Chapter 5
Julian thrashed beneath the surface. Air bubbles broke around his ears, churning the water into a bloody froth as the water mixed with the hemorrhage from his broken nose.
Arthur did not drop his glass. But the knuckles of his left hand turned the color of chalk.
"Torsten," Arthur said, his voice losing its boardroom polish, cracking slightly around the edges. "Let him up. He’s your nephew. Michael’s namesake."
"Michael died in an alley in South Boston taking three bullets for me," Torsten said, his grip on Julian’s neck tightening like an iron vice. "This thing in the water is a parasite that feeds on women and children."
"Dad! Please!" Lavinia stepped forward, her hand touching Torsten’s forearm. She was trembling, but her voice was clear. "Don't do this in front of Dovie. Look at her."
Torsten paused.
He glanced back toward the velvet bench.
Dovie was standing on her flats, clutching the spiral notebook against her chest. She wasn't crying anymore. Her six-year-old eyes were wide, dark, and observant, absorbing every fraction of violence, every movement of her grandfather’s hands, with the chilling, ancient familiarity of a child born into a dynasty of blood.
Torsten yanked his arm back.
Julian came out of the water with a violent, retching gasp, coughing up pink water and phlegm, collapsing onto his hands and knees on the flagstones. Blood poured freely from his smashed nose, dripping into his open collar, his hair plastered across his forehead.
"Get up," Torsten commanded.
Julian could only wheeze, his chest heaving, his eyes wild with a sudden, suffocating comprehension of his own mortality. He had thought the corporate boardrooms, the New York attorneys, and the high-yield investment trusts had insulated him from the butcher’s shop. He was wrong.
Torsten reached down, took Julian by the hair, and hauled him to his feet like an uncooperative dog. He shoved him toward the center of the room, sending him sprawling into an antique mahogany table. A tower of champagne flutes collapsed in a musical, terrifying avalanche of crystal and sparkling wine.
Torsten turned his gaze back to Arthur.
"You set this up six months ago," Torsten said, stepping over the shattered glass without looking down. "When the federal indictments dropped on the waterfront union. You told the Commission that I was the target. You told them the feds had me boxed in."
Arthur set his bourbon glass down on a nearby pedestal. His fingers were finally shaking.
"The feds do have you boxed in, Torsten," Arthur said, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "The Grand Jury meets on the fifteenth. Merrick’s firm was subpoenaed for the port manifests. We knew you wouldn't flip, but we also knew you wouldn't step down. If you go to prison, the entire Whitmere portfolio gets seized under RICO. Everything our father built. Everything you bled for. Dissolved by the Department of Justice."
"So you decided to steal Lavinia’s shares," Torsten said.
"They weren't her shares to hold!" Arthur hissed, stepping forward, his mask of aristocratic calm completely shattering. "She’s an art curator! She doesn't know how to wash forty million dollars through Panamanian real estate! If she held the voting rights when the indictments came down, the feds would have crushed her in an interrogation room in forty-eight hours! We were saving the family, Torsten!"
"By dropping her down a flight of stairs?"
Torsten’s question was so soft it was barely audible above the hum of the conservatory’s ventilation fans.
"She wouldn't listen!" Julian spat from the floor, his face a ruin of scarlet and water. He dragged himself up against the legs of the grand piano, his voice shrill. "She’s as stubborn as you! We offered her a settlement! We offered her twenty million clean! She told us she’d rather see the docks burn than give them to a New York syndicate!"
"Because the docks don't belong to New York," Torsten said. "They belong to Dovie."
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He turned back toward the child.
"Dovie," Torsten said. "Come here."
