Chapter 13 - The Funeral With an Empty Coffin
Adrian was alive.
Nothing else mattered for several seconds.
Not Vincent.
Not Marcus.
Not the ledger.
Not forty-one percent of Cross Holdings.
My entire world narrowed to the grainy monitor inside Darius’s command vehicle.
Adrian stood beneath the broken windows of an abandoned steel mill.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
I touched the screen.
“Adrian.”
Darius looked at me.
“Selene.”
“I’m going in.”
“No.”
“He’s there.”
“That is precisely why you are staying here.”
“I waited fourteen months.”
“Wait fourteen minutes longer.”
I hated him for being right.
Inside the mill, Vincent walked toward Stellan.
“You’ve grown into everything I expected.”
Stellan glanced at Adrian.
“Release him.”
“No.”
“Then this conversation is short.”
Vincent smiled.
“You were always impatient.”
Helena spoke.
“You were always cruel.”
Vincent looked at his wife.
“My dear Helena.”
“Don’t.”
“You look well.”
“You look disappointingly alive.”
Even Stellan glanced at her.
Vincent laughed.
That laugh told me more than any photograph.
He enjoyed this.
Every second.
Marcus remained near Adrian.
Julian had been right.
Marcus and Vincent were still working together.
“Where is Fern?” Vincent asked.
Stellan’s expression hardened.
“You will never see her.”
“She is my granddaughter.”
“She is Adrian’s daughter.”
“And a Cross.”
“No.”
Adrian lifted his head.
“She’s Selene’s.”
Vincent turned toward him.
“You speak when allowed.”
Stellan’s face changed.
Adrian smiled despite his bruised mouth.
“There he is. Same charming father.”
My chest hurt.
Same humor.
Same refusal to act afraid.
Stellan stepped forward.
“What do you want?”
Vincent tapped his cane.
“The trust reversed.”
“No.”
“Fern’s shares returned.”
“No.”
“The ledger destroyed.”
“No.”
Vincent sighed.
“You’ve become difficult.”
“I learned from you.”
“Apparently not enough.”
Vincent nodded toward Marcus.
Marcus produced a phone.
On screen appeared Fern.
Sleeping in her nursery.
My blood froze.
It was a live feed.
“How?”
Darius began typing furiously.
“The nursery camera.”
“They hacked it.”
Vincent smiled.
“I do not need to enter your mansion to remind you who controls it.”
Stellan looked toward the nearest security camera.
“You’re watching this, Selene.”
My breath caught.
“You take Fern and leave.”
“No,” I whispered.
“Whatever happens here, go.”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me clearly.
Then Adrian looked toward the camera too.
His eyes seemed to find mine through the lens.
He smiled.
Small.
Sad.
Alive.
My tears came harder.
Vincent extended a folder.
“Sign.”
Stellan didn’t touch it.
“What is it?”
“Transfer authorization.”
“No.”
“Then Adrian dies.”
Adrian laughed.
“Again?”
Marcus hit him.
I flinched.
Stellan did not move.
But something in his expression became lethal.
Adrian lifted his head.
“Don’t sign.”
Vincent looked bored.
“You boys always confuse sacrifice with intelligence.”
Helena suddenly stepped between them.
“You want the company?”
“Yes.”
“Take mine.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“You have no controlling stake.”
“I have something better.”
She removed a small recorder.
“A confession.”
Vincent stared.
Helena smiled.
“Twelve years ago, before you staged your death, you told me exactly why.”
For the first time, Vincent looked uncertain.
Helena continued.
“I recorded you.”
Stellan looked at her.
“You what?”
“I have spent twelve years waiting for proof you were alive.”
She pressed play.
Vincent’s younger voice filled the mill.
If I remain legally alive, everything can be subpoenaed. If I die, the structure freezes. Marcus runs operations. The boys inherit only what I allow.
The older Vincent’s face changed.
Helena looked at him.
“I thought I lost the recording.”
“You did.”
“No.”
She smiled.
“You found the copy I intended you to find.”
Darius whispered, “She’s good.”
I almost laughed through tears.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Vincent turned toward Marcus.
“What did you do?”
Marcus looked equally surprised.
Stellan smiled for the first time.
“Did you really think we came alone?”
Federal vehicles surrounded the mill.
Darius had transmitted Helena’s recording and the ledger files minutes earlier.
Agents moved into position.
Vincent stepped backward.
Marcus grabbed Adrian.
Everything happened fast.
A struggle.
Stellan moved.
Helena screamed.
The video shook.
Then the feed cut out.
“No!”
I reached for the door.
Darius locked it.
“Wait.”
“I can’t.”
“Selene.”
I turned toward him.
For once, the calm security chief looked frightened.
“Give them sixty seconds.”
They were the longest sixty seconds of my life.
Then the radio activated.
Stellan.
“Secure.”
I stopped breathing.
“Repeat.”
“Secure.”
Darius unlocked the door.
I ran.
Agents shouted as I crossed the yard.
I didn’t care.
I entered the mill.
Stellan stood near the entrance.
A cut above his eyebrow.
Helena beside him.
Marcus was in custody.
Vincent too.
Then I saw Adrian.
He stood twenty feet away.
Our eyes met.
Fourteen months disappeared.
Every funeral.
Every night alone.
Every lie.
Every memory.
He whispered my name.
“Selene.”
I crossed the distance.
Then stopped directly in front of him.
He looked terrified.
Not of Vincent.
Of me.
“I’m sorry.”
I slapped him.
Not hard.
But enough.
His eyes widened.
Then I grabbed his coat and pulled him against me.
He wrapped his arms around me.
I cried into his chest.
He shook.
“I’m sorry.”
“You idiot.”
“I know.”
“You absolute idiot.”
“I know.”
“You were alive.”
“I know.”
I pulled back.
“Fern.”
His face collapsed.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s beautiful.”
He started crying.
“Does she—”
“She has your eyes.”
That broke him.
Adrian covered his face.
Stellan approached.
The brothers stared at each other.
Years of anger.
Grief.
Guilt.
Then Stellan punched him lightly in the shoulder.
Adrian laughed through tears.
“That’s all?”
“You’re injured.”
“So later?”
“Definitely.”
Then they hugged.
It wasn’t elegant.
It wasn’t cinematic.
It was two brothers who had buried each other in different ways finally standing in the same room alive.
Agents led Vincent past us.
He looked at Adrian.
“You ruined this family.”
Adrian wiped his face.
“No.”
He looked toward Stellan.
“Evan saved it.”
Vincent was taken away.
For the first time in twelve years, the Cross family patriarch had nowhere left to disappear.
But Adrian still had one truth left to tell me.
A truth about the funeral I attended.
A funeral with an empty coffin.
May you like
And the person who had stood beside me that day knowing he was alive.
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