by Kimball Lee
Legal Legacy
Book 1
Surrender Charlotte
By Kimball Lee
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2014 Kimball Lee
Chapter One
“I wish you could see what I’ve seen, not the terrors of the world, but the miracles. You, especially, my love, what a wonder you are, you saved me from living a brutally shallow life. I could never have endured a mundane existence and loving you has been the greatest adventure of all. I just thought you should know, Charlotte, in case I forget to tell you later on. Do you remember that New Year’s Eve in Paris, when I asked if you were glad that you married me? You recited a line from a poem…” Finn smiled his perfectly crooked smile and squeezed Charlotte’s hand, or perhaps it was Hadley’s hand. No matter, oh how he loved his girls, the thought took root in his mind and then it quickly evaporated before he drifted off to sleep under the warm October sun.
Charlotte curled next to him on the chaise lounge in the back yard of their ‘love-nest’ cottage and whispered the line, ‘I have no saying bright enough to tell about our love.’” She rested her head on the firm muscles of his chest and her tears splashed in huge drops that stained the front of his shirt as he slept. His body was strong and flawless, his clean, safe smell was as unchanged and alluring as ever, but his mind was a ruin. How well she remembered that New Year’s Eve in a restaurant high up overlooking the glittering expanse of Paris. The ‘City of light’ it was called, but Paris was a mere flicker in the darkness compared to the light of love that surrounded them. They had been married only a few months then and Charlotte was pregnant with Atticus. They were wild in their need for each other and they had left the restaurant and barely made it to their hotel room to peel away clothes and make love through the night without a care in the world. Their lives stretched out ahead of them, years and years of happiness, the baby growing in her belly would be the first of many and his birth would make them a full-fledged family.
Charlotte sat up and smoothed her fingers through Finn’s hair. He had let it grow and it was as wild and unpredictable as he was. As she looked down into the handsome face that she loved more than life itself, a stab of pain pierced her heart as cold and sharp as a surgeon’s blade. Finn hadn’t allowed such a blade to touch him, if he had to die, as every man surely did, he wanted to be whole, at least in his body. His mind was doomed to cloud and wither and there was nothing to be done about it, he accepted that and he wouldn’t hinder the process and slowly decay while his family watched in pity and sadness. He didn’t welcome death but he’d been close to it many times before and now he felt it settling around him. He had eluded killers most of his adult life and he knew that this cancer was the most deadly of all, the one he couldn’t escape. He wanted his wife and children to go on with their lives, to mourn him and remember him and to let his spirit go.
Finn’s wish was to live out the time left to him in the cottage where he and Charlotte had started their love affair, so they’d moved in two months before, after a trip to the renowned cancer center in Houston. Charlotte and Hadley had insisted on an entire battery of new tests and Finn let them have their way even though he was certain it was too late. He knew the trip would be of no use and he only wanted quality time with the ones he loved. When he had gathered his family together to tell them about his illness they had all been stunned. It was impossible to imagine that anything or anyone could end the life of this courageous, seemingly invincible man. He was their rock, their safe place in the world, his love, strength, and devotion were steadfast, solid and unwavering. The news left them reeling and each member of the family reacted differently. Charlotte lost her legendary composure and crumpled to the ground in tears and misery, Charlie refused to accept the truth and had rushed upstairs and locked himself away in his bedroom. Atticus became belligerent, throwing an entire set of dining chairs through the dining room window in his anger, all the while shouting at Finn and arguing with him over his nonchalant attitude toward the disease. Hadley alone remained calm. She immediately called Holden, and he and Bly had arrived just in time to stop Atticus from beating hell-fire and damnation out of a neighbor who knocked on the door to complain about the noise and the flying furniture.
That very night Bly’s jet soared through the sky toward Houston and the atmosphere was eerily quiet except for the hum of the engines. Finn had fallen asleep ten minutes into the flight and Atticus sat across from him just staring at his father, trying to make sense of such an unexpected tragedy. Hadley and Holden huddled together without speaking on one of the leather sofas, and Charlie had stayed behind with Finn’s mother, Georgina. Bly had brought Billy Kipling along but Cruz De Leon was assigned to keep an eye on Mia during her ‘vacation’ in upstate New York. When the jet reached its cruising altitude and leveled off Charlotte left her spot bedside Finn and settled into a seat across from Bly.
