House of York, #1

by Charlotte Byrd

  Mirabelle knocks loudly before opening the last door at the end. His office. It hasn’t changed since I was a toddler - the only one that isn’t completely renovated every few years. This is the place where my father makes his real home.

  When I walk in, I find him sitting behind a large oak desk relaxing with a book. The walls of the room are a library, lined with first editions.

  But this isn’t one of those show libraries that are popular with the wealthy class. My father has actually read all of these books.

  My father doesn’t look up from his book until I am standing squarely before him. I glance at the cover. It’s the first English-language edition of Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo.

  My mind flashes back to the conversation we had on the eve of the first biennial competition.

  “An ironic choice, don’t you think?” I asked when I spotted him reading this very book.

  “How so?” he asked in his usual arrogant tone.

  “Well, you’re about to have a competition to find a new wife, forcing unjustly imprisoned women to fight for an opportunity to marry you. And here you are, sitting on the porch reading a book about a man who was unjustly imprisoned.”

  My father looked up at me with scorn in his eyes. I’ve never talked to him like that before, but I’d just turned eighteen and was bursting with arrogance. And then I said something even more stupid.

  “But then again, Count of Monte Cristo later escaped and got his revenge. Is that what you secretly hope one of your wives will do?” I stared deeply into his eyes.

  “Perhaps, I’m making a mistake,” he said after a moment. I waited for him to continue.

  “It doesn’t seem to me like you are quite ready to go off to that Ivy League college of yours this fall given how little you seem to know.”

  And with that, he sentenced me to a year of hard labor on his remote ranch among the rocks of Nevada. 365 days of living in a small cell, sleeping five hours a night, working twelve hours a day, getting beatings every two days regardless of whether I followed the rules or not.

  The other men there were others who’d stood up to the King of York. Some had been whistleblowers at his companies. Others had said something off-color about him to the press. All had disappeared suddenly in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again.

  The guards were all chosen for the job because they had a cruelty streak and liked to see people in pain. They knew who I was and they were authorized to do with me as they pleased.

  Exactly one year later, a Learjet came for me to take me back home to York and the guards were scattered among my father’s other camps. Only they weren’t guards anymore. They were prisoners. Their crime? Putting their hands on the Prince of York.

  My father closes his book on his lap and says, “It’s nice to see you again, Easton.”

  Easton

  The meeting…

  He looks me up and down, taking note of every imperfection. I am used to his analysis. His scrutiny. We have not seen each other in a year. I only come here for the functions that I absolutely cannot miss. The rest of the time I stay away. But it’s surprising how small the world is when your father is the King of York.

  “You look well,” he says.

  “As do you, sir.”

  I’ve called him sir since I was a child.

  I stand before him with hands by my sides. I am dressed in a tailored suit from Savilee Row in London. It is hot and humid outside, but in this room, we might as well be on his family estate in Scotland.

  Dark wood and gloom are streaming in through the windows. I look through the one to his left.

  Bald landscape. Gray skies. It’s the northern Highlands, the place we often frequented when I was a kid. When mom was still alive.

  The scene outside the windows isn’t real, of course. At least, not here. Nothing but a video being streamed in from halfway around the world. I look back at my father. He must be feeling nostalgic.

  “Scotland, huh?” I ask.

  We both look out of the window and watch a black bird fly by. I wonder what’s going on outside of this projected reality. Bananas hanging on the trees. Bugs buzzing around. The drizzle of the tropical afternoon rain bouncing against the glass.

  “We should go back there together sometime,” he announces. “You loved it as a child.”

  I’m taken aback a little by the statement. My father isn’t one for expressing his emotions and this is probably the nicest thing he’s said to me in years.

  “Yes, I did enjoy it,” I agree. Neither of us says anything for a few moments.

  “How long are you staying?”

  I shrug. “Through the month, of course."

  “I figured. And after?”

  “I have to get back to work,” I say.

  He looks away, displeased.

  “I could barely get this month off. They don’t really look upon a month long vacation too kindly on Wall Street.”

  He frowns again.

  “Why do you work there? Is it just to annoy me?”

  There are some perks to it, I want to say.

  “Of course not.”

  “You can have an upper management position at any of the companies that I own. You know that.”

  “I want to make a name for myself,” I say with a shrug.

  “Even if you never take a penny from me and make your whole fortune yourself, they’ll never give you credit for it. You’ll always be my son.”

  Unfortunately, he’s right. I sigh.

  “Easton, you are smart. Cunning. But you know that already.” My father continues his lecture. “You’re smarter than Abbott. Don’t tell him that, of course. Yet, here you are, wasting your time working in some lowly associate position at some investment bank.”

  “You own an investment bank,” I point out.

  “Eh.” He waves his hand. “I want you to take over for me someday. Not one investment bank. But my whole…empire. How are you going to do that if you don’t have any experience running my business?”

