Forging Splendor

by S R Nulton

  Neil sat there quietly for a moment. “What do you want?”

  “Call in Cayden. I want to get to the bottom of this. Of all of this.”

  ~

  Cayden burst into the room with his usual swagger.

  “What’s up dad? I was just about to head home to see JJ and the kids for lunch.” Then he noticed Ethan and tensed up. “What are you doing here?”

  Ethan smirked. “What, did you think you’d have to go to the bottom of a ravine to find me?”

  Cayden flinched and for a moment his eyes were full of guilt, but then his cocky expression was back. This time, Ethan could tell it was a façade. It always had been. The man was not nearly as comfortable with himself and his place in the world as he appeared to be.

  “I’m just not used to you showing that awful face to the public. You really remind me of that hunchback from the old silent movie.”

  Ethan’s brows shot up. “Good movie… fantastic cinematography and it’s based on a very interesting book. I’m surprised you know it at all.” Although it did explain some things if it turned out his brother was a fan of old movies…

  Neil cleared his throat, quickly grabbing the attention he’d been denied. He hated being denied his due.

  “Cayden, son, Ethan is here with some very serious claims about you sabotaging his car and slandering his name. Now what do you have to say for yourself?”

  To say Cayden was shocked at the turn of events would be putting it mildly. That was a good thing though, because it enabled Ethan to spot the thing he really needed to see. Betrayal. It may have been Cayden’s idea, but he’d thought that their father had endorsed it 100%.

  Cayden was a very smart individual, but he was not innately the type to strike out at competitors unless they were engaging in a battle over something. That’s what had happened with JJ, they had battled for her affections until she’d finally left Ethan and Cayden had won. The recent attacks had been completely unprovoked though. At least, Ethan hadn’t provoked them.

  But Neil had.

  “I didn’t do anything.” Cayden’s voice was sure and strong as he proclaimed his innocence.

  “The cameras caught you, Cayden,” Ethan informed him. “Geo put in hidden ones last year. You only took out the decoys.”

  The change in his mindset was very visible. He went from feeling like he was in control of the situation to realizing just how sunk he was in an instant.

  “I– I don’t know what to say.”

  Neil glared at him, most likely for not hiding his emotions better. “Why would you try to kill your brother? What could possibly have entered your head to make you think that was acceptable?”

  Ethan stood and glared the older man into silence before blocking his view of Cayden. Then he turned to his older brother.

  “Cayden, why have you been attacking me? I know that you didn’t intend to kill me. You were interrupted before you could finish cutting the brakes, right?”

  The older man nodded. “Some lady came out and I thought I’d gotten all the way through, but I couldn’t get back to double check.”

  When he seemed reluctant to say more, Ethan pushed. “Why? You have JJ. What more could you want from me? You don’t have a use for my clients and we aren’t in competition for anything else. Or are we and no one informed me?”

  Cayden’s eyes grew large when he realized what that meant. “Dad said that he was going to split the inheritance. He and mom were talking about some inheritance that was coming to you because of your last name. Then, afterward, he was talking to me about how he would choose his successor. That one of us was going to have to carry on the name and that he might just have you change your last name so you could get both fortunes. He said if I wanted to remain a part of his legacy then I was going to have to work for it.”

  He paused and then asked the one question that assured Ethan that there was a real heart under all the bluster. “Were you and Agatha okay? You weren’t hurt? I didn’t want you hurt. I just wanted you scared and I was a bit steamed over Geo threatening to leak some information to the press. I figured it would make him look bad if his security allowed someone’s brakes to be cut. It was supposed to happen right out front of the vineyard. I mean, the road makes you break right away so it would have just meant that you drove into some blackberry bushes. I never thought you’d be in the hills when they went, I swear!”

  Ethan nodded, knowing that Geo had probably gotten him riled and made Cayden decide to double up. He was mean, but not murderous. “We were actually pretty close to a runaway truck ramp and I was able to coast us onto it. We were both fine. No one was injured. I promise.”

  Neil growled and moved around Ethan so that he had a better view of the two of them. “Cayden, this is completely unacceptable. I am done with dealing with your attitude and outbursts. You’re fired and if you aren’t careful, I’m likely to write you out of the will completely. And Ethan, you are hereby given Cayden’s old position of Vice President in charge of Acquisitions.”

  Cayden looked crushed.

  Ethan just laughed, making both men turn and eye him. “You think I want anything to do with you or your company? I’ve never wanted that! In fact, I’ve actively avoided that for years, even before I realized just how vile a person you are. No, I think Cayden has been punished enough just by realizing how you used him to pull me in. You just threw him away the same way you did me. And I think you’ll find it is difficult to keep control of someone when you do that.”

  As he spoke, Ethan could see Cayden listening, maybe for the first time. And it looked like he really understood. He had been trying to do everything right for his father for years and he was seen as expendable. It was a shock he need to experience. He needed to realize that his father wasn’t the perfect creature, faultless in everything. He was a mess and quite possibly evil.

  Before another confrontation could begin, the intercom rang.

  “Mr. Montgomery? A miss Agatha Avondale to see you.”

