Chapter 59 - The Cost of Survival
"You don't look triumphant, Evelyn," Julian observed softly, taking a slow sip of his drink.
"Triumph?" I opened my eyes, staring into the flickering embers of the hearth. "What is there to triumph over, Julian? That I was clever enough to outmaneuver a pair of greedy fools? That I defended bricks and mortar while my family crumbled into moral degeneracy?"
"You didn't break them, Evelyn. They were broken long before Tyler threw that cake in your face. That circus was merely the symptom of a disease that started forty years ago when Richard realized he didn't have the stomach to build anything of his own."
"Perhaps," I whispered. "Or perhaps the wealth of this family was cursed from the day Donald Mercer drove the first stake into this ground. Blood attracts wolves, Julian. And when the wolves run out of prey, they eat their own."
I reached over and picked up the heavy brass cylinder from the table. The metal was cool now, slick with soot that stained my fingertips.
"Did you open it?" Julian asked, his gaze narrowing on the artifact.
"Not yet," I replied. "I was afraid of what I might find. Tyler said Donald had a second family—a bastard line that held the true deed to the western ridge."
May you like
"Tyler was grasping at straws, Evelyn. He was listening to the rumors of bankrupt creditors and shady real estate developers."
"Was he?" I asked, looking up at Julian. "Because Donald Mercer kept two sets of books. You know that as well as I do. The ledger of 1948 proved he was paying off someone downriver for nearly three decades."
