Rising

by Laurelin Paige

  Now for the most complicated part. “Number three.” I put up three fingers then waited a beat to be sure I had his full attention. “You shot Frank to protect your sister and her unborn child. It was clearly self-defense. Was it lawful? No. Was it ethical? I think philosophers might argue about that one. Whatever. You may not have even been the reason he died.”

  He interrupted me. “Oh, no. I killed Frank Dougherty. It will never be thought for one moment that it was at Camilla’s hands. I will not let that be on her shoulders.”

  And yet another reason why I loved him. Even at his darkest, he was always motivated by the ones he cared for.

  “Okay. It was definitely you,” I granted. “You killed a man. In cold blood. And you covered it up. I get it. It’s not pretty. I’m not going to lie and say it is. It happened, you can’t change it, and you probably should feel...I don’t know, something about that for the rest of your life.”

  “I don’t regret it, Celia. At all. And if I’d have been around when Ron…” He didn’t have to finish that sentence. We both knew what Ron had done. “I wouldn’t have waited for him to come into my house. I would have gone after him. I would have done worse.”

  “I know.” I’d already had a feeling he’d only gone after my uncle legally because he’d wanted me on his side. “And maybe you would have done worse to Frank, too, if that night hadn’t happened like it had. Maybe it would have made you hard and terrible. Maybe it would have turned you down a dark road that you could never come back from.

  “But it did happen like it did. And you obviously do feel something about it. Whatever that feeling is, it’s not a feeling that you like, and you can’t let that go. So listen to me now—don’t believe that this is your one and only defining act. It’s not even in the top five. You are a man who took on the care of his sister as soon as he could when they’d both been orphaned. A man who gave his sister a job and a home again when she was pregnant and alone and needed it most. A man who rebuilt his father’s business into something bigger than it had been before. A man who raised two children, a good portion of which he did alone, into two amazing, brilliant adults. A man who gave an entire family a job and a place to live on his paradise island. A man who spent more than a year of his life trying to put a predator behind bars.

  “And you’re a man who would kill for the ones he loves most. Not just a man who will say the words, but a man who will go the distance if need be. There’s no one else I’d rather have my life in his care. There’s no one else I’d rather have my heart.”

  I’d rushed through my declaration to be sure he wouldn’t interrupt, and now my heart beat so fast it felt like I’d been running. I took a breath, waiting for him to speak.

  In a flash, I was pushed on my back on the ottoman for a second time. Edward hovered over me, his mouth inches from mine. “How is it you see so much good in a man who is clearly a devil?”

  “Oh, I see the devil, too,” I assured him. “I like him just as much.”

  “Are you sure I haven’t just groomed you to respond this way?”

  “I might be who I am right now because of you, but it’s exactly who I want to be.”

  He kissed me at that, a long, luxurious kind of kiss that ended with him sweeping me in his arms and carrying me to the bedroom where he peeled off my robe and kissed my entire body, taking his time to be sure there wasn’t an inch of me that hadn’t been covered with his lips.

  Then, with his clothes deserted on the floor, he covered my naked body with his and made love to me with a sweet attentiveness that I’d never seen from him before. I loved this side of him, like I loved all his sides, like I loved the man who controlled and the man who would kill. I especially loved that, for the first time ever, I was pretty sure I was seeing all the sides of him there was. No holds barred. Bare and vulnerable and mine.

  After, he held me tight around the waist as we lay facing each other, our eyes level. We didn’t talk for a long time. We’d said so much already, and there was a lot that could be said like this—silent, our gazes locked as we stroked each other’s skin.

  But there was still something unresolved, and eventually he addressed it. “You have to let me do what I need to do with Pierce. It’s my war now. I can’t let it go unsettled.”

  My muscles tensed automatically. Then I took a breath in, and relaxed as I blew it out. This was what all of this had been coming to. If I’d thought it was going anywhere else, I was fooling myself. I’d told him I trusted him, and now I had to prove it.

  “Okay,” I said.

  It was his chance, too, to prove what he would do when it wasn’t a gun in his hand in the middle of the night. When the threat wasn’t imminent. When there wasn’t so much to lose. When it was only his pride versus his foe.

  “Let me just ask you one thing,” I added, careful not to undo all the progress we’d made. “With what happened with Frank, with what happened with Ron—which situation feels more resolved to you now that they’re both said and done?”

  He didn’t get a chance to answer before the buzzer rang. It was late. I didn’t know what time exactly, but it had to be late.

  “I put the do not disturb up when I came in,” Edward said, erasing any chance that it might be turndown service.

  The buzzer rang again. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my robe, tying it as I rushed to the door in case it was Genevieve and the baby. The buzzer rang once again before I got there, followed by heavy pounding.

  I didn’t even bother looking through the peephole before opening the door, and was thoroughly surprised to see it wasn’t my stepdaughter, but Hudson, alone, exasperation written all over his face.

  Without an invitation, he pushed inside, clinging to me so desperately as he did, we almost both tipped over. “Find her,” he begged, his voice threadbare. “Find my wife.”

