me much later he had no idea of my circumstances at the time, and I had no way to contact him – I was of course not allowed access to a telephone because my family knew perfectly well I’d call him at the first opportunity, and I did not ask the servants to call because I knew well enough what would be done to any of them who were caught helping me. And so, I remained a silent prisoner in my uncle’s home.

“Everything was riding on my father’s will. No one in the family knew what it contained, not exactly, and waiting for the day it would be read was like standing by waiting for an apocalypse to rip the world apart. Tempers were short, nerves were raw, and I hid in my room, avoiding everyone but the servants.

“The day the will was to be read arrived, and I waited in my room through that bleak morning and a darker afternoon. The meeting where the executor would read out the document was scheduled for three o’clock, and that hour came and passed. 

“I heard the front door open and crash shut again when Kennan Killane came home afterward, but he did not shout. He did not speak. A maid told me later that he walked straight into his office and closed the door behind him without a word. The silence was terrifying.

“He sent for me at nine that night.”

I knew from my talk with Uncle Sheridan just what the will had said, and waiting to hear that vicious bastard Kennan Killane’s reaction to Devon inheriting every last penny of his father’s money and a majority share of Killane Industries was like waiting to hear about a soccer riot that killed hundreds of people over nothing.

I didn’t know the half of it.

Devon stared at the memory playing inside his head. His voice when he told me about that terrible night was faint, colorless, and … disconnected somehow, as if he were recounting events that had happened to someone else entirely, many wandering years in the past.

“The housekeeper led me to him, down one corridor after another, around endless corners and past rooms I’d never been allowed to enter. She marched ahead of me like a soldier on parade – back straight, eyes front, one hand extended behind her to hold mine, and she never once looked at me. Guilt trembled in her fingers as they curled around mine, though, just the tiniest of tremors.

“We arrived at my uncle’s office, and I stared at the mahogany door as the housekeeper rapped her knuckles against it. I remember the fingernails of my free hand biting into my palm, as I drew in a deep breath and readied myself for what I assumed would be another beating. That was the worst I could imagine, a beating like many another I’d experienced at the hands of various relatives – perhaps this one would be more severe than most, but once the blows were absorbed, the end result would be much the same and life would go on.

“I didn’t know my world would end in that room.”

Devon paused, and then turned to look right into my eyes as I sat at his side.

“Everything ended, and it happened before he ever laid a finger on me.”

He turned away. He stared at the table and talked to his plate as I leaned into him, trying to keep him close and protect him somehow from the past.

“The housekeeper’s knock was answered by an indistinct grunt; she then opened the door, released my hand, and thrust me inside. She didn’t set one foot in that office herself – once I was inside, she pulled the door closed behind me, and I heard her footsteps hurrying off down the hall.”

“Bitch couldn’t get out of the line of fire fast enough, huh?”

“It seemed that way at the time, though she still had a crucial role to play, at the end of the business done that night – but I’m running ahead of events. In any case, she made off, and I bit my lip as I looked around the darkened office.

“The overhead light was off, and so too was the shaded lamp on my uncle’s desk. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the leather chair behind his desk was empty. I backed toward the door. Then movement lurched at me from the corner of one eye and the overhead bulbs snapped on, flooding the room with light.

“Uncle Kennan loomed over my left shoulder. Seconds ago he‘d been nowhere, and now he stood than six inches away, staring at me. His right hand dropped away from the light switch, his left held an empty glass that stank of whiskey, and he stared down at me.

“The man was six feet tall, weighed well over two hundred pounds, and to my scrawny ten-year-old self, he looked like a giant. His face bloomed red with rage and alcohol, his breath sawed in and out like the rumblings of a waking dragon, his massive body trembled, and I saw his empty right hand clenching into a white-knuckled fist.

“He didn’t say a word. The rank smell of whatever he’d been drinking for hours poured off him in waves, and his eyes struggled to focus on me – but still he stared down at me as best he could, and he said nothing.

“I’d been in situations like this many times before, or so I thought. I forced back the panic building in my chest, and I evaluated the possibilities.

“My father’s death and whatever had been in the will were the overall cause of his anger this time, clearly – so once I figured out exactly what aspect of all that had set him off, I’d be able to make a fair guess as to what to say to bleed off the worst of his anger and lessen the number of blows I’d receive.

“If that strategy failed me? Then perhaps a shaky fallback position would be to wait until he was out of arm’s reach, bolt back out the door, and find somewhere to hide until he –

“My heart stuttered as a wavering smile crept onto his face. He smiled like a dead thing, he pulled a jangling set of keys out of his pocket, and he reached past me to lock the door.”

38. The Falling Boy

Devon paused, running one finger around the rim of his plate. “The human instinct to survive is a strange little creature, Ashley, one that can’t be stamped out or reasoned with – even though I knew from the moment that lock clicked that I was doomed, my mind ran frantic with ideas for escape.

