When Empires Fall (2 page)

Tucking his warm, royal blue velvet robe closer around his aging body, he turned to face his heirloom oak desk, currently littered with scattered papers, well worn books, glossy black and white photographs, and an ancient deck of cards he’d had since he was ten years old.

Thoughtfully, and a bit wearily, he reached for them, running his thumb over the surface of the box that held the yellowing cards, its edges tattered and worn from time. The front was graced with an image of the American flag, Old Glory. Seeing it brought back the onslaught of pain, along with the furious denial and shuddering disbelief.

The last time he had held that deck of cards in his hands had been when the Army men had come, carrying three flags and three sets of dog tags, inscribed with the names of three of his seven sons. It had been one of only two times he had ever cried in his life, the second being when his youngest son, Cyrus, the fourth to have gone to fight the Nazis, came home miraculously unscathed and a lavishly decorated war hero.

That had been the day he had learned humility and the true measure of sacrifice. After all, the war his generation had fought seemed somehow less frightening, less deadly. He supposed Americans had film to thank for the violent images that surfaced from the war that had claimed his sons, the scenes of destruction and death, of France and the rest of Europe reduced to rubble. His ancestors had come from France, and it was a place he had known well as a boy. And to see it ruined, to know his sons had perished protecting it, had done more damage to his soul than could have ever been repaired.

Feeling sick with grief, he yanked open his right hand desk drawer and tossed the cards inside, slamming the drawer shut again. He didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t bear to imagine the horror of it now. He had no time for it, not when he had to act swiftly and secretly to ensure that his legacy, and that of his father, would not be tainted. After all, as his father’s only child, he was head of the family empire now, and had been for some time.

He had four surviving sons who had given him ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, with surely more to come. They all benefited from the fruits of his labor, and from the legacy he would pass on to them when he died.

But none of them would, in the foreseeable future, anyway, take his place as patriarch of the Vasser Hotels. He simply just could not allow it to happen.

Rummaging through the assorted papers on his desk, Winston came across one that was blank and he hastily pushed the rest out of the way, clearing space enough for him to write. He grabbed his polished black fountain pen from its holder and pressed the tip to the paper, his mind swirling with hope and regret and fear.

This was serious, of that much he was sure. He could not afford to make mistakes, not when so much was riding on this decision. It had to be Rosalie. She was the only person he could trust, the only person who had never let him down. He owed everything to her for uncovering that dark and heinous secret, the one he shuddered to even imagine now.

His pen scrawled over the page in his practiced cursive, spelling out the new terms for his soon to be rewritten will. Rosalie Owens would, upon his death, take control of the hotels, the accounts, and the employees, including his own children and grandchildren. She would be in charge of ensuring the future of the company and the prestigious reputation of the Vasser Hotels.

His hand paused as he finished the sentence, his pale blue eyes scanning the words through his wire-rimmed glasses, over and over, cementing them in place in his mind. Yes, this was the only answer, the only solution. His soon to be ex-wife wasn’t going to be happy about him leaving the entire family legacy to his mistress, but what did he care? It was not for her to decide, nor to judge. What he did with the empire he and his father had single-handedly built was entirely up to him. Certainly it was uncommon for a
woman
to run a company such as his, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she could do it, and that she would be the only one to respect his vision for the Vasser legacy.

He began to scribble down more words on the page when there was a sharp knocking on the door to his room. Beyond the entrance of the study, he could see the door to the suite, shrouded mostly in shadows since the only light source came from his desk lamp. A sense of unease settled over him as he wet his lips, feeling the need to moisten his suddenly dry throat.

“Come in,” he called out, annoyed when his usually jovial and clear voice seemed to crack with anxiety. Surely there was nothing to fear; he was in no danger…not yet, anyway.

The door opened slowly and a man walked in, looking oddly calm and collected. Winston attempted a smile as the man quietly shut the door until it was merely cracked behind him before proceeding forward into the study.

Winston immediately flipped the paper he’d been writing on over, concealing the words. God knew he couldn’t let the news get out, not yet, anyway, that his will was to be changed.

“Shouldn’t you be at home with your family?” Winston asked the man, his feathery white eyebrows raised in curiosity laced abruptly with a bone-quaking fear. He had a right to be afraid, though the reasons for it both pained and infuriated him.

“There are some important matters I need to attend to first,” the man replied, stepping into the room, the light from the desk lamp glowing gold over the sharp lines of his face. It only served to heighten the dangerous gleam in his cold, calculating eyes and darken the hollows his brows made over them. They were eyes that seemed unnaturally dark now, and eerily devoid of any emotion other than carefully controlled rage.

Winston thought consciously of the .22 Derringer pistol hidden in the drawer to his right, wondering if he would need to use it. Good Lord, use it on his own flesh and blood…

“What sort of...matters?”

The man grinned, though the gesture lacked even the tiniest scrap of humor. No, it was a smile like that of a hunter scenting prey, stalking dangerously in the shadows, primed to pounce.