  Seventeen

  Edward

  Celia greeted me at the door as soon as I came up from work the next day. “They found Alayna,” she said. “She’s fine. A bit bruised up, but overall fine.”

  My wife was relieved, and so I was too. It had been Celia I’d been most concerned about when Hudson had shown up at our room the night before. His wife was missing. Presumably, she’d been taken by the person who’d been threatening them, and since all signs pointed to that person being someone from Hudson and Celia’s past, I was rightfully worried that Celia was next.

  Not one of us had gotten any sleep. While the two of them had stayed up scouring the journals for clues, I’d been on the phone arranging bodyguards and extra security for Celia as well as her parents, my children, and Camilla. When the sun came up, I showered and dressed and left for my makeshift office on the conference level of the hotel, but I cancelled all my appointments for the day and spent it instead investigating Pierce. He’d been looking for the perpetrator from the inside out. I thought there was benefit from changing the angle and searching from the outside in. Even after Celia called to tell me it looked like the abductor hadn’t been someone they’d played at all, I kept on with my mission. Just in case.

  “And the man who took her?” I barely dared to breathe.

  “He’s in jail. And anyway, he wouldn’t have come after me, so don’t be worrying about him making bail.” It was like she could read my mind.

  Still, I was wary. “You’re absolutely sure? He acted alone? There’s no one else in on the scheme?”

  She wrapped her arms around my waist. “It was just him, and yes. I’m sure. Hudson and I never played him. His motives had nothing to do with me.”

  “Good.” I kissed her before I released her. “I might just keep the bodyguards for a little while, though.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I understand. Besides, if you’re going to tangle with Hudson, you’ll need them.”

  “Celia,” I warned. I knew what she was doing—trying to bait me into discussing my plans with Pierce.

  She put her hands up in the air in surrender position. “I’m not interfering. Doesn’t
mean I can’t still have opinions.”

  If I hadn’t been so tired, I’d likely have spanked her ass red for her opinion. It would have been for fun, though. Not punishment.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked, changing gears as she helped me out of my suit jacket. “There’s a sandwich in the fridge, if you are. Otherwise, I’m ordering you to bed. I slept most of the day, so I can handle Cleo. You, on the other hand, haven’t slept since yesterday, so don’t try to tell me you aren’t exhausted.”

  I peered at her over my shoulder. “Ordering me?”

  She handed me my jacket with a sigh then dropped to her knees to bow dramatically at my feet. “Oh, master,” she teased, “I know I am not worthy to command you. I beg of you to please have favor on me and allow me to care for you for once by feeding you and sending you to bed.”

  I laughed. “Get up, you temptress.”

  She took my hand as I bent to help her up. “Am I turning you on?”

  “Always.” I kissed her again, because she was there and because I wanted her. But she was right that I needed sleep, so I cut it off before it went anywhere interesting. “No food, thank you. And I’ll sleep. Shortly.” Now that I knew the Pierce threat wasn’t a danger to my own family, there were other things that needed to be sorted out.

  Cleo’s cry came over the baby monitor, waking up from her late afternoon nap on schedule. “I’ll feed her in her room so she won’t be a distraction. Get to bed, soon.”

  She crossed toward the adjoining suite, and I headed to the desk.

  “I mean it, Edward,” she scolded.

  “I will. I promise. Give me ten minutes.” I smiled at her until she’d disappeared into the next room, the door shut behind her.

  Then I hung my jacket on the back of the chair and sat down at the desk. I pulled the pad of hotel stationery from the top drawer, centered it in front of me, and stared at the blank page.

  The day spent researching Hudson Pierce hadn’t been a waste. I’d learned a lot about the man in relatively few hours, quite a bit I’d already known from previous investigations—I never did business with anyone without a thorough background check. Still, a good deal of what I’d discovered had been new, details that shed new light on the man I very much wanted to confront.

  So much had changed in the past few days. New information had been revealed. My beliefs had been challenged. It was a different man who sat in my skin today than the one who’d worn it a week before. I wasn’t even the same man as the one I’d been the night I’d learned Hudson’s real role in my wife’s life.

  Change was inevitable. Of course it was. I expected it. I took pride in being someone who could pivot when needed, and I’d done it successfully in both my business life and personal life on many occasions. But through the years, as far back as I could remember, my core had been rooted in a well-proven tradition of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Entire civilizations had thrived on that principal. It was simple. Justice in the most base form.

  For me, it had been a compass as well as an anchor. Vengeance had dictated my direction and had held me together through the roughest of storms. Who would I have been without a place to put the mass of rage and spite and jealousy that lived inside of me? How could I have functioned? How could I have built my business or provided for my loved ones or even gotten out of bed day after day after day without the inspiration of a mission that I believed in?

  But I’d heard Celia as she’d questioned me the night before. With what happened with Frank, with what happened with Ron—which situation feels more resolved to you now that they’re both said and done?

  All day it had been in the back of my mind, popping to the front whenever I let it. I wished it had been harder to answer. I wished it had been easier to dismiss with excuses. I wished it wasn’t so obvious what I had to do next.