  ~

  I walked with Ethan into my old place of business and sighed regretfully. I hated being there. I mean, I always had, but somehow it was worse when you got used to spending your lunch breaks on a private beach and worked with a window that overlooked the golden California hills.

  Cities were just awful and office buildings even worse!

  I laughed a little at my radical change of heart and shook my head when Ethan looked my way. I’d tell him later. He’d enjoy it.

  “Alright, you head up to confront your father and I head to HR to fix the snafu with my resignation,” I said as we reached the elevator bank.

  “Right. How did you ever manage to work here without going crazy? It’s a good day if I can get you to wear shoes, let alone heels and a power suit,” he said with a grin.

  I laughed again. “I was just wondering the same thing. I think I was in danger of having a meltdown and never realized it.”

  We traveled up in the same elevator, but neither of us felt the need to speak. It was enough that we were together. Besides, we both needed to prepare for a huge confrontation.

  As soon as the elevator dinged to announce my floor, I smiled at Ethan and stepped off. I would be seeing him soon enough.

  Walking the familiar halls was strange. I realized that I wasn’t the same person who had worked there before. And that was a good thing.

  “Hey, boss,” I said as I knocked on my supervisor’s door.

  “Agatha! I didn’t mean you had to come here to figure it out. We could have done it on the phone!” he exclaimed with wide eyes.

  I smiled. “I was in the area. So what seems to be the hold up? I sent my resignation in months ago now.”

  He grimaced. “I know. It got lost in the mailroom. They finally found it last week and now there is extra paperwork involved. Apparently you weren’t paid for any of your work, though you were still an employee, because of a glitch in our system at the same time. I honestly have no idea what happened, but I have your final paycheck here a
nd it is a little fuller than you are used to, to apologize for the mix up, you understand. Oh and it has your back pay too.”

  I opened the envelope he slid my way and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. It was tiny! Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how used to large paychecks I’d gotten. Ethan paid me weekly, but he also gave me a commission on any work I helped with and I handled his banking when checks came in. I mean, it was way bigger than I was used to when I quit, but less than I was earning with Ethan.

  After the last of the paperwork was done, I asked my old boss for a formal letter indicating my separation from the company.

  “You want a letter of termination? Why?”

  I smiled. “No reason. It’s a paperwork thing with my new job.”

  He shrugged and printed one out for me. Then I headed up to the top floor.

  It looked exactly the same as when I’d been there months before. The marble floors still looked a bit overdone to me, the sconces still drove me crazy, and I still worried that the computer was going to slip off of the secretary’s slick modern looking desk.

  “Please let Mr. Montgomery know that Agatha Avondale is here to see him,” I told her.

  “I’m sorry, but he’s in an appointment right now,” she responded, but she didn’t look as detached as normal. She was worried. Good. She should be.

  “Let him make the decision.” I stood there expectantly as she announced my presence and then waited for a response.

  “Go right in,” she said with a bit of wonder. I just nodded and headed into the office.

  “You,” Neil snarled as I walked through the door. “You were meant to keep me update on my son, not date my son! I’ll see you fired and sued for breach of contract for this!”

  Clearly someone needed a nap. Either that or he’d just found out that his toys were leaving him. Probably a mix of the two.

  I decided quickly to ignore the dating comment, but addressed the rest of his issues right then and there. “Well, first of all, I never said I would keep you informed. I said I understood and that I would work for your son. And I do. I also can’t be fired.”

  “Of course you can! I can fire anyone I want!”

  I smirked and handed him the paper that I’d had printed specially for this event. “Unless I already quit. And I did. Back in March. There was a mix up in the mailroom, but I just squared everything up with HR and received my final check. So good luck firing me. I’m pretty sure my boss will call you an idiot and tell you where you can put your empty threats.”

  Ethan stepped forward and pulled me to his chest. “Oh, and I’m quitting as well. Sort of. You see, I had my lawyers look into what it would take to break completely away from Montgomery Corporations. And it turns out that it doesn’t take much at all. In fact, you should have received a notice that says I am now completely independent from you. I wish I’d been a little more savvy when I was younger, but since I paid my debt back completely and there was never any paperwork that fully connected the two of us, I am free and clear.”

  Neil growled and stepped forward menacingly. “I’ll see you burn for this. No one takes something from me unless I allow it.”

  Ethan shook his head. “What makes you think that you have the right to treat people like pawns? To manipulate them and run and ruin their lives as you see fit. You aren’t God.”

  “Oh, but I am. To all of the people around me, I am a god. We are all gods. We are the ones in control. We are the ones who tell them when to jump. We are the ones that they idolize and look up to! We are the ones who determine the course of their lives.”

  Even Cayden looked disgusted by the way that Neil was talking.

  “No, Neil,” Ethan said softly. “We aren’t gods. We don’t have the right to be worshiped. We have no right to meddle in people’s lives. There is only one God and you are not Him. You are just a man; a flawed and imperfect man. And you are about to lose the only thing you care about. Control.”

  And the intercom went off.

  “Sir, the police are here. They want to talk to you. Should I let them in?”