“If the door was no longer an option, perhaps I could still talk my way out of what lay ahead. I could bargain, compromise, or maybe simply scream for help, if all rational alternatives failed me.

“Or perhaps my nerves were getting the better of me, perhaps the situation wasn’t so bad as it looked, perhaps … well, no matter. I knew the truth, even if I couldn’t bear to look at it.

“My uncle swayed around on one heel and stalked back to his desk, his path wavering a little across the hardwood floor. I’d seen him drunk before, I’d seen all my uncles and many of their wives in assorted stages of drunkenness at one time or another –  but this time, Uncle Kennan seemed impaired enough that I could entertain a small, foolish hope that he might not connect too solidly with the blows that were surely coming my way.

“I told myself he might even satisfy his rage by mere screaming and shouting and cursing this time – you see, that little creature inside of us that demands to survive above all else is not only single-minded and irrational, but also optimistic beyond all reason.

“I should have known better than to hope.

“He stood with his back to me, staring at the shelves of books behind his desk – books that I knew quite well he didn’t read, because he’d told me many times that books were for ‘gutless little fairies’ such as myself, and that a real man only needed to read the fear in the eyes of his enemies. He enjoyed provoking fear in those who dared enter his office, and he was quite good at it.

“He stared at the dusty leather spines of those books, time slipped past, and just as I considered the mad hope that he might lose interest in this business and pass out at his desk without inflicting any damage on me at all, he turned around.

“ ‘You knew, didn’t you? You knew, and you butchered my brother like a fucking hog to get his money.’

“He threw the words at me like knives, and I pressed back against the door, helpless to defend myself. What was he talking about?

“I had only the barest idea that it had something to do with the will, but that told me nothing. I did not know the contents of my father’s will, he had never discussed the document with me, and I had only the most general concept of what a will even was in the first place. My father had quite a lot of money, I knew that, but it seemed to me to be the least important thing to know about him – and why my uncle thought I wanted that money was a complete mystery.

“I understood all too well, though, that he thought I’d killed my father – and that sent fear leaping up my spine and howling through my brain, because I knew he was right. How could I hope to protect myself from the truth?”

“Devon, if I pointed out for the millionth time that you did not in fact kill your dad, would I be wasting my breath?”

“Probably.”

“Then tell me why Senior Asshole Uncle would throw a pissy rage fit over the death of somebody he couldn’t stand – I mean, every last one of the Killanes hated your dad with a passion, right? But from what I’m hearing so far, your uncle was almost as mad about his useless whiskey bottle of a brother supposedly being ‘butchered’ as he was about the imaginary reason for it – why?”

Devon shrugged like someone asked why the sky was blue, or grass green. “Because of the simple fact that Kevin Killane, with all his many hateful failings, was still a Killane – and the Killanes despise outsiders even more than they hate each other. I was the ultimate outsider in their eyes, a stranger who had been thrust unwanted into their midst and then had killed one of their own.

“I was an outsider who would pay for his crime, and as Uncle Kennan stood shaking behind his desk, seething with bile, he was determined to drive that fact into my soul until I broke beneath the truth of it.

 “He leaned forward, planting his hands on the edge of his desk, and he brayed his anger at me, spittle flying from his lips.

“ ‘You KNEW! You knew, and you had to take everything from us, EVERYTHING!’ He slammed one fist onto the surface of his desk, and I watched paperweights and pens and a nameplate and his liquor glass jump at the impact.

“He straightened up, turned about, and stalked past the shelves, toward the far left corner of the room. He bellowed and cursed, and he swiveled his head to glare at me with every hammering step.

“ ‘Because being saved from that milk-brained bitch of a mother wasn’t good enough for you, was it? You traitorous, ungrateful bastard – my brother pulled you up out of shit-kicking poverty, gave you a real life among decent people, and THIS is how you fucking repay him?’

“He reached the far corner and turned to face me. ‘Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself? Tell me, you sick little monster, do you even miss him? Do you give one single FUCK on this earth that you killed my BROTHER?’

“Without looking, never taking his eyes from mine, he pistoned his right fist into the wall. He punched it so hard, the teak paneling splintered and a painting hanging nearby crashed to the floor. When his hand dropped back to his side, I saw blood drip from the knuckles.

“He didn’t notice. He turned, wavering and unsteady, fueled by blind rage and the absolute conviction that he was right, and he reeled back to his desk.

“He stopped next to his chair, but he didn’t sit down. He stayed on his uncertain feet and he stared at me. I saw sweat running down his red face, I tried to gauge how much longer it would be before his fists were slamming into me instead of the wall, and I tried so hard to think of something, anything, to say – but my mind ran blank, and I just gaped at him.

“However, he did come up with something to say. In that single silent moment, I saw an idea filter into his brain, a new idea, and I flattened myself even further against the door at my back, convinced this fresh thought of his could be nothing good.

“He thought it was a brilliant bit of insight, of course – indeed, he imagined he’d divined the entire truth of the matter.