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Los Angeles, CA — August 31st, 2012
A Santa Ana wind blew down from the hills to ruffle Terry's hair and tug gently at the lapels of his coat. Almost like a loving father.
That's what he was, Terry thought, a loving father. We all had our own dads, sure—but he was the one who counted.
Their dads had played catch with them, had marked their heights in pencil on the wall. Cornelius Mather had made them into men. He'd been their leader, their mentor, their CEO. But Cornelius Mather was dead, and there now remained no one who could keep his 'boys' from each other's throats.
First, they were his protégés. Then, they were his Board of Directors. Now, they were to be the executors of his legacy—if only they could find a way to make peace.
A man in a gray suit stood beside Terry on the platform. They looked out together over the edge, hands in pockets, surveying the empty work site nine stories below. William Cheerslaughter. The dangerous one. Cornelius had said as much, before he died.
"Do you believe in the supernatural, Will?" Terry asked.
Overhead, the sky glowed oil-pastel orange, streaked with purple clouds, while the horizon was a silhouette in the shape of Los Angeles. In between was laid out the sparkling grid of the city, dramatic from any angle, but especially picturesque from here.
"Absolutely not," Will said. "And what are we doing way up here?"
Terry didn't reply at first, and when he did, he didn't answer the question.
"What about destiny?" Terence McMahon planned to enjoy this, his triumphant moment. In fact, he planned to drag it out.
“What do you think?” Will snapped.
Terry ignored him. "I called because I wanted to meet with you one last time,” he said. “I wanted to make one last attempt. To prevent a war inside the company."
"How selfless," said Will, in a voice like antifreeze.
"He told me that story again," Terry said, changing the subject. "The one about Scipio burning down Carthage while Hannibal ravaged Italy." Terry had harbored faint hopes he might coax a smile out of Will, but got nothing. "He gave me the lecture again, too," he went on, "about how when all is lost and even time is against you, only a killing stroke will do."
"What are you trying to prove?" Will said, still frosty. "He told everyone that story, constantly."
Terry pushed past the interruption. "But then he said something I'd never heard before. He said Scipio, the Roman commander, wept as he watched Carthage burning. When his men asked him why, he said it was because he knew that someday, Rome too would burn. Great cities, like great men, always fall in the end."
Will said nothing.
"I don't know why he told me that," Terry added. "He was only lucid some of the time, those last few days."
"And I don't know why you're telling me," Will said. "Is that what you imagine this is? Your 'killing stroke'?"
Terry turned to look at his longtime business partner. "Of course not," he said, hurt. "I would never do that to you."
"Oh, because you're so moral?"
"Because it's not in my interest. You and I are not enemies, Will. It concerns me that I have to keep saying that. But it’s still true."
The two men stood saying nothing for a while.
"We could work together, you know," Terry said. He stared out at the scene in front of them. Construction vehicles slumbered below like underworld monsters. The sky darkened overhead like a dying ember. And L.A. burned ever bright in the distance. Like a second sun.
Terry was an inch taller than Will, and a little bigger in the chest and shoulders. It would be close, if it came to fisticuffs, but Terry had the advantage. So even with Cornelius's warning echoing in his ear, he still felt confident he could take Will—in the boxing ring, or in the boardroom.
"You ask for my trust," Will growled, "and in the same breath you lie."
The noise of distant traffic rose and fell with the wind. Terry caught a gleam in the darkness, Will's bright green eyes.
"I know what you want," Will went on, "and it doesn't matter how you phrase it. It all comes down to the same thing. The chair only seats one." He was little more than a silhouette by now. But those green eyes were as reflective as traffic tape.
Terry wasn't supposed to be the one who was nervous. His father had worked on skyscrapers back in Boston, and Terry had inherited his fearlessness of heights. Whenever he could, he scheduled meetings for balconies, rooftops, anything at high altitude. He frankly loved it up here. And if it kept others a little off-balance... well, that wasn't bad, either.
So if Terry was nervous, it was Cornelius's fault. The old man must have thought he was dispensing sage advice, ten days ago in the hospital room. Terry had been there when the babbling had become suddenly coherent—when Cornelius, for a moment, had become lucid.