  CHAPTER 15: WHAT NOW?

  THE POLICE DIDN’T wait for the okay before coming in, of course. That would be silly. Instead, they barged into the office and walked up to Neil immediately.

  It was actually kind of funny to watch Cayden nearly collapse when he realized that he wasn’t the one in trouble. The man had looked scared to death up until that point.

  “Neil Montgomery?”

  “What’s the meaning of this? I didn’t give permission for any of you to be here. Get out!”

  “I have a warrant here for your arrest,” the officer said.

  Well, that didn’t go over well with Neil. “On what charges?”

  “For the murder of Algernon Montgomery. Please put your hands behind your back.” And the man was so shocked, that he actually did it! The three of us stood there and watched Neil get escorted out of the building as his rights were read to him and he followed all orders as docilely as if he were a lamb.

  I started snickering and both men looked at me in shock. “What? Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the fact that he was so surprised he didn’t even ask you to call his lawyers for him. Not that either of you would have. Still.”

  Ethan smiled at me indulgently and squeezed me a little closer. Cayden still looked a bit peaked.

  “You okay there, bro?” Ethan asked gently.

  “He killed Grandpa Algae?”

  I winced at the nickname but let the men talk.

  “Yes. He did. Grandfather wasn’t too keen on what happened between him and Candace. After he figured it out, he decided that Neil needed to go.”

  Cayden frowned. “Wait, what do you mean, what happened between Mom and Dad? Are you talking about her getting pregnant before they got married?”

  Ethan shook his head. “No. I’m talking about him convincing his 15-year-old stepsister to sleep with him. At least, I hope he convinced her. It was a bit confusing when she explained it and I really didn’t want to look too closely at it. Either way, it was statutory rape and he knew it. And Grandfather suspected that she was coerced. It didn’t sit well and he spent the next few years waiting to see if Neil would improve with age and wisdom. He didn’t and Grandfather was in the process of getting him removed from the will when he was killed.”

  “How do you know all this? I mean, you never even met Grandpa Algae.”

  Ethan sighed. “The inheritance? The one that would only go to a person with the last name ‘Black’? Yeah, well, it was Grandpa Montgomery’s, not our other grandfather’s. And he made sure to send all the evidence he had of Neil’s wrongdoing to his lawyer just in case. Unfortunately, the cause of death was listed as natural causes and the lawyer didn’t have a reason to release the information early. I stumbled upon it when our mother mentioned the inheritance. He’d made her promise that one of her children would keep Black as their last name, so when I talked to the law firm I was given all the evidence and was able to get it into the right hands. The police put a little pressure on the medical examiner who’d declared Grandfather’s death accidental and the scheme was revealed. Voila,” he said without enthusiasm.

  We were quiet for a while as Cayden processed everything. Finally, he said, “It makes sense. He was always really cautious about getting close to me, to any of us. His secretary knew more about him than his family did. He was probably paranoid that one of us would kill him the way he killed Grandpa. It leaves us in a bit of a bind though. I mean, what do we do now? I know I can’t run the company. I never could, or wanted to. And Dad made sure I knew it.”

  Ethan rubbed the back of his head and winced. “Well… do you remember Uncle Harrison?”

  Cayden frowned. “Yeah. Not well. Mom took us to visit him once in a while but not often. He lives in a super tiny town called Hades, right? Somewhere in the desert?”

  “Yep. Turns out he was the oldest and the one being groomed to take over the company. He’s actually worked in
an offshoot of Montgomery and Sons for all these years. He and his wife are on their way to see what they can do to keep things up and going. And I made sure that he wasn’t going to throw you or any of our sisters out just because of what Neil did. Instead, he’s planning on evaluating each of you and your departments and then retraining you if it’s necessary. And before you ask about his qualifications as CEO, he actually has a side business that has made him richer than our father could ever hope to be. And it’s something he built from the ground up, without any help from the family name.”

  “And us? What are you going to do to me? I probably deserve anything you might hand out,” Cayden said. “I attacked you without provocation and nearly ended both of your lives because of stupidity and poor planning.”

  I blinked. “Really? You think that there is more that he could do to teach you a lesson than taking away your blinders when you look at your father? The man that you idolized? I think he’s being pretty cruel, myself. But, then again, I don’t know how you really feel about the man. Perhaps you were always planning on getting rid of him, hmmm?”

  Cayden recoiled. “No, you’re right. When you put it that way, it does sound fair.” I think he said it more out of a desire to avoid further punishment than a genuine agreement, but I let it go with a prim nod.

  I liked nodding primly. It was fun.

  “Hello?” called a voice from outside the office door. A fairly familiar voice, actually.

  “Mom!” Cayden cried as she swept into the room.

  “Oh, honey! Are you okay?” she asked as she swept him into a hug. I was happy to see that she had reached a nice middle road with her appearance and had done her hair and put some effort into her wardrobe, but it was still much more relaxed than before her time in rehab. She no longer felt the need to hide behind perfect makeup, but she still cared about how she looked and what made her feel good. It was a healthy middle ground.