“I don’t know what to think about this, Bly, I’m scared, I’m really, really scared of losing my husband,” Charlotte said.
“I know you are Charlotte, but let’s see what the doctors in Houston have to say. M.D. Anderson is one of the best cancer treatment centers in the world, they have a specialized team waiting for us.”
Bly wasn’t sure he could survive Charlotte’s pain if she lost Finn, hurt and confusion were written sharply across her face and echoed in her voice. She was not one to give up easily, she didn’t believe in losing a fight, but it was obvious that she realized she wasn’t going to win this one.
In the next few days Finn humored them and submitted to the burdensome tests the ‘miracle worker’ doctors in Houston put him through. In the end their diagnosis simply confirmed what he already knew and his family refused to accept. He had a month, maybe two to live, he should go home and settle in, put his affairs in order and do all the things that brought joy to his heart.
They flew away from Houston and left the doctors behind, but the grim death sentence followed them and couldn’t be shaken or undone. It was a solid thing in their midst, like the bell on the beach during Finn’s SEAL training, all a man had to do was ring it three times and give up and go back to an easier existence. But that was something that Finn hadn’t done, he and JP had stuck it out through Hell Week and beyond. Every other man in their recruit class dropped like flies and crawled toward that bell, worn down and defeated by suffering and torment and exhaustion. He and JP were the only two who stayed the course and they had made a pact to never give up until an enemy was defeated, no fight was abandoned until they were victorious. But this cancer, these wickedly merciless tumors were unbeatable and only a foolish man would fight against their inescapable power.
Their little group settled back into the roomy seats on the jet and silence hung in the air, thick and oppressive. Silence could be deadly just like the cancer that had taken up residence in Finn’s brain without remorse or conscience.
Words unspoken, those that were held inside festering for too long, could cause irreparable damage and become malignant. Atticus had words inside him that had been quietly waiting for him to spit them out. They were words that promised to set him free, free of his guilt for having loved two fathers, and having loved Finn the most. Freedom from always doing the right thing, for wanting to disappear into the world and shake off the burden of being the first born son. He was tired of the way the shallow people in society looked at him, as if he were Alexander Bly’s one and only heir. It was a constant reminder that he was the most important not only because of the order of his birth, but because Bly was hopelessly ensconced in his love for Charlotte. Everyone else dimmed in comparison, it was
so obvious, the lack of shame in Bly’s reverence for Atticus and his mother, almost to the exclusion of all others. That was hard to bear, knowing he was set above Holden and Mia, especially the hurt he witnessed some days in Holden’s eyes. He loved Holden with the protective and fierce love that an older brother carries for his younger brother and Atticus was tormented by guilt for being the more wanted and more valuable son.
“I think we should go to Las Vegas, how about it, is everyone up for it?” Finn asked, breaking the silence. “Come on, my love,” Finn said to Charlotte catching her chair and swiveling her to face him. “I probably don’t have the saying exactly right but it’s something like, “Unlucky with cancer, lucky at gambling.”
“That’s ‘unlucky in love, lucky at cards’, and I hate that you can joke about it. My life is over, you know, my life is nothing without you,” Charlotte said and the dreaded tears rolled down her cheeks even though she was weary of crying all the time.
“Las Vegas changed my world and my life, my love. Of course I had to kill Jamey Huang, but that was rather pleasurable after I knew that he’d dared to touch you,” Finn said, kneeling in the aisle in front of Charlotte, smiling up at her and brushing her tears away. “I knew he was a dead man when I saw what he’d done to your beautiful face. Anyway, he abducted you because Bly wasn’t paying attention and we all know how that went, I saved your life and you married me. That was twenty years ago and somehow it seems like it happened just yesterday, funny how the mind can play tricks when it’s caving in. But thank God for Vegas, because I realized that I had no desire to go on without you, and we lived happily ever after.”