His murky eyes had cleared, and he’d somewhere found the strength to rise from the pillows. The blankets fell from his bony chest as he clawed at Terry's sleeve.
"Terence," he'd growled, his voice like tectonic plates, "be careful of William Cheerslaughter! He is more dangerous than anyone realizes."
Terry's eyes had gone misty. It seemed a shameful thing, to look upon his mentor like this. But the founder of Empire Construction was nothing if not grasping, even in his final hours. Terry could not get out of his grip until the moment passed and a nurse ran in and Cornelius collapsed back onto the bed, eyes going glassy as he fell away from consciousness.
He was pronounced dead a few hours later—before he could wake up and explain himself.
Terry had left the hospital shaken. Cornelius, in and out of consciousness for days, had babbled endlessly. Some of what he said was nonsense. Some of it couldn't or shouldn't be true. But it was hard to know what was what. And it was especially hard to know how to take the warning about Will.
"It doesn't have to be this way," Terry pleaded. "No one has to walk away a loser."
"As long as you get what you want, right?"
Terry almost lost patience. He almost dropped the big bomb he'd been saving. But he forced himself to wait. Dangerous or not, Will was still his partner, still one of the boys, still his friend—in a sharp-toothed sort of way. He deserved the chance to come quietly.
"We want the same things," Terry said. "Does it really matter who sits in what chair? You're already rich, Will."
"I could say the same to you," Will observed.
"Cornelius didn't think you were ready for it," Terry blurted. Not quite the bomb, but close.
"Cornelius left it up to the Board," Will shot back.
"And the Board—" Terry began, but Will cut him off.
"Don't you dare walk into that meeting next week and start talking about his legacy like you knew him and I didn't. Since when do you get to say what he would've wanted?"
"Since he chose me, Will." A long pause ensued.
When Will said nothing, Terry added, "He told me right before he went."
Will threw his head back and laughed. The sound was harsh, caustic, and loud enough to echo through the unfinished floors of the building behind them.
"Isn't that convenient?" he said, and the venom in his voice matched the green of his eyes. "Let me guess, he waited until nobody else was around..."
But Will was interrupted by a sound from behind them. Not loud. Maybe a screwdriver rolling off a table. But the site was supposed to be empty. The two men turned to look, and Terry chided himself for startling so easily. The last thing you want to be, way up high, is jumpy.
And he had no reason to be jumpy. He'd come here with a whole deck of aces up his sleeve. Plus, nine stories up was his natural habitat. But as the two men looked vainly into the darkness, Terry found himself looking also within—searching for the confidence he ought to be feeling.
He'd found it, or thought he had, right about the time they gave up looking. It was too dark to see each other shrug, but soon enough, they turned back to look out at the city. And soon enough, their conversation started up again.
"What he told me was this," Terry explained. "He said he didn't want to try to run the company from the grave, and only a CEO chosen by the Board could truly take his place and lead the company. But he knew his boys would make the right choice."
"And you, of course, assumed he meant you," Will said, taking his hands from his pockets to fold them across his chest.
Terry urged himself to be patient a little longer. It was almost time to drop the bomb.
"He said, 'the company belongs to you now—all of you. So let the men of the Board vote and choose a new CEO, like God intended.'"
The wind gusted, and the platform creaked. Terry saw Will grab a support beam, and smiled.
"Explain again why we have to meet way up here," Will said. Terry heard the edge in his voice. It was as good an opening as he was likely to get.
"You're scared of heights, Will, because you don't belong at the top," he said. "I spoke to Cain and Jacob."
Will said nothing. Though that short sentence should have told him everything.
"We're all in agreement," Terry said. He heard Will's quick intake of breath. Subtle, but still a tell. "When the Board meets next week, they'll vote for me. It's three to one. I'm sorry. It's not gonna be you."
"Jacob Asher's an idealistic fool," Will said. "And everybody knows Cain Carter lost his soul to a pair of nines in Reno. Asher bought him a long time ago. He's got no will of his own anymore."
"Those are your brothers you're talking about, Will," Terry said gently. Will all but exploded.
"Don't you say my name like you're some kind of elder to me. We both know that's bullshit. Cornelius Mather made us brothers. And Cornelius Mather is dead."
