Page 5
A shaky laugh escapes me. Get your shit together, Sophia.
I silence the notification, set my phone on the nightstand, and switch off the bedside lamp. Darkness settles over the apartment, wrapping around me until the steady hum of the refrigerator and the occasional passing car are the only sounds left.
Tomorrow, I’m going to take another step toward that promotion Roman has been promising me. And if Vance Ashford wants to fight me over it… he’s about to discover I don’t back down nearly as easily as he seems to think I will.
Sitting in my office on the forty-second floor, I stare at Sophia’s proposal for the South Side property—the one she thinks she can salvage with her soft words and gentler offers—when my phone buzzes against the mahogany.
I ignore the incoming call, silencing it three times. On its fourth vibration, I pick up, annoyed and ready to fire whoever thinks their emergency matters more than my concentration. I flip it over to see Kaden’s name on the screen. “What?” I snip as sirens blare through the speaker.
“We were at the South Side property, and—”
“You fucking assholes went to force them out?”
“Roman wasn’t willing to be soft on this one, even if you were.”
“Fuck. Put him—”
“He’s down,” Kaden shares, his voice flat and emotionless. “Heart attack, they think. Paramedics are working on him, but he looks bad, Vance. He looks real bad.”
Go fucking figure. I’m spending late nights reviewing profit margins and appeasing his protégé, while Roman Ashford is bulldozing tenants from a building.
I set down my pen and straighten the papers in front of me before crossing my corner office to the windows. I look out over Lake Michigan in the dark, feeling nothing. Not relief. Not grief. Not even the satisfaction of inheriting the building beneath my feet and half of Chicago.
“Is he dead?” I ask.
“Officially? No. We’re in the ambulance on our way to Chicago Mercy now.”
“Keep me updated.”
I hang up and call my driver, instructing him to bring the car around. Walking to the elevator with measured steps, I button my jacket and check my reflection in the chrome doors. My hair is in place, and my tie is straight. My face shows nothing of the fact that my father is currently dying in the street like the common vagrant he was so determined not to be.
The elevator descends, and I watch the numbers fall, trying to remember the last time I saw Roman. Three days ago? We were in the boardroom, yelling about quarterly projections, his face beet red with rage as he slammed his fist on the table. He looked strong, then. Indestructible. The kind of man who would bury his own sons and dance on our graves if we dared betray him.
The elevator dings, and I step out into the lobby. I nod at security as I pass, before sliding into the back of the black Mercedes waiting at the curb. “Chicago Mercy.”
My driver pulls into traffic wordlessly. I open my cell phone to continue reviewing the same numbers I was looking at upstairs. We make it a few blocks before a text message pops across the screen.
KADEN
At the ER. They’re going to call it.
I stare at the message for a moment before looking out the window to the city passing by. The glass-and-concrete towers are an empire my father built brick by bloody, sin-filled brick.
“No rush,” I inform my driver.
I’m on my way.
The emergency department is quieter than it should be. An administrator meets me outside a set of double doors, wringing her hands. “Mr. Ashford… I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”
I don’t acknowledge the sentiment.
“Where is he?”
She swallows before gesturing down the hallway. She leads me to the family consultation room. “Your brothers are inside.”
I don’t bother knocking before pushing open the door. The room on the other side is exactly what I’d expect—sterile walls, generic artwork meant to soften bad news, and stale coffee sitting untouched on a side table. There isn’t a single shed tear.
Kaden leans against the window, scrolling through his phone as though he’s waiting for a delayed flight instead of identifying our father’s body. Xander is mindlessly pacing with his hands in his pockets, staring at nothing in particular. The twins occupy the other end of the room, Beckett lounging in one chair, while Baldwin absently flips through a magazine.