“You are a jackass in sickness and in health, Finn,” Bly said, trying to control his temper, one thing hadn’t changed, Finn loved to provoke him. “Twenty years and about nine months I’d say. Charlotte was pregnant when you stole her from me and then you didn’t bother to speak up when you knew Atticus was mine.”
“Can we not do this please? I do not want to hear about your love lives or my conception or some maniac kidnapping my mother. Hadley, Holden and I aren’t twenty-one yet, we can’t even sit down in a casino. Seems to me that Las Vegas isn’t a great idea,” Atticus said, closing his eyes and raking his fingers through that fucking lock of hair just as Bly did the exact same thing.
“Daddy, I think we should just go home, you’re talking kind of crazy,” Hadley told Finn as she reached over and squeezed Atti’s hand, her eyes imploring her brother to let it go, just let it go.
“Hads, this is the last trip I’ll ever take, humor me won’t you?” Finn said, moving to sit beside her. “Besides, I have a suitcase full of dirty money that’s practically burning a hole in the fuselage of this jet. I’m going to gamble every last cent and it doesn’t matter if I win, lose, or draw. There are a lot of things for young people to do in Vegas other than gambling. You can rent a Jeep and drive out to the desert and go parasailing. Check out the Hoover Damn or one of those places where they put you in a suit and turn the fan up so high it feels like you’re sky-diving,” Finn said and Hadley swallowed her tears and nodded.
“Dirty money, what does that mean?” Holden asked, searching Finn’s face to see if he was serious or if he’d finally gone off the deep end with no hope of return.
“I am not going to Las Vegas, my love,” Charlotte said calmly and Bly flinched at the “my Love” part, he had never quite got used to it.
“You have a suitcase full of cash with you, Finn? Are you sure or…” Bly asked. He was wondering the same thing as Holden, had Finn lost it or was he just a seriously bat-shit crazy bastard?
“Oh yeah, I have a million-plus in cold hard cash, stacks and stacks of hundred dollar bills waiting to be frivolously spent. Payment for that last job when JP… didn’t come back with me. Those who run the world by playing an unfriendly game of chess with human lives sent me the money all neat and tidy by way of FedEx. Cold, huh? I mean, honestly, they could have delivered it personally don’t you think? Insensitive bastards, the lot of them. Well, I gave most of it to Amanda but I did save about a million for a rainy day. And I’m thinking the day when the best doctors in the world tell you to go home and wait to die, that’s a pretty fucked-up stormy day, excuse my choice of words Hadley,” Finn said and there was a far-off lonesome look in his eyes, a look that said he might like to sit down and open a cold beer and reminisce with JP.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” Hadley said, leaning forward to kiss her father’s cheek. “I’d like to hear some of your adventure stories. Like the ones you used tell us at bedtime about bravery and honor.”
“You know, I might like to skydive one last time,” Finn said, his thoughts ricocheted in a dozen different directions and his words spilled out fast and clear. “Did I ever tell you about the time my SEAL team jumped into the Indian Ocean from thirty thousand feet? The air is so cold and thin at that altitude that even with gloves on your fingers can freeze within seconds. JP’s googles shattered and he passed out even though we were wearing oxygen masks. It was a high opening jump, our chutes deployed as soon as we were clear of the aircraft and then we had to navigate our course to the landing area. JP was out cold, his chute opened automatically but he wasn’t controlling his path of descent. I made my way to him and we glided down together, but our combined weight increased our fall ratio and we went into the ocean instead of hitting our target on the beach. We hit the surface hard and the rest of the team followed us into the water in the pitch-black of night about five miles from shore. So we swam, two of us at a time dragging JP through rough water. About a hundred yards from shore JP started hallucinating like he was on an acid trip or something. He was kicking like a mule and I had to cover his mouth to keep him quiet, but soon enough we knew what he was trying to tell us. There were at least a dozen sharks circling and bumping our legs. Fuck, I never thought I’d get out of that one alive. But I did, I ordered my entire unit to form a circle back-to-back and kick like a mother-fu…. We would shoot the sharks only as a last resort, there were too many to hit at once and blood in the water would whip them into a frenzy. Anyway we made it out with only a few shallow bites. After that JP and I began to surf every chance we got, challenging whatever monsters were lurking beneath the waves. You just have to do what you love and when your time is up, it’s up.”
