Page 143 of The Tower

There’s a knock at the door, and an officer enters, telling Liam that they’re ready for him. I leave the room with him, then turn the opposite direction and walk toward the exit without saying goodbye.

My father is dead. The man who imprisoned and medicated me, who stole my mother’s legacy, then killed her. A man who treated me as property rather than a person.

That horrible man is gone forever.

The knowledge should bring relief, closure, perhaps even joy. Instead, it brings a complicated tangle of emotions I can’t yet unravel.

Outside, the city is waking, the first hints of dawn painting the eastern sky.

My driver steps out, then opens the door for me. “Reed Tower,” I tell him, then pull out my phone to call and update Ruby.

“There’s going to be fallout from this,” I say after I’ve run it all down for her. “We’ll need to inform the board and get ready.”

“I’ll start working on your press statement.” She pauses. “What are you going to do about Grimm? Can you forgive him?”

“I don’t know,” I say, because it’s the only answer I have. “Right now, I don’t have time to think about it.” And that’s a good thing. Because if I did, I think all I’d be able to do is cry.

Forty-Three

Hard Reckoning

By mid-morning, the news is everywhere: “COSMETICS MAGNATE VICTOR REED DEAD IN CONFRONTATION WITH GRIMM HEIR.”

Similar headlines are plastered across every major outlet, each version more sensational than the last. Some paint my father as a tragic figure, others as the villain he truly was. Some portray Liam as a cold-blooded killer settling a family feud. Still others spin him as a hero who protected his former enemy—a woman with whom he’d fallen in love—from the father who’d abused her for most of her life.

The last reads like a romance novel and is the closest to the truth. I’m just not sure if it’s a truth I can live with.

Reporters circle Reed Tower like vultures, their cameras and microphones ready to capture even the smallest tidbit to feed their ratings.

Inside, Ruby and I work with a crisis management team on the official statement that acknowledges my father’s death, the past abuse that was revealed at the guardianship hearing, and the new revelation to the public that he killed my mother, his wife. Other than that, I’ve decided to say nothing. And I certainly won’t say that I’m sorry he’s dead, as that would be a lie.

But at the same time, I am sorry, because I’d wanted the chance to see justice served. To see him locked up and paying for what he’d done to me.

Liam took that possibility away, and while I don’t know if I can forgive him for that, I do know it’s not something I choose to talk about with the press. The world has had enough peeks into my life. It’s time to draw the curtains and live outside the spotlight as much as I can.

“The board wants an emergency meeting,” Ruby says, tablet in hand as she scrolls through the flood of emails and messages. “They’re freaking out about stability, stock prices, public perception—you know, the usual corporate panic.”

“Of course they are,” I say with a tired sigh. “Schedule it for tomorrow. I need time to get my head straight.”

“And this,” Ruby continues, swiping to another screen, “is the official police report. They released it twenty minutes ago.”

I scan the document, taking in the key points of the carefully worded narrative: Victor Reed, wanted for multiple charges. Confronted by Liam Grimm. An altercation ensued. Reed drew a weapon. Grimm fired once in self-defense. Multiple witnesses corroborated the sequence of events.

Clean. Simple. Believable.

And mostly bullshit.

I set the tablet aside, exhaustion hitting me in waves. “Any word on Desmond Bane?”

“Nothing solid. Leo’s sources say he fled the scene before the shooting.

The thought of Desmond still out there sends an unpleasant chill through me. But I have bigger problems right now—the company, the press, the legal aftermath of my father’s death.

And Liam. Always Liam.

As if summoned by my thoughts, he appears in the doorway, face carefully blank. “The press conference is set for four. Legal has prepared statements for both of us. They think we should appear together—show a united front.”

The sound of his measured voice ignites something in me that I’ve been holding back since our return from the police station.