  I stare at him. I’ve never heard him say this before. I never knew that I was even in the competition.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I thought that Abbott—“

  “Abbott is a hot head,” my father says, standing up from behind the desk. “He likes women too much. He has his indiscretions. I can’t leave my empire to him.”

  I shake my head. This is news to me.

  “So, what do you say?” he asks after a moment.

  I shake my head. “What are you asking exactly?”

  “I’m asking you to stay here. To learn the ropes. I want you to get educated about how we do things.”

  I shake my head and look away. No, I know how they do things. And I want no part of it.

  “I know that you think me finding a new wife every two years is…cruel. But the thing is that I get bored. None of them ever live up to…your mother.”

  That’s because she was never your slave, I want to say, but I bite my tongue. Just because he’s talking to me so openly right now, doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of flipping like a switch.

  “They don’t act like it, but they all want to be here. You know that,” my father says.

  “I don’t think so,” I mumble.

  “Please.” He waves his hand. “They’re women. And a woman wants nothing more in life than to be the most powerful woman around.”

  “Wouldn’t that apply to men as well?” I ask with a tinge of sarcasm.

  “It’s just a game, son. You know that. If they really don’t want to marry me, they don’t have to. But the ones that make it to the final round, they are begging for the life that I’m offering them. They have gotten a taste of the power and wrath that I have and they crave it.”

  There is no use in arguing with him on this. It’s his position and it’s what helps him sleep at night.

  “So, how about this? Stay, just for another month after, and I’ll
show you how we run things. Who knows, you might like it. Some things are for sure. You won’t have to clock in seventy-hour weeks for that paltry salary of yours.”

  There it is. The smugness. The hatred. My father has contempt for anyone who is poorer than him and just about everything in America, let alone the world, is poorer than he is.

  “I make $150,000 a year.”

  “Really? That’s it? Who can live on that? I spend more than that on scotch in two months.”

  “Well, you do drink a lot of scotch.”

  He starts to laugh. A low bellowing thunder emanates deep from his stomach. I can’t help but smile.

  * * *

  “I can’t,” I say definitively. “Not this time. I’ll lose my job.”

  Annoyed, my father spins around and stares into the distance. He has cut me off completely and isn’t giving me a cent toward any of my expenses. Not even to pay back my school loans, which stand at about $140,000. I follow his lead and stare out the window. The rain falls straight down in sheets and Scotland has never looked more dreary, cold, and welcoming.

  Easton

  When I go to see my brother…

  The meeting with my father goes as well as can be expected. I’m proud of myself for not giving in. I’m even prouder of myself for keeping my mouth shut and not telling him exactly what I think about him. Ever since that year in Nevada, I learned to fight battles with him in my own way. He thinks he’s winning, but I’m just waiting. Someday, it will be my turn.

  I have not seen Abbott yet, but I have heard the gossip. The guards talk a lot when they think no one is listening. And they should know better, someone is always listening. Mirabelle fills me in on some of the details as well, however, discreetly and tactfully.

  I nod and listen to her version and see it all too clearly. I am not under any misapprehension about what my brother is capable of. When I was fifteen, I hacked into the security system from my computer and saw what he and three of his friends did to the girls in the dungeon. He was only twenty-one, but he was ruthless.

  Before that day, I’d looked up to Abbott. He was my older brother. Someone who taught me how to play baseball and ride a bike. He was there for me after our mother died, in ways that our father never was. But after that day, I see him only as a monster. A monster I have to play nice with.

  “I see that you’ve been up to your old tricks,” I say, walking into his quarters on the other side of the house.

  It’s technically an apartment since it’s connected to the main house, but it has five-bedrooms, four bathrooms, a den, and a 1,000 square foot kitchen with its own staff.

  Abbots is sitting in the living room, in front of a 100-inch television, playing video games. The bruises on his face are just starting to heal.

  “This is nothing,” he says, without looking away from the screen. “The guards are just a bunch of gossip girls.”

  I grab a beer from the fridge and sit down next to him.

  “You look good,” he says, taking a brief pause from the game.

  “As well as can be expected.” I shrug.

  “How’s that job of yours going?” he asks, as if working for a living is the funniest thing in the world. “You get sick of it yet?”

  “Not sick enough to come back here,” I say.

  “Oh, please, what’s so bad about being here? Just a bit of fucking around. A lot of fucking. Some hunting. Maybe a surfing session or two. And then sitting in on board of trustees meetings once or twice a month. You know, you could do a lot worse.”

  I shrug.

  “I don’t want to depend on Father for everything.”

  Abbott rolls his eyes. “He’s not that bad,” he adds.

  “Am I hearing you right?” I ask. “Aren’t you the same kid who got sent away for six months to Arizona?”