“You never told me that story,” Charlotte said, shivering at the thought of the dangers her husband had faced, both human and non-human.
“Yeah,” Finn said, “I’d forgotten about it until now, JP reminded me.”
“JP? When did he remind you, just then? Finn, I hate those stories and I don’t want any of this… this tumor business to happen, I don’t want to gamble, I don’t want to hear about you swimming with sharks… I don’t want you to die,” Charlotte said and her voice caught in her throat as she scooted in next to Finn and buried her face in his neck as he held her.
“Charlotte, my love, I believe in fighting ferociously, fighting and winning the good fight. I’ve been lucky and I’ve been unconquerable, the only loss I’ve ever thanked God for is when I lost my heart to you. Some battles are won when they’re lost.”
“I’m with you, Dad, let’s blow it all in Vegas, let’s have a fu… a freaking great time,” Atticus said and the tender gratitude in Finn’s smile was so plaintive that it made him look away. Atticus stared out the window at the clouds beneath the jet, so white and pure, floating effortlessly. The clouds had a habit of rolling across the sky, hanging there for a while, then moving on or coming apart at the seams. Those flawlessly fashioned clouds were at the mercy of their environment, dissipating as the air warmed and all the moist, buoyant life within was drained away. The same thing was happening to Finn, and Atticus wanted yell “FUCK YOU!” to the filthy cancerous tumors and the world. He was a grown man now and he should be able to make everything alright for his dad and his mom, and for Hadley and Charlie. But he couldn’t and pain seemed much larger now, so much sharper and more jarring and jagged than it had been in his
innocent youth.
“Billy,” Bly called to his bodyguard who sat motionless at the front of the jet, “Tell the pilots we’re going to stop off in Las Vegas, please.”
*
If the Chairman Suite at the Venetian Resort and Casino was occupied when Alexander Bly visited Las Vegas the unlucky gamblers staying there were spirited away to a less opulent villa. The one exception being the President of the United States, he didn’t have multi-billions of dollars at his disposal, but it was simply good manners not to ask him to pack his bags in the middle of the night. Billy Kipling made a quick call and the ten-thousand-square-foot ‘by invitation only’ suite was made ready for Bly and his guests.
“Charlotte,” Bly said as he watched her walk slowly through the incredibly beautiful penthouse gazing out the wide windows as if she were in a trance. “This suite has everything you might need without ever setting foot outside the doors. I know how you love the Canyon Ranch Spa and of course they have a facility right here in the hotel. Billy is speaking with the butler now and he’ll make arrangements for two aestheticians to set up a full spa right here so you can relax and let me… let the staff take care of you.”
“I appreciate that, Bly, this monstrosity of a suite is… incredible, it seems to go on and on. Hadley says it has twenty-five TVs, is that right?” Charlotte asked, she stopped and turned quickly causing Bly to bump into her.
He reached out and caught her before she fell backwards and then he pulled her against his chest. His strong hands rested on the small of her back and he whispered, “Twenty-seven, I believe. I should check with the butler to make sure… but there are twenty-seven TVs, if I recall.”
Charlotte wanted to melt into the warm strength of this man who had been a vital part of her life for so long. She was tired beyond the point of exhaustion from worrying about Finn, and suddenly she couldn’t remember why she hadn’t simply lived with both the men she loved. Would it have been that complicated? The three of them had been circling each other for years, moving forward and then away in a strangely illogical dance. Together they had raised Atticus, all the while trying to find a level patch of ground to support the weight of their unconventional love affair. She loved them and they loved her and Bly and Finn weren’t actually rivals, they just competed for her attention. Each one wanted to be her truest love, all the while knowing she could never be complete without both of them.