Terry breathed slowly, consciously. He told himself Will was just angry. He wished he could explain. There was no shame in not being chosen.
But even as he wished it, he knew it was impossible. It was not in the nature of Will Cheerslaughter to play nice with others. That much he'd amply shown. Indeed, it was the very thing that made him so unsuited for the CEO job.
Cornelius had often said, and Terry truly felt, that ambition alone is too flighty to build empires with. None who seek the throne should ever be king. Principles alone, rigorous and time-tested, could serve to keep them on a steady and secure path of expansion. Men like Will Cheerslaughter, therefore, had to be contained.
"This isn't over, you son of a bitch," Will was growling. Terry, for his part, was finding his big moment to be less than triumphant. Will's snarl mixed with Cornelius's warning in his mind to form a powerful cocktail that killed his entire buzz. He decided to take charge of the situation.
"It absolutely is over," he boomed. His hands emerged from his pockets, balling into fists at his sides. "It's done."
"Because you invented some story about Cornelius 'choosing' you?"
"Make no mistake, Cheerslaughter," Terry said, turning to face Will. He pointed a finger at the darkness where Will ought to be, and went on in the same greatsword voice: "if you try to undermine me, or the Board, once I'm made CEO, not only will I push you out of Empire, I'll burn that precious house of yours to the ground too, and salt the earth it stood on, 'til the Hollywood Hills are as barren as fucking Mars."
"Threats work both ways, 'brother,'" Will said, acid in his tone. Terry couldn't see his smile, but he could hear it. As well as the threat behind it. "Watch your step," he added, in a singsong voice.
Terry's confidence had been brittle. Now, it cracked like a saltine. He felt real fear, for his physical safety even, and he took a step back from the edge of the platform. Chills ran up and down his spine, like a cold massaging fist. He took another step back.
Will laughed, and his eyes glinted green in the dark—though surely by now there was no ambient light left for them to reflect.
"Will." Terry couldn't find his command voice. He sounded weak in his own ears. The glint of green vanished, and Will was all but invisible, a black shadow against black shadows, outlined in the lights of the city.
So Terry jumped almost out of his skin when an arm clapped him on the shoulder.
"Just messin' with ya," came Will's voice, sounding of all things breezy and light. Terry didn't buy it for a second. Cornelius's warning echoed in his mind. What was he trying to tell me, before he died?
'More dangerous than anyone realizes.' Terry wished now they'd met somewhere public. Somewhere normal, at least.
"You know I'll have to talk to Cain and Jacob about this," Will was saying, and the animal hate was gone from his voice, as if it had never been. If anything, he sounded apologetic. "Obviously I'm still going to put up a fight. I'll admit, you were sort of his golden boy, and clearly his favorite—but you're not quite CEO yet."
"I'd expect nothing less," Terry said, trying to sound magnanimous. He forced a smile and wished he could feel relieved. There was something very wrong with all of this.
"But listen, I left my wife and daughter fighting at the dinner table to come down here," Will said, not unkindly, "so you could put on your little show." Terry almost screamed, but it was just Will's elbow, poking him in the ribs. Terry didn't trust it.
"Sounds like you'd better get back, then," he said, trying not to sound too eager. "I'd hate to be the cause of domestic distress."
"Helen," Will said, "has never needed a cause to get distressed. You coming?"
Terry felt it might be safer not to walk down the stairs with Will. They were steep, and if Will was going to... try anything, that would be the place to do it.
"I'm gonna hang out for a while," Terry said.
"You don't get to be a movie villain until they make you CEO, Terry," Will teased. Terry wanted to tell him to get out of here already. But he suppressed the urge. Soon enough, Will took out his phone and made his way by its light along the platform towards the stairs.
Terry followed the glow of Will's light, even grabbing a support beam to lean out over the edge as Will made his slow way down the stairs. He breathed more easily when he saw the light emerge at ground level. He let himself calm down as the light crossed the empty work site. And when he saw headlight beams and heard a car engine, when the car actually pulled out of the lot and drove off, he relaxed the rest of the way. His fears seemed stupid. He barely dared call himself a man, if he was scared of the dark and his little bro's empty threats.