“I think you know.” Chuckling, the man stood before Winston’s desk, his dark trench coat brushing against his long legs and his hands tucked discreetly in its deep pockets. “Then again, you’ve always been a little slow on the uptake, old man. So perhaps you need a detailed explanation on why I feel you’ve fucked me. So to speak.”

“Now, look here-” Winston began, only to be cut off when the man raised one hand up harshly, palm spread, to halt the words. His eyes glittered with impatience and a malice Winston had never before seen. Or perhaps he had simply ignored it, all these years…

“I know you plan to leave everything to the whore,” the man growled, his voice tinged with cold violence. “You intend to bypass your own heirs to give the bitch everything that should be rightfully mine. After everything I have sacrificed, you still choose to dishonor me this way.”

Winston inhaled sharply, his own temper flaring as indignation coursed through him. He glared at the man as if he were a stranger, feeling suddenly choked with despair and fury over that one, horrific truth…

“Sacrifice? Surely you have sacrificed nothing but your soul. God will punish you for what you have done to your own flesh and blood, your family!”

“Fuck family,” the man hissed, keeping his voice low and level despite the sudden urge he had to tear every inch of the man in front of him to pieces. “If my actions to ensure my success mean I have sold my soul, then surely you have sold yours in the name of that whore, Rosalie.”

“This discussion is over,” Winston grunted angrily, only to bite back confusion and fear as the man suddenly skirted around the desk to approach him, his face glazed with a chilling frost, his dark eyes betraying nothing. Those eyes held Winston’s as the man came closer, coming up behind his chair and resting his hands companionably on the top edge of the backrest.

“I don’t know what made you think you could cross me and get away with it, old man,” the man said conversationally, reaching down to scoop up the paper Winston had been writing on. He lifted it up to eye level and glanced at what was written on it before stuffing it swiftly into his inside coat pocket.

Winston only shook his head, knowing now exactly what was about to befall him. He should have expected it, should have known it would end this way. There was nothing he could do at this point to dissuade the man, not now. And surely he was no match physically for someone nearly forty years younger than he, stronger and with a fiercely determined will that he had never seen in any other man.

This man had killed before. He would easily do it again…

The truth of it had resurfaced, but now it would perish with him. And God knows what would happen to Rosalie. He would probably target and kill her too.

“How could you do it? I just need to know,” Winston murmured, his head still shaking back and forth in disbelief and dull fear. But it was the fear that had him abruptly reaching out to wrench open his desk drawer and desperately fumble around for his pistol, only to discover it missing. The man behind him let out a dark laugh, and pulled the very same pistol from his coat pocket, showing Winston over his shoulder.

“I have always been resourceful. I do what needs to be done to get ahead, no matter the cost.”

Winston eyed the pistol with a newfound shock racing through his blood. Good Lord, he was going to be murdered with his own gun. What terrible misdeeds had he committed in his life to deserve such a fate?

“You monster,” Winston choked out, clutching his robe around his midsection, his eyes glued to the gun. He didn’t think he could bear to look at the man’s face, only to have the image of those horrifying eyes be the last thing he would ever see…

“Turn your head, old man. And look straight ahead,” the man instructed, pressing the pistol to the side of Winston’s head. “It’ll all be over soon.”

“Monster,” Winston repeated as he shut his eyes tight, feeling tears brim hotly behind his closed lids, the cold steel of the pistol like sharp white frost against his temple.

Outside, a child watched the scene unfold through the barely open door with wide, terrified eyes. When the blast of the gunshot resounded through the room, Winston collapsed over his own desk, his blood spilling to soak through his papers and books.

Almost instantly, the child shot out into the hallway, fleeing like a rabbit to safety, a frightened scream held back only by a pure, unbridled terror that the monster was coming for him next.

It was a fear he would live with for the rest of his life.

Queens, New York, NY

December 2010

B
y most standards, Maggie Owens had accomplished very little in her eighty-one years of life. She had lived in the same two bedroom, one bathroom house since her birth, the one her parents had scraped together a mere five thousand dollars for in the last century. She had never married, had never borne children, and had never found the need to keep employment since she lived off of the inheritance from her father’s rather mild fortune.

Her days were spent wandering aimlessly around her little house that was nestled in a relatively pleasant neighborhood of Queens, and she kept herself busy by rearranging things. In her old age this had become more difficult, but she was stubborn enough to ignore the aches and creaks of her tired bones as she putted around, moving vases and lamps from one corner of the living room to another.

Maggie had often been told that she lived too much of her life inside of her own head, dreaming of life more than actually living it. She had an active imagination, which to her thinking had kept her mind as sharp as a tack. Well, not so very sharp now, as the doctors claimed she was succumbing to something they called dementia. But she dismissed them indifferently, never really having trusted physicians anyway.

She was a wide-eyed idealist with a positive attitude and a penchant for collecting trinkets and knick-knacks, hoarding her little house with anything and everything she could find. Her mother had scorned this habit, but had been helpless to do much about it. From what Maggie could remember, her mother had been helpless to do a lot of things in her later years.

Frightened. That’s what Rosalie Owens had been. Though Maggie had never learned the reason for the fear, or for the stress her mother had been under consistently until her last days.