When Empires Fall (34 page)

Cyrus grunted, pursing his lips bitterly as he watched her pace. Even he couldn’t deny the irony of
that
scenario. No Win meant no witness, but it also meant no Madison, Grant, or Linc. If he had been a more humorous man he may have found that funny. Instead it only infuriated him.

“Marshall would have had children.”

“And?” Madison spun around to face him, one eyebrow arched arrogantly as she glared at him. “Would they have been as loyal to you as I am? Would they have kept your secrets as their own the way I have for seventeen goddamn years? Don’t forget that I branded myself for you and considered it an honor to do so.”

On impulse, she shoved her bulky silver and sapphire bracelet up her right forearm, exposing the tattoo on her wrist for him to see. It was the Roman numeral IX, for the number 9, simple and discreet in plain black ink no larger than a nickel, but they both knew the significance of it.

“I was nine years old when you put your faith in me.” She watched him as he stared silently at the tattoo and saw a very brief flash of intense emotion run over his stony features. As a result, when she spoke again, her voice had softened considerably. “I have not forgotten the words you spoke to me that day. You said-”

“You will be my ideological vessel and my ardent defender. You will carry my vision and my methods into the next generation, ensuring my legacy and the prosperity of this family and our empire. I trust you with my secrets and my wisdom in the hopes that you will persevere against those who will attempt to drown you in deceit and coercion. Our name is only as strong as we fight for it to be. I need you to fight, and fight ruthlessly, child, because in this life, the Vasser legacy is the only thing worth fighting for.”

Madison slowly sat down on the edge of the bed beside him, her hand reaching for his. She held his eyes, never wavering, even as the emotions coursed through her, all fiery rage, dark despair and golden reminiscence. She squeezed his hand, needing to ground herself, to hold on to reason and control. The last thing she would let herself do was crumble, not when he needed her now more than ever.

“Tell me what you want me to do,” she whispered, ashamed at the tight grasp her emotions had over her throat, making it hard to breathe and even harder to speak. But she wouldn’t cry, not in front of him, not ever. He despised tears.

Cyrus took a deep breath, more to settle his own rioting heart than to buy time for words. He knew what had to be done, had known it the second she had told him of the tabloid. He also knew that it was going to hurt her, and hurt her very, very badly. But there was no other option, no other way. He wasn’t going to let her take the fall for this, not when he had been selfish enough to burden her with his sins all those years ago.

It was odd how differently he looked at his decision to take her under his wing now, when the truth was on the edge of release and all he had lived for was about to be dealt a decidedly vicious blow. Madison did not deserve to bear the consequences of his actions. If the police or the family found out that she had known the truth all along and had done nothing, it would destroy her. Not only would her reputation be tarnished, but his legacy would be as well.

There was only one solution, one course of action that would keep her safe and preserve as much of the empire as could be salvaged.

He glanced down at their joined hands and seeing her youth, her vitality, her
strength
, gave him a contentment he had not felt in more years than he could count.

“I want you to carry on as though you know nothing,” he said sternly, looking up at her again.

“But once the detective talks with my father, he’s going to come to you looking for answers.” Madison pushed, frustration hitting her solidly in the chest. “With my father’s testimony and that letter, I don’t see how you’re going to be able to convince the detective that you didn’t do this. They’ll arrest you, put you in prison. Don’t you see that?”

“Let me worry about that,
mon coeur
.” He squeezed her hand once more before pulling his own away, reaching for the old, tattered novel that sat beside him. “Now, you are going to go back to the hotel and continue on as normal. I want you to support your brothers and keep them focused. They need you more than ever now.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about,” she murmured, her eyes searching his when he glanced back up at her. “You’ve made me strong,
pépère
, but without you I don’t know what I will be.”

“You will be exactly as you are now,” Cyrus said gruffly, his scowl deepening. “Nothing and no one can take away your power unless you let them. If you fight tooth and nail to keep it, then you will survive. But if you give up now then you are not the child I raised. She would do whatever was necessary to persevere and to keep our empire flourishing. Are you still her,
mon coeur
? Or are you now too weak to follow in my footsteps?”

Madison’s eyes flashed with heat even as her lips curved into a tenacious smirk. “If not me, than who? I am all you’ve got.” She rose to her feet then and stared down at him. “And lucky for you, I have no intention of letting you down.”

“Good.” Cyrus stared right back at her as his own mouth shifted ever so slightly into a proud smile. “When the Devil finally comes to take me down to Hell, I’ll go gladly knowing I left the best part of me right here, in you.”

Madison merely leaned over to kiss his forehead, pausing as she did so to hover close to the side of his face, her eyes shutting tight to hold back the sudden influx of tears. Taking a deep breath, she spoke softly into his ear, her heart aching as she did so. Somehow, for some reason, this felt like goodbye. “When you see him, tell the Devil he’d be smart to prepare himself for me. We’re going to rule Hell together, you and I.”

Cyrus said nothing as she pulled away from him and left the room, unable to face him or else he’d see the tears falling from her eyes. But he knew; he had heard the suffering in her voice as she had spoken, regardless of how well she had tried to conceal it. Her words had haunted his old, calloused and hardened heart and had made him only more sure that what he was about to do was the absolute right thing.

