“What is relevant, however, is you signing these documents so we can close the deal on these contract negotiations and make us another few hundred million before the end of the year.”
I push the stack of resolutions in front of him and hold them down as the wind whipping off the river causes the pages to flap, threatening to carry them away. It was more convenient when he lived at the family estate, but that ended when he accused my mother of trying to poison him two years ago and moved out to this cabin overlooking the river. Now I have to haul my ass out here every day, over ten miles of winding roads up through the mountains, with shitty cell service.
Part of me wonders if he decided to buy this place because Magnus Gable, his lifelong sworn enemy, bought the falling-down place next door, and Commodore wanted to keep an eye on him.
Keep your enemies close. Commodore is Machiavellian enough that I wouldn’t put anything past him.
I still don’t know what to think about whether my mother was trying to poison him. Would she try to hasten his demise to force the company holdings to be passed down? I should be able to say no with certainty, and the fact that I can’t says a lot about my family, and none of it good.
When there’s billions of dollars at stake, no one’s motives are without question, regardless of whether they share your blood, your name, or both.
Commodore’s right hand, still tanned and capable, shakes just enough to be noticeable as he drags his finger across the pages, reading every single word. The other hand hangs over the side of his motorized chair, absently stroking the dark head of his Chesapeake Bay retriever, Goose. Just like his shotgun, the dog never leaves his side, except when Commodore yells, “Duck, duck, goose.” The dog charges down the stairs to the river and vaults into the water to retrieve whatever Commodore shot.
Right now, the shotgun rests against the side of the chair beside me, most likely to menace Magnus Gable when the old men get riled up.
Commodore flips to the next page, reads it, and reaches out with his left hand for his Mont Blanc pen. Once he scrawls his signature on the page, he looks up at me. His brown eyes are still as sharp as my very first memory of him when I was four years old and he told me that my only job in life was to preserve and protect the family legacy.
“You did good on this deal. Proud of you, boy.” He shoves the resolutions back into the folder and grabs the river rock he uses as a paperweight to keep the documents authorizing multimillion-dollar decisions from flying away.
“Thank you, sir.” I reach for the documents.
“We’re not done yet.”
“Is there something else we need to discuss before I take this back to the office and make a shit-ton of money?”
“Damn right.” Commodore leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his barrel chest. His snow-white hair and thick beard barely move, even though the wind is picking up. “She’s coming back.”
My hand freezes in midair, hovering over the file as the old man studies my every move and reaction.
Machiavellian to the core.
“Excuse me?” I ask carefully, even though I heard him perfectly.
“You heard me. She’s coming back, and I need to know if you’re going to be able to keep your head this time.”
I school my expression to show nothing. Another lesson from the old man.
“Who?” I ask, forcing as much nonchalance into my tone as possible. I voice the question to buy time as my brain spins with the information. There’s no doubt whosheis. There’s only ever been oneshefor me.
Commodore unfolds his arms and leans forward, rests his elbows on the table, and interlocks his fingers. “Don’t play that shit with me, boy. You know damn well who I’m talking about.Fuck the girl if you have to. Work her out of your system. Then move the hell on and get cracking on that next generation. I won’t live forever, and I want to know that this company won’t end up in Harrison’s hands.”
For all his billions of dollars, Commodore Riscoff still sounds like he just stepped off a navy ship when he’s making sure there’s no way to misinterpret him. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to make sense of what the hell is happening. Only one thing that he said matters.
She’s coming back.
Whitney Gable ... the only girl I ever wanted to see walk down the aisle in white.
And then she did. To someone else.
Ten years ago, she fucked my world six ways to Sunday when she walked into that bar ...
2
Lincoln
The past
I got calledhome like a fucking dog. And like one of the obedient retrievers Commodore uses to fetch his birds, I came when I was called. That didn’t mean I had to like it. What twenty-five-year-old man worth his salt packed up everything and skipped home when his grandfather snapped his fingers?