Perhaps it's that sound that settles it. The sound of a man who's been a rock everyone else leaned on, all his life and who can't ask for help.
Grace and Lenny Berwick have been there for me when no one else in this entire universe cared.
I was seven years old when two orcs I didn't know opened their home and arms to me. They never wavered in their commitment to the little human foster kid who walked into their lives. They didn't waver when I was a pain in the ass, or when I needed help because I didn't know how to accept their love. They didn't waver when I became a rebellious teenager and made them sick with worry.
Through every year and every tear, they loved me.
That's the deal, Mom used to say. Family sticks together.
I stand in the hallway a little longer, until the sound of Dad's ragged breath slows down to a trickle.
Then I walk away and my mind is made.
I am going to keep the deal I made now that it's their turn to need me.
Whatever it takes.
Chapter Two
Demetrius
AdelaideWindemereisapixie, and pixies, in my experience, lie with their wings.
I've been watching hers flit for the past fifteen minutes, ever since she stepped into my office. The upper pair holds positionjust fine and I know it's a trait she rehearsed. Pixies are excellent politicians and most master the art of keeping their top wings completely still.
It's the lower pair that gives her away. Their tips flutter fast as a mouse's heartbeat.
She's dressed the part in an ivory pantsuit, tailored perfectly to her slender figure. The color does marvels for her complexion and offsets her emerald hair, eyes and wings. Her painted red lips are stretched into a smile that is just a tad too wide.
But good looks won't save her here.
Her foot taps the carpet in sync with the flutter of her lower wings. The vibration carries through the floor, like an invisible stampede.
"Mr. Thornwood," she says, and the half-register climb on my name is the tell of someone who pretends not to be intimidated. "I appreciate you making the time to see me today. I know how valuable it is."
"It is." I keep my voice even.
She waits for more. I don't give her more. I let the silence sit between us like a negotiating tactic. She's going to dig her own grave one word at a time and she doesn't even know it.
I'll let her.
"Right." Her smile holds, though the edges strain a little. "I believe there are still some outstanding items to resolve before we can move forward with the acquisition."
"There are three." I open the folder at my elbow. I know every word inside it, but I let her watch me look. "Voting control. You've raised it each time we've talked. My answer has not changed in the past and it will not change today. Thornwood Industries is acquiring Windemere Maritime. This is not a partnership and I will not accept anything less than total and universal control over a company that I spend nearly eight hundred million buying."
Her lower wings still. That alone tells me she expected a longer conversation about it.
"The Windemere name has opened doors for well over a hundred years." She squares her shoulders and I watch her composure snap into place like the mask it is. "Retaining some measure of family influence over the company's strategic direction seems reasonable, given my family history."
"Your family's history is just that, history." I close the folder with a dry snapping sound of paper on paper. "What your company brings now is a terminal concession up for renewal in five years, an infrastructure backlog that would make an accountant weep, and a name that is guaranteed to make investors run the opposite direction. Voting control is not on the table for you, Adelaide."
The room descends in a deadly kind of quiet. Her foot stops tapping.
Then, because she is smarter than her stubbornness suggests, she moves on.
"A permanent board seat, then." She shifts her posture by a fraction, the shift of someone recalibrating. "Lifetime appointment."
It was never going to be a surprise. A board position is a grace I can easily extend to the heiress of one of the most influential families on the West Coast. She may be an heiress in dire need of liquidity, but despite what I told her, her name can still be useful to me.
