Cruel Legacy

by K. A. Linde

  All the threads connected.

  It was all there at a glance.

  I could do this.

  My fingers hesitated on the keys. To what end?

  Ruin him to satisfy my own revenge?

  It would make me feel better, but then would I get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach again? And if I went through with this, there was no coming back. It was one thing to try to take over Katherine’s socialite status, but was this worth it?

  I closed my laptop.

  I needed to think on it. Get my head on straight.

  My phone buzzed on the counter. A text from Jane.

  Hey, are we still on for coffee this morning?

  “Shit,” I groaned.

  I’d forgotten that I’d agreed to meet Jane. I’d gotten so wrapped up in my research that it slipped my mind.

  I texted her back to let her know I was on my way and then hastily changed into one of the Bergdorf outfits I’d left at Penn’s place.

  It was a beautiful day in Manhattan, so I skipped a cab and walked down Fifth Avenue past the park to Jane’s favorite coffee shop, only blocks from her favorite department store. Spring was right around the corner. I could smell it in the air. And hear the chirping of the birds. The people jogging through the park. The babies being pushed in strollers.

  It had all the makings of why I loved this city so much.

  And made me think that maybe I should just be happy that I was in love. That Penn loved me back. And put it all behind me. Did I really need my revenge?

  I chewed on my lip as I debated what to do. I wanted to make them pay. I didn’t want them to continue to get away with hurting people. The way Katherine treated people was disgusting. And what Lewis was doing was abhorrent. Even if it wasn’t illegal, it was still repulsive. And people deserved to know who they were dealing with. That this behemoth was kicking the little guy.

  But how far would I have to dig back down into that dark place when I had only just been able to see the light again?

  My thoughts stopped abruptly when my phone rang. I stared down at the number in excitement. The attorney.

  “This is Natalie.”

  “Natalie, thank you for answering. This is Shonda from Dr. Kensington’s staff,” she said.

  “Yes, Shonda, I’m so glad to hear from you. I’ve been awaiting your call.”

  “I’m afraid that I have…unfortunate news,” she said softly.

  My stomach sank. “What?”

  “The judge ruled to throw out your restraining order. He said that there wasn’t sufficient evidence of stalking or domestic abuse. Especially considering the length of the relationship.”

  My body went numb. No. No, this wasn’t how the legal system was supposed to work. It was supposed to protect people.

  “Natalie?” Shonda asked. “Are you there?”

  “Yes, I’m here. I can’t believe this.”

  “I know. I’m shocked. I think…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not sure that I should say. It’s merely speculation based on past experience.”

  “Explain.”

  “I think the judge knows the Warrens. They…donate to his campaign.”

  I went as still as death. I found that black place rush up at me like a car skidding across thin ice, prepared to plummet to its depths.

  My voice was just as icy when I responded, “Of course they do.”

  “I’m really so sorry. I didn’t…expect this outcome. Nor do I support it. We can still appeal.”

  “No,” I said at once. “No, that won’t make a difference.”

  And I knew in my heart that it wouldn’t.

  It would make no difference.

  Because once a-fucking-gain, I had to be painfully reminded of this world. That there were no consequences. Not even a slap on the wrist. Not even an order of protection for harassing and stalking and bruising me. Nothing. Lewis Warren was untouchable. He had made himself that way over time. And even the judge could take the bribe to let it pass.

  No. If I was going to get what I wanted, I had to do this myself.

  And now, I had the tools to do it.

  “Thank you, Shonda. You’ve reminded me of a very important lesson.”

  “I did?”

  “Never underestimate your enemy.”

  She sighed. “I’m so sorry. Let me look into the appeal, and I’ll get back to you.”

  I let her finish and then hung up. My feet carried me down Fifth Avenue, inside the little café that made me think so much of Paris, and to the table where a frazzled Jane Devney sat.

  I plopped into the seat across from her. She gushed with excitement to see me. Then her face fell at the look on my own face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Jane, I need to ask a favor.”

  “Anything. Are you okay?”

  “I will be.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  I leaned forward in the booth. “I need your contact for the New York Times. I have something I think she’ll be very interested in.”

  Part IV

  Best Served Cold

  Chapter 25

  Penn

  “Dr. Kensington?” a voice called, peeping into my office.

  I glanced up to see my teaching assistant, Chelle, standing in the doorway. “How can I help you?”

  She hopped inside, closing the door behind her. “Amanda has emailed me three times about that paper she ‘forgot’ to turn in.” She mimed quotations around the word forgot. “I told her that, if she sent it in by midnight, we’d accept, minus a letter grade.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  “Yes, well, she just turned it in.”

  I checked the clock on my iMac. “It’s twenty minutes before lecture.”

  “Yep. It looks like she banged it out last night. What should I do?”

  I breathed out through my nose in frustration. Amanda was one of the rare female students in the philosophy department. She stalked my office hours to bat her eyelashes at me in hopes that I’d give her a better grade. I was sure it had worked for her in other classes. It didn’t work with me.