William Octavian Cheerslaughter, a man he'd known for years, a pillar of the community, one of the most respected men in the city, was not going to throw him off of a building over a job—even a C-suite job. He had far, far too much to lose.
Safely alone, Terry slid his own phone from his pocket and made his way towards the stairs. The light cast spiderwebs of shadow through the bracers and beams of the platform.
Terry yelped, almost a scream, as he thought he saw someone disappearing in the darkness ahead. He shined his light around, searching. But, of course, he found no one there.
His shoulder bumped against a bracer and he cried out again; his phone slipped from his grasp and clattered to the pressboard floor. The crazy strobe glare it threw as it fell gave Terry what he thought was another glimpse of someone there.
Terry, one eye on the enveloping darkness, crouched, reaching for the rectangle of light that was his phone, facedown on the wood.
"Will?" he said, lifting the phone and swinging the light around. The tremble in his voice betrayed his fear. "I thought you left," he said, too high, too friendly. The darkness gave no answer.
"Will," he said again, "if you're here, just say something. Quit acting like a dick."
Nothing.
He'd seen the car leave, he told himself. He'd watched Will walk away. Kept him in plain sight the whole time. His imagination was playing tricks on him, because it was dark and Cornelius was dead and Will was a creepy fucker at the best of times.
Silence again. Closer somehow. No sound or sign of Will—or anyone else. By the light of his phone, Terry made his slow, careful way down the stairs to the eighth level, swinging his light around, checking everywhere.
When he'd made certain, again, that he was alone, he started down the next flight of stairs.
It wasn't the fact that his foot found something other than a stair. Terry was ready for just about anything. What he was totally un-prepared for, however, was the loud squeak the thing made when he stepped on it. Like a dog toy.
Terry swore loudly, and hopped, as people do when they step on surprising things. But this is a terrible idea on a steep staircase, and when Terry hopped, his foot came down on empty air. He tumbled face-first down the steps, earning a whole assortment of bruises on the way.
But he had other problems.
Crumpled on the landing, it was a miracle he hadn't gone over the side. Luck kept him alive, but there were fireworks in his head as he tried to regain his feet. Dizzy from the fall, he groped for something to hold onto.
Phone, he thought. Light. But the phone had flown from his hand in the fall, probably over the side. He looked out over the dark expanse, like the edge of a black hole. He dared not draw close.
"Who's there?" he said, addressing the darkness. His voice came out high and panicky. "Hello?? Will, this is bullshit!" Silence was his only reply. He squinted at the dark, trying to see, trying to find the next flight of stairs.
Bright, freaky rage struck like lightning through the static in his head. "Well, come at me, then," he shrieked, and now his was the voice that sounded barely human. "Who's there?"
Keyed up further by his own panicky yelling, Terry kept turning in the dark, trying to see behind him.
If he'd been any less terrified, he might have seen the folly in this. But he didn't have time to consider it. Because as he planted one careless foot a little too close to the edge, two hands flew through the darkness. And when they shoved, Terry was already off-balance.
He toppled like a bowling pin, right over that joke of a railing, to plummet earthward, Will Cheerslaughter's name on his lips.
End over end he tumbled, slacks and suitjacket flapping in the wind. He landed on his back. Mercifully, his spine shattered, and he couldn't feel much below the neck as he bounced—once, twice—before coming to rest.
Terry had never believed in the supernatural, or in destiny. But perhaps he'd been wrong on both counts. For surely only destiny could have caused him to land as he did on his back, facing up as he was, looking right at the place from which he'd been thrown. And surely only the supernatural could account for what he saw there.
But destiny would give him only a fleeting glimpse. He was rapidly going into shock, from which he would never return. He wondered idly if anyone would ever be charged with his murder. Useless to try to leave some clue behind. Who'd believe it anyway?
As the chemicals of death flooded his brain, he forgot about Will and Cornelius and Empire Construction. Even what he'd seen up there on the platform slipped his mind. Indeed, he knew only an abiding sense of peace—a sense that the struggle, the horror of it all, was finally, finally over...
His thoughts scattered like moths as his lights went out the rest of the way. His consciousness died with the day, expiring just as sunset's glow vanished totally from the western horizon.
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