He leaned over the side of the bed and wheezed as he grabbed his notepad and a pen from his bedside table. Settling back against his pillows, he began writing, his hand shaking slightly as he wrote, more from old age than from fear. He wasn’t afraid, no. In fact, he was eager. He had known that one day his sins would come back to haunt him, and he also knew he was lucky to have lasted as long as he had. It seemed that the old adage ‘only the good die young’ was the stone cold truth. He had lived much longer than his blackened soul warranted.

Then again, he had sacrificed more than just his soul in order to rule the Vasser empire. Now it was time to pay the Devil his due.

A couple of hours later, after he had seen to it that the letters he had written had been notarized and sealed, he slipped them between the pages of his favorite novel and set it on his bedside table. He then reached down on the right side of his bed towards the wall outlet, where all of the machines he was hooked up to were plugged in.

With a grunt, he yanked all of the plugs free and let them fall to the floor. The monitors and machines clicked off instantly. He felt the assistance they had provided for his lungs cease and his heart thudded weakly in his chest of its own accord.

Content, he laid back against the pillows and shut his eyes, a smile curving his lips as he waited patiently for death.

“Are you uncomfortable
being here?”

A partial laugh escaped Win’s throat as he buried his face in his hands, shaking his head resolutely. He sat on the edge of one of Grant’s desk chairs, fighting to soothe his rioting nerves and beat back the bite of withdrawal clawing away at his insides.

He let his hands fall away from his face as he leveled his gaze with his oldest son, who was eyeing him with quiet patience and stern disapproval. Funny how he felt more like the child in this scenario, with his own son as the father. Then again, it had nearly always been that way.

“What? You mean in this room, with all those pictures of the people who wish I was dead?” Win let out a huff of breath and leaned back in the chair, urging himself to relax. “No, I don’t feel comfortable here. I never have.”

“I’m sorry that there is not a better place for us to have this conversation, then,” Grant said dispassionately, averting his eyes from his father and instead looking out the wide windows at the heavy rain that fell from sinister, tumultuous clouds. The office itself was silent as a tomb and oddly calming despite the tenseness of the man who sat before him. He considered his words carefully before speaking again, maintaining a businesslike casualness that he hoped best suited his father’s needs.

“I need you to tell me about the tabloid,” he said simply, keeping his gaze glued to the window so as not to come across as accusatory.

Win sighed and stared out the window as well, watching the rain fall for a moment before he opened his mouth, even then silently mouthing words before choosing ones that seemed right. When he spoke his voice was hollow, haunted, and quiet in a way that disturbed Grant more deeply than he cared to admit.

“It’s all true, Grant. All of it,” Win murmured, his eyes wide and glassy now as he stared at the rain, not really seeing it at all. Instead he saw, replaying over and over again in his mind as it often had throughout his life, the image of his father standing with a gun in his hand.

Grant inhaled deeply, his hand clenching subconsciously over the fountain pen that had been his great-grandfather’s until his knuckles were white. “Please start from the beginning, then, and tell me everything.”

“Okay.” Win swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat, his breath shuddering out as he tried to think of where to start. Shutting his eyes, he put himself back in that very hotel, only fifty-four years earlier. As he did, the memories flooded through him like water through a cool, easy stream.

“I was seven years old. My mom had brought Walter, Lawrence and I to the hotel after school, and we had to stay until dad was ready to leave, but it took hours. I got tired of waiting in the lobby so I wandered upstairs, hoping I could find him and get him to come home.

“I went to his office, this office, actually, and didn’t find him. His secretary said that he had already left, but I knew he hadn’t been downstairs. So I thought that maybe he’d gone up to talk to grandpa in the suite upstairs, so I went up to go look.

“I remember walking down the long hallway towards grandpa’s suite and hearing voices. It felt dark and terrible up there, as if something bad was going to happen, though I don’t know how I could have known that. When I got to the door to the suite, it was cracked open and so I peered in, and that was when I saw him. He was standing next to grandpa, who was seated at his desk, and he was talking.

“I don’t remember what the words were that he said, but I do remember the look in his eyes. Evil. A bad man’s eyes look like that, was what I thought. And then they were arguing, and then dad pulled the gun from his coat pocket and put it up to grandpa’s head, and I wondered if maybe they were just playing a game, maybe this was all for fun. But when he pulled the trigger and grandpa’s blood went everywhere, I knew it wasn’t a game. I’ve never been so terrified of anything in my entire life as I was of my own father at that very moment. He had the Devil in his eyes, the goddamn Devil…”

“Did he see you?” Grant asked, his voice rough from the dryness in his throat. He held no doubts any longer that his father was telling the truth. And the very clear reality of that frightened the living daylights out of him.

“No, I don’t think so,” Win replied, grinding his teeth together as he considered the possibility. “I’d always wondered, though. I always thought he was simply biding his time and that one day he’d find the perfect moment to come after me, to kill me for what I had seen. It’s haunted me all my life, Grant, you have to know that.”

“I understand.” Grant looked over at his father then, meeting his eyes. “I believe you, dad.”

Win nodded, his lips tightening together as he blinked back tears, knowing he had to be strong now. “I’m sorry this had to come out like this. I’ve burdened you kids with my demons…it isn’t fair that you should have to pay the price now.”