  “You said midnight. Dock two letter grades for it being late.”

  She chewed her lip. “She’s probably going to fail.”

  I nodded once. She probably would. And I hated failing students. But I’d grown up in a world where money changed grades. I wasn’t prone to do it myself. No matter who their parents were or how many of them batted their pretty eyelashes at me.

  “Okay then. I’ll see you in lecture,” Chelle said and bounced out of my office as quickly as she’d come.

  I pushed aside the paper I’d been reading for a peer review I had to do for a journal. I’d been putting it off and putting it off, but it was part of the job. A tedious part.

  I dragged out my phone to see if Natalie had messaged me. I knew that she was busy this morning with Harmony, so it was probably wishful thinking. Everything had been…amazing since Charleston. As if a month ago on a boat in the Atlantic, our world had shifted on its axis. And I liked it. I more than liked it.

  A month of just us. No interference from my friends. No big fires. Just us living our lives and Natalie falling easily into this world. Maybe easier than I’d like, but we’d been good together. We were good together.

  But instead of a message from Natalie, there was a string of them from Lark. And then Rowe. And even…Katherine.

  “What the hell?” I murmured, confused as to why I’d be bombarded by the crew.

  I clicked on Lark’s messages.

  OMG, have you seen the news? I can’t believe what’s happening to Lewis.

  Penn? I’m freaking out. Did you know about this?

  Gah, you must be in lecture or something. If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the link.

  When I saw the headline to the article from the New York Times, I didn’t even bother with Rowe’s or Katherine’s text messages. I just opened the article and began to read.
/>
  “Oh fuck,” I gasped.

  The article detailed extensive, manipulative, and potentially fraudulent behavior that the Warrens had been dealing with over the last decade. It started with a recent case that Lewis had closed, Anselin-Maguire, and a purchase of land that led to the displacement of hundreds of low-income families, many who were now homeless. Then it traced this behavior back further in time. None of it was expressly illegal. There was no paperwork saying that they weren’t going to kick people off the properties, but they’d contacted a half-dozen people who had sold to the Warrens, who had verbal commitments that the worst would be avoided. And it was a matter of whether or not those verbal contracts would hold up. Either way, it looked like Lewis had seriously fucked up, and an investigation had been opened up into the company.

  What else could be lurking under the seemingly perfect exterior?

  I knew what this meant. I knew the implications of this. Even if nothing else was wrong. Even if Warren was in tip-top shape, doing everything by the book. This would hurt. This could shake the foundation of the company. A lengthy investigation could halt business growth. Investors could back out. Stocks would drop. They’d lose millions over this article. If the investigation found something else, they could lose the company.

  Katherine’s father had lost his in the same way. One investigation had shown the years of securities fraud that proved that Van Pelt was rotten to the core. We’d all known. We’d been there in high school when it all came crumbling down.

  I picked up the phone without a thought and dialed Lewis’s number. I might hate him for all he’d done, but…I was still compelled to contact him.

  I was more surprised that he answered.

  “Kensington,” Lewis said crisply.

  “I just heard.”

  “Here to gloat?” he asked in a soft voice. Not deadly like I’d expect, but beaten down. Like he’d lost some part of him that had always been there. An overconfidence.

  “No. I called to check on you.”

  Lewis scoffed in disbelief. “I’m fine,” he bit out. “Stuck at my parents’. It’s a media shitstorm. They’ve parked their vulture asses outside my place and theirs, just waiting for the carnage.”

  “So…is it true?”

  “You going to sell my answer to the highest bidder?”

  “As if I need the money,” I joked.

  He laughed slightly at my comment. “Yeah, I suppose we’re still too fucked up with our own secrets for you to pull that shit.”

  He wasn’t wrong. We’d always been bound in a tangled web of history and lies and secrets.

  Muffled voices cracked through on his end.

  “I have to go,” Lewis said. There was a pause, as if he wasn’t sure what to say. “I appreciate your call.”

  And he meant it. I could hear it.

  The line clicked off, and I stared down at it. What a fucked up world I lived in. How the hell could I sympathize with him about this and also want to slaughter him for the last year of bullshit?

  I shut it out and texted Lark.

  I read that article and just got off the phone with Lewis. He’s stuck at home with a media circus. Pretty fucked up.

  You two actually spoke?! Who knew the world needed to end to accomplish this?

  Ha. Ha.

  Yeah, well, it’s been a rough couple of months. Anyway, the rest of the crew is meeting at Rowe’s after work. Come over and see the little people.

  All right. But if it devolves again, then I’m out of there.

  Lark responded with a GIF of Alice in Wonderland curtsying.

  I checked the time. “Fuck,” I groaned. I was running behind for my lecture. I thrust my phone back in my pocket, grabbed my notes, and darted out of the room. It was a reprieve to have a full hour not to have to think about how I was going to break it to Natalie that I was seeing the crew again.