  “You mean camp?” Abbott asks nonchalantly.

  Camp is what Father calls our periods of imprisonment and abuse.

  “And then, didn’t he send you away to Maine for another nine months when you were twenty-three?” I ask. “Don’t you think that twenty-three is a little too old for…camp?”

  I don’t know the precise details of what happened there, but from what I heard, it was somewhere between what I went through in Nevada and what the women are going through down below.

  “Let bygones be bygones.” Abbott waves his hand. “You know what your problem is, little brother? You never let things go.”

  I shake my head.

  “And you know what your problem is?” I ask. “You will forgive anyone anything if they set you up with a few hundred billions. Well, guess what? It’s just money, Abbott. It’s just fucking money.”

  “Don’t you get it? After all this time, don’t you finally get it?” Abbott asks.

  “Get what?” I ask.

  He puts down his controller and turns to me. He leans forward a few inches and whispers, “Money is everything.”

  I return to my room with a heavy heart. This is going to be one long month. And, on top of that, I am going to have to work a ton of overtime when I return to New York just to have the luxury of spending all these days off here.

  Fuck!

  I grab my swimming trunks and head to the only place around here that gives me any peace. The ocean.

  The sand is as white as snow. Digging my toes into it, it reminds me of powdered sugar - cool, soft, and extremely fine. I glide into the turquoise water. The air is warm, but the water is warmer. It’s shallow for miles and warms up quickly in the tropical air. As I lie on my back with the sun kissing my face, I wonder how such a beautiful place can be so dark and ugly.

  How can such horror exist here?

  Of course, I know how. Everyone does.

  York isn’t like anywhere else.

  Nothing about what goes on here is a secret, at least not from the rich and powerful. Most of the prominent heads of state know about this place and visit it frequently.

  You would be surprised to learn just how many democratically elected leaders of enlightened countries have a taste for the illicit. I’m not even talking about the dictators and the unapologetic fascists who want nothing more than to see the powerless humiliated.

  But besides heads of state, there are the leaders of other powerful organizations. The director of the FBI. The CIA. Secretary of State. They’ve all been here. They’ve all been to our parties and they’ve all enjoyed York’s twisted delights.

  This place is my father’s dream come true. A secret island far away from civilization where men with lots of zeros in their bank accounts and very little moral fiber can do as they will. For him, it is not enough to simply rule a company and be a billionaire many times over.

  He craves more.

  More power.

  More wealth.

  More influence.

  So, he bought this island and named himself the King.

  At first, it was just a joke. Haha, Mr. York is King. King of York. How charming.

  What is the only thing that a billionaire wants? To be King, of course.

  But after a few years, it suddenly became reality. Away from America and the prying eyes of the world, all of his powerful friends - CEOs, CFOs, Captains, Directors, Secretaries, Generals, Prime Ministers, and Presidents, started to refer to him as the King of York.

  Imagine that, the Vice President of the United States calling the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and in a faint whisper referring to him as ‘your majesty.’

  The thing about York is that it’s unlike anywhere else in the world. It’s not only a kingdom; it’s a secret kingdom. No one really knows about it because everyone knows about it.

  On paper, there is no kingdom of York. This is just a private island owned by a very wealthy man who likes to throw lavish parties for his friends. But what wealthy man doesn’t?

  What I am sure that all of his powerful friends do not know, however, is that there is no such thing as a secret on the island of York. They come here to indulge in their desires, to do bad
things because everyone does bad things. They feel safe and protected. And they are. Until my father needs something. Then they will find out the truth about this place. There is no privacy here. Everything is recorded and all of those recordings are saved on servers far away from here. And those men- because, who are we kidding, they are mostly men after all - those men, will do anything to keep their secrets. And I mean, anything.

  So, why don’t I stand up to my father?

  Why don’t I fight for what’s right?

  Why don’t I stand up to evil when I know that it’s committed every day both in the dungeons of York and in its lavish quarters?

  There’s no point. How can one man stand up to all that? How can he possibly win?

  “Hey!” Abbott runs over to the edge of the water and waves to me. I swim closer to shore.

  “I got the tape of what that little bitch did to me!” he says, holding his phone. “Want to see it?”

  Easton

  When I see her…

  Abbott gets some sort of sick pleasure from watching himself be beat up. Normally, people would be appalled by what he did to make a woman act that way, but he’s turned on.

  “No, I don’t really want to see it,” I say, diving back under a wave.

  “Oh, c’mon! You have to.”

  I walk out of the water and let myself air dry in the soft sun. He holds the phone up to my face. I glance down. It’s a recording from her room. The image is crystal clear and I can hear every word.

  “Why am I watching this again?” I ask.

  “She surprised me,” he says. “She doesn’t look like the type to put up a fight. Frankly, I thought that she would just lie there and close her eyes or something lame like that.”