Chapter 19 Dysfunction #2
The lawyer’s building was an old limestone hulk that looked like it should have been repurposed as a museum or the headquarters of the Illuminati.
The Mercedes rolled to a halt in a semicircle cobbled drive, and immediately the doors opened, Tara barking orders and the guards forming a phalanx around me as I stepped out.
There was something deeply embarrassing about being flanked by five security professionals when you yourself were the farthest thing from an international asset, but Tara seemed to relish the moment.
Inside, the lobby was cold and sterile, the kind of place where the receptionist’s lipstick was the only color in sight.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass.
Pale, overdressed, a little hollowed out around the eyes.
Tara was a step behind me, and in her black suit and earpiece, she looked like a bulletproof shadow.
Then I saw him. Andreas. He was ahead of us, near the elevators, standing ramrod straight in his dark suit. He had no security detail now, just himself, hands folded in front of him, jaw set.
He looked back, saw us, and did not smile.
Instead, he pressed the elevator call button, then turned away, as if to telegraph that we’d be taking different elevators.
And we did. Andreas got into the first elevator alone, doors closing on him.
Tara guided me toward the next set of elevators, then leaned in and whispered, “We’re taking a more secure route.
Mr. Kristiansen doesn’t want to take any chances with your safety. ”
The way she said it—“your safety”—made it sound like I was the target of assassins. I suppressed the urge to laugh because Henrik Kristiansen was no assassin.
We rode in silence. At the twelfth floor, the elevator doors opened to a long, echoing corridor lined with gold-leaf mirrors and the sort of furniture that looks like it’s only meant for looking at, never for sitting. As a group of six, we walked the last fifty feet to the double doors at the end.
Tara stopped in front of the doors and checked her watch. I could hear voices inside, faint and heated. Then, the doors swung open and someone who I assumed was a lawyer beckoned us in.
The conference room was so opulent it was offensive.
The table was a single, carved slab of something dark and old, long enough to seat thirty.
The chandeliers above dripped with crystal, refracting the winter light into a haloed glare that made my head throb.
The windows were so tall and thick that you could barely hear the city outside.
For a second, I wondered if that was the point, to make the whole will reading feel like it happened outside of time or worldly worries.
Henrik was already in the room, seated at the far end of the table.
He wore a suit, but the tie was off and the top button undone.
He looked like he’d spent the night drinking bleach.
His eyes were red-rimmed, and as soon as he saw me, he started to grin—an ugly, hungry grin that made me want to throw up.
Tobias stood at the head of the table, hands braced on the wood, talking in low tones to a man I assumed was the lead lawyer.
He was short and trim, with silver hair and a face like an old coin.
He wore the most beautiful suit I’d ever seen, and spoke French in the rapid, clipped way I used to think was beautiful.
Tobias gestured wildly, then shot a glance at Henrik, and then at me.
His eyes didn’t register me as a threat, and I felt a perverse sense of satisfaction at being so thoroughly underestimated.
Andreas entered the room last, as though he’d timed his arrival to coincide with ours.
For the first time since I’d known him, he looked small—not physically, but in the way he moved, like he was trying to take up as little physical space as possible.
He glanced at me once, then at Tara, then nodded to the lawyer.
The lawyer stepped forward and greeted Andreas in French. Andreas, likewise, responded in flawless French. The exchange was smooth and struck me as friendly. Did these two know each other well?
Meanwhile, I hadn’t even known Andreas could speak French.
Tara led me to a spot at the long table as far from Tobias and Henrik as possible. She pulled out a chair for me, and as I sat, I could feel Henrik’s eyes boring into me.
The lawyer conferred with a second attorney. There was a flurry of document shuffling and whispered strategy, then the one I’d assumed was the lead lawyer seemed to call the room to order.
Henrik leaned over to Andreas and said something in Norwegian, low and rapid-fire.
Andreas barely turned his head, then replied in English, crisp and flat, “No. Sam is not pregnant.”
Tobias rolled his eyes. “Then why all the security?”
The lawyer said something in French, then switched, mid-sentence, to English so flawless it barely carried an accent. “I apologize, Ms. Jarlston. I will use English from this point forward.” He bowed his head toward me.
I gave him a small smile of gratitude.
Tobias sneered, “Why pander to the childless American? The heir is Norwegian.” He gestured with a dismissive wave toward the far end of the table, where a woman sat with a small child on her lap.