  * * *

  I decided to just send a text as I was walking into Rowe’s apartment. She wouldn’t like it either way, and I could hardly blame her for that. But I’d explained what the crew meant to me. How I could hate them and care for them in my own fucked up way. That they were family. More my family than the one I’d grown up with.

  One of our own had been taken down. It felt wrong not to be together for that. Like we’d been together when Katherine’s father was put away. Or when her brother, David, had disappeared. Or when my father had died. Or for Lark’s ex-boyfriend’s bullshit.

  The elevator dinged open to reveal the stark white interior of Rowe’s place. I had a sense of unease. The last time I’d been here, we’d had a fucking intervention. I’d gotten into it with both Lewis and Katherine. Lark, ever the peacemaker, had wanted us to all still be friends. We were connected. I felt that even now as I stepped inside to find Rowe seated at his computer and Lark staring out the window to Central Park and Katherine sipping a martini. Lark and Rowe looked the same. It was Katherine who looked a mess. It wasn’t her clothes or the makeup or the perfect dark hair. But something in her eyes. Something in her poise. Something lost. What the hell was going on with her? And should I even care?

  There was an empty spot next to her on the couch where Lewis typically sat. It felt like a hole in the room.

  “Penn,” Katherine said, looking me up and down, examining my dark blue suit coat, gray slacks, and bow tie. “How professorially of you.”

  I dropped my leather messenger bag onto the white chair and undid the tie at my neck, letting the material hang loose. “It’s a uniform. As much as your…” I gestured to her designer dress and heels.

  “I wasn’t complaining,” she told me with a sly smile. But it wasn’t the same. It had lost its heat.

  “Have you heard from him again?” Lark asked, stepping away from the window.

  “No,” I told her. “Anyone else?”

  They all shook their heads. Rowe continued to stare blank-faced at his computer. I peeked over his shoulder to see he was reading endless articles that had come out about it after the one from the Times.

  “Who could have leaked this information?” Lark asked with a sigh. She sank down next to Katherine.

  Katherine just snorted. “Anyone.”

  I agreed. “Literally anyone. There were so many names listed in that article, I’m shocked it wasn’t all pieced together before this. It makes me wonder how many others they’d paid off to stay quiet.”

  “Many,” Rowe said. “They’re coming out of the woodworks.”

  “Great,” Katherine grumbled.

  An anxious tension permeated the room. We didn’t have to say anything to know all the ways this could go wrong. We’d all gone through things before but nothing like this. Not for one of our own.

  And in some strange sense, it felt like the shine was gone on reality. For a long time, I’d seen the corruption in my world. I’d tried to stay out of it. I’d walked that fine line between the two. But somehow, we always came out on top. No matter what came our way, we always succeeded.

  But I didn’t know how Lewis was going to get out of this one. There were life-altering consequences to this. Far-reaching implications for the company and his family.

  It was as if…we really weren’t invincible. In a world where we always had been before.

  Chapter 26

  Natalie

  Trinity was empty.

  I’d seen it in all its glory on the night of the soft opening. With Elizabeth Cunningham revealing a collection down the runway before Christmas. And then again on New Year’s Eve at the giant masquerade that had started it all again with Penn.

  But on a random Tuesday afternoon at the end of March, it was empty. The main lights activated to illuminate the large space and the bars that lined the room. Bottles full but no bartenders.

  Yet, in my imagination, I was envisioning all the ways that I could transform it. All the ways that we could use the space to my advantage.

  Jane stood at my side in Lululemon leggings and an open-back sweatshirt. Her feet in tiny silve
r-lined Nikes and her signature oversize sunglasses on her head. She had about a hundred pairs. Today, they were Tiffany blue.

  “Well, what do you think?” she asked.

  Harmony nodded on my other side. Her stylish dress couldn’t be further from Jane’s purposeful athleisure. “I think it’ll do.”

  “Me too,” I agreed.

  I, after all, had been the one to suggest that I host my party here at Trinity.

  A few days after I’d gotten back from Charleston, a literacy charity had reached out to me about hosting a function to raise money for their cause. I was uncertain at first whether or not I could even pull something like that off. But after some consideration, I decided it was too good a cause not to.

  Plus, Harmony had thought it would take my newfound socialite status to the next level. And had promptly decided to join my “team” for the event. It was a good thing, too, because I’d never planned a party in my entire life. Let alone something on this scale.

  “Great,” Jane said, jumping in. “I’ll get together a contract by tomorrow and email it over. I’m so excited that we’re doing this. It’s going to be such a great event for you and the club.”

  “Have you decided on a theme yet?” Harmony asked.

  I shook my head. “Still thinking it over. I have some ideas, but nothing seems right.”

  “It’ll come to you,” Jane said.

  I sure fucking hoped so or else this was all going to be a disaster.

  “You know what I think you need?” Harmony asked.

  I shrugged. “What’s that?”

  “A trial run.”

  “Hmm…what do you mean?”

  “I was thinking girls’ night out. We invite a group of girls that we want to attend the event. Then we corral them to be part of your team. It’ll look good for you and for them. You can delegate some of the responsibility and get your name out even more.”