  Wishing did nothing for progress. Only action mattered, and stalling wouldn’t get me what I wanted or what my family needed.

  Now was the time.

  With my decision made, I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket hanging behind me and retrieved my pen, then scrawled out a note on the paper in front of me.

  I’m grateful to hear your wife is back in your arms.

  You and I have unfinished business.

  Edward Fasbender

  I tore the sheet from the pad, folded it in thirds, and tucked it in an envelope that I addressed with Hudson’s name. In the morning, it would go out in the post and be received in the coming days. Then we’d officially be in the endgame. There would be a winner, and one or both of us could move on.

  Now, though, with the course finally settled, I did as my wife commanded and went to bed.

  A little more than a week later, I met with Hudson at an investor appreciation dinner that both Accelecom and Pierce Industries had been invited to. “Neutral territory,” he’d said, which wasn’t quite true since the whole of New York City seemed to belong to the man.

  To be honest, whose territory was whose didn’t concern me, as long as we had the opportunity to speak in private and at length. Hudson had assured me he could make that happen, even though the event had a forecasted attendance of two-hundred-fifty people.

  It wasn’t until we were at the top of the stairs to the roof and Hudson pulled out a personal set of keys that I understood how he could make the guarantee.

  “You own the building,” I said as we walked away from the door out onto the private terrace. “Seems like that should have been disclosed beforehand.” I reached inside my tuxedo and pulled a lighter and the two cigars I’d bought the week before from my inside pocket. They’d been meant for me and Celia, but this felt more apropos.

  Hudson took the cigar I offered and shrugged. “My building, your cigar. Seems an equal amount of trust is required from both of us.”

  “Are you so sure about that? Seems a lot easier to lace an item with poison than to push another man off a building.”

  He studied me, as though trying to discern how much of a threat I posed. While I’d told him on more than one occasion that I wanted Werner Media, I’d given him no reason to believe I felt any real loathing toward him.

  After a beat, he bit the cap off his cigar and spit it on the ground. “Lucky for both of us, neither of us stands to gain by the demise of the other.”

  “Perhaps not.” I held my lighter out to him. “Though that theorizing underestimates the value of pure satisfaction.”

  He laughed. “Touché.” He toasted the foot, then lit the filler, puffing a bit before drawing the cigar away to study the label. “Gurka? These are high quality. Nice flavor. What’d they run? Twelve k a box?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Impressive.” He handed me back the lighter.

  I prepared my own cigar, making sure I had a strong cherry before pocketing my lighter. We puffed in silence, both of us looking out over the New York City skyline, the summer night bright with artificial light. It was astonishing how calm I felt. In my head—as I’d planned this approach, what I’d say, what I’d do—I’d expected more adrenaline. Instead, there was a quiet peace, so foreign to my nature it would have alarmed me if I let it.

  Instead, I embraced it. Held it like it was my wife. Let it be my foundation, a firmer bedrock than any I’d planted on before.

  I wondered in those moments what Hudson must think about this meeting I’d called. He hadn’t asked its purpose, clearly believing my goal was the shares, a natural assumption. Would he bring it up? Or would he wait for me? It was a fun little game trying to guess.

  But I wasn’t here for games. The time for those was long over, for both of us.

  The past seemed to be on his mind as well, because, after a long brooding silence, it was he who brought it up. “Did you read them?”

  I didn’t have to ask to know he meant the journals. “I did. Cover to cover. Every one.”

  He tried to hide his wince, but I saw it. “I didn’t want Alayna reading them. I’ve tried to keep her from that as much as I cou
ld.”

  “Oh, Celia would have liked to keep me from them as well, I’m sure.” I drew again on my cigar, letting him make of that what he would.

  He considered. “While I’d like to say that I respect my wife’s privacy, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing in your position.”

  I didn’t know enough about Hudson Pierce to make any assumptions, so I asked outright. “And had you been in my position, if you’d read that log of cruel manipulation, what would have been your reaction?”

  He answered quickly. “I would have run. As far as possible.”

  “But Alayna knows, however much you’ve tried to spare her, and she’s still with you.”

  “Alayna’s a better person than I am.”

  “Mm.” I didn’t doubt that. I did, however, doubt his perspective. “And if it had been Alayna who had done those things, you still would have run?”

  “She wouldn’t have. She isn’t capable.” But he’d paused, and while I imagined he was right about what his wife was or wasn’t capable of, I also sensed that he’d realized there was nothing he wouldn’t have forgiven her if she were.

  The point was made, anyway.

  And it created a convenient segue to my next point. “There was one victim those journals never detailed. A game played on a naive young girl who never considered her childhood friend would betray her.”

  He remained stoic, but the accusation hit its mark. “It’s true that I hurt Celia first. I don’t deny that.”

  “And do you regret it?”

  “Some days more than others.” To his credit, he looked guilty. “Less so when I remember what she’s done to me. What she’s done to Alayna.”

  The reminder of Celia’s sins felt pale next to all that I knew were Hudson’s. The all too familiar call to vengeance beckoned at my ear. “I know all too well how easy it is to hold a grudge.”