The woman looked shell-shocked, her face locked in a stone mask of compliance.
The child—maybe two—wore a miniature sailor suit and clutched a sippy cup in both hands.
I stared. The woman wouldn’t look at me, and for a moment I wondered if she was here of her own free will, or if she’d been coerced.
Tobias spoke to Andreas, his tone smug. “And now father’s shares belong to my child. Likewise, father’s personal holdings and estate, which include all your mother’s compositions, belong to me.”
I stiffened. The last part was news to me. I settled my attention on Andreas, who was looking at the table, fingers laced together like he didn’t have a care in the world.
The lawyer glanced from Andreas to Tobias to Henrik, clearing his throat as he did so. “Let us sit and discuss the matter thoroughly, yes?”
Tobias took his seat with an exaggerated sigh.
“I guess what they say about sleeping around not paying off is all a lie, hmm? I can’t wait to license your mother’s songs for car commercials.
” He barked a laugh, then turned to the lawyer and said, “Isn’t that right?
Since I fathered the oldest grandchild, according to father’s addendum, the personal estate passes to me, and that includes every piece of physical property that belonged to my dearest youngest brother’s mother and every piece of intellectual property as well. ”
I shifted my attention back to Andreas again, and this time, he was smiling—but not in a way that suggested happiness. It was more like he was enjoying a private joke at everyone else’s expense.
I tried to mask my confusion as my brain tried to make sense of what was happening. Meanwhile, Henrik—who must’ve noticed Andreas’s smirk—shifted in his seat and glared at me. “Wait. What’s going on?”
Andreas sat down slowly, folded his hands on the tabletop, and turned to the lawyer. “Shall we proceed?”
Henrik pointed at the lawyer and yelled, “What the fuck is going on?”
The little girl at the far end of the table started to cry, loud and abrupt. The mother whispered something in her ear, rocking her, but the noise only increased.
Andreas, calm as ever, said, “You might want to ask your child and her mother to leave.”
Tobias stood up, hands braced on the table, and leaned in toward Andreas. “You’ve lost,” he said, but he didn’t sound so certain or smug anymore. For a second, I thought he was going to vault across the table and strangle Andreas.
Andreas sat there, eyes on Tobias, expression serene. “Allow me to introduce you to your niece, who I adopted last month.” He lifted a hand to me. “She is now the controlling shareholder of Genetix, and is of legal age. Thus, she will be inheriting and have control of those shares as of today.”
It was like time stopped. Henrik and Tobias just stared, mouths open, eyes bouncing from me to Andreas and back again. Even the lawyers seemed to freeze, reminding me of rabbits when they suspect a nearby predator.
Andreas continued, “And since I am the legal father of the oldest grandchild, all of Oskar’s personal belongings—including my mother’s compositions and property in Italy—pass to me.”
A beat of silence. Pure, soundless suspension, a vacuum of air and atoms and time.
And then all hell broke loose.
Tobias lunged, overturning his chair, and screamed something in Norwegian that even I could tell was a collection of the most inventive curse words in the language.
Henrik, instead of going for Andreas, actually went for the lawyer, grabbing him by the lapels and shaking him.
The woman at the table shrieked, clutching her daughter to her chest. She stood and stumbled away from the kerfuffle.
Someone was calling for security. My guards didn’t move.
They simply stood in formation around me amid all the chaos outside the bubble of their protection.
And inside the bubble, where I sat miring in my own chaos while stupidly staring at Andreas, I watched this man I thought I loved grinning triumphantly in the face of his eldest brother.
I realized, with no small amount of despair, that I had also been played by Andreas Kristiansen.
When I’d asked him all those weeks ago why he wanted to help me take over Genetix, he’d told the truth. He didn’t want Genetix, he never had. He didn’t care about the company.
But he’d also lied.
Andreas wanted his mother’s legacy, her property, the rights to her music. That’s why he’d sought me out. That’s why he’d adopted me.
Perhaps that was also why he’d bought me gifts and meticulously won me over with nostalgia and sweetness and thoughtfulness and shy smiles. He’d seduced my mind, my body, and my heart. And I’d let him.
What had I been to him? A pawn? This whole time, had I been nothing but a disposable piece in his game? He’d lied to me. And he’d gotten exactly what he wanted from me. I thought I was so smart, but I was nothing.
No. I was less than nothing.
I was a complete fool.