Chapter 7 - The Keys to the Realm
The room did not break into noise. It went into a state of suspended animation so complete that the distant sound of a horn blowing on a barge out in the Sound sounded as if it were inside the room.
Jaden took three quick, uncoordinated steps across the dais, his hands reaching out toward the parchment envelope.
“No,” he gasped, his face turning from gray to a terrible, sickly yellow. “No, no, no! Thomas, tell him! You can’t do that! He’s legally incompetent! He has a neurological disorder! The board will block this in court before nine o'clock tomorrow morning!”
Thomas Graham adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses with one finger. He pulled a folded white paper from his vest pocket.
“The psychiatric evaluation was performed at four o'clock today, Jaden,” Graham said in his dry, flat voice. “By Dr. Harrison from Johns Hopkins and Dr. Aris Thorne from the Columbia Department of Neurology. Both signed affidavits stating that your father possesses ninety-eight percent cognitive clarity and is under no undue influence, duress, or psychological strain.”
Graham looked at Jaden over the top of his lenses.
“The transfer is effective as of five-thirty p.m.,” Graham added. “The SEC filings were submitted electronically forty minutes ago. As of right now, your wife owns fifty-one percent of the voting stock in Vance Industries. You own four percent.”
Vanessa Ritchie let out a strange, small squeak—like a rat caught under a heavy gate.
She stared at Elena, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief that made her manicured face look suddenly twenty years older.
“Elena?” Vanessa whispered, her voice cracking in the middle. “Elena... you... you can’t run a shipping company. You’re... you’re a librarian’s daughter!”
Elena did not look at Vanessa.
She looked down at the red wax seals on the parchment envelope in Arthur’s hands. She looked at the old man’s blue eyes, which were watching her face with a quiet, fierce affection that had no doubt, no fear, and no hesitation in it.
“Arthur,” Elena said, her voice dropping into a low, clear tone that carried only to the three people on the dais. “Why did you do this?”
Arthur took her hand—her small, soft hand with the thin platinum wedding ring—and placed the heavy envelope into her fingers. He pulled a brass ring holding three long, heavy iron keys from his vest pocket and laid it on top of the parchment.
These were the master keys to the estate—the keys to the floor safes, the silver vaults, the main gates, and the private library where sixty years of family records were kept.
“Because,” Arthur said, his voice trembling slightly with the effort of standing so long, “you are the only person who came into this house who cared about what was inside it, rather than what it could buy.”
He pressed her fingers closed over the brass ring.
“Jaden thinks wealth is a trophy to show off to people he doesn't respect,” Arthur said, turning his head to glance at his son. “You know that wealth is a responsibility to protect people who cannot protect themselves. You protected me when I was weak. Now you will protect this company from him.”
Jaden fell to his knees on the dais.
His silk lapels were stained with the Macallan he had dropped; his hair was disheveled; his hands were resting in the spilled alcohol on the floor. He grabbed the hem of Elena’s dark navy lace gown with his trembling fingers.
“Elena,” he whimpered. The confidence, the charm, the careless arrogance that had defined him for ten years had vanished completely, leaving behind a terrified thirty-eight-year-old boy who had never earned a dollar in his life. “Elena, baby... look at me. Please. It was... it was a mistake. Vanessa is nothing. I’ll fire her tonight! I’ll get rid of her right now! We can go to Paris! We can start over!”
Elena looked down at him.
She looked at his hands clutching her dark navy skirt. She remembered the morning he had ignored her over breakfast; she remembered the silk scarf in his suitcase; she remembered the winter fundraiser where he had looked into his wine glass while Vanessa insulted her; she remembered three hours ago when he told her to put on the nine-thousand-dollar dress because she looked like a textile mill worker.
Slowly, carefully, she pulled her hem out of his fingers.
May you like
She did not kick his hand away. She simply stepped back three inches, freeing her skirt from his touch.
“The guest list is complete, Jaden,” Elena said. Her voice was perfectly calm, perfectly cool, and cold as the salt mist outside the glass doors. “And your seat is no longer at the table.”
