Chapter 34
NICK
"You wanted the full picture on the Roths and Xaviers," Beck says. "This is what I've got."
He removes several documents from a manila folder and lays them out on my desk, then leans back in the leather chair across from me. I've known him long enough to read his carefully neutral expression. It's the one he reserves for conversations he knows will cut.
I nod at the sheet bearing my cousin's name and data. "Start with Sebastian."
Beck pulls a summary sheet from the stack, scanning it even though I know he's already memorized every detail.
"Sebastian Elliot Roth. Thirty-two. CEO of Roth Hospitality International.
Luxury hotels, resorts, private clubs. Headquarters in Manhattan, properties on six continents.
" He glances up. "His personal holdings are well north of nine billion.
Maybe pushing ten, depending on how you value the real estate portfolio. "
I feel my brows rise despite my determination to remain unimpressed by the smooth bastard I met at the gala two nights ago.
I built Baine International from nothing, without help from anyone—least of all a deep-pocketed, obviously well-connected family like the Roths or Xaviers.
My net worth hovers around four billion now and growing every quarter.
Respectable. Powerful. The kind of money that commands attention in any room I enter.
Sebastian Roth was born into nearly three times that.
"As for the Roths in general," Beck continues, reading my silence correctly.
"The family fortune sits somewhere between thirty-five and forty billion.
The brand controls luxury hotels in the States and abroad, other global real estate, land holdings, licensing deals going back five generations on the father's side.
Old money layered on top of older money. "
I grunt, taking a sip of the coffee that's gone cold on my desk. "I'm familiar with the brand, of course. The Roth name is plastered on some of the best properties around the world. They're anything but subtle."
Beck shrugs. "They all put their pants on one leg at time.
Theirs is just a different kind of empire, that's all.
You built yours. Concentrated. Liquid. Every decision runs through you because you made it that way.
Sebastian inherited a machine that prints permanence.
Trust distributions, equity stakes, board seats that were waiting for him before he could walk.
" He pauses. "But I'll give the bastard this—he sharpened what he was handed.
Expanded the hotel division by forty percent in five years.
Took the family into markets his father thought were beneath them. "
For all the ways he's been a competitive pain in my ass over the past couple of years, I have to admit I feel some degree of respect for him. Sebastian didn't coast. He took what he was given and made it more. That requires a certain ruthlessness I recognize, even share, with my cousin.
"The business rivalry," I say. "He says he's known we're related for about five years now. Any idea how long has he been circling me from a professional standpoint?"
"About three-plus years that I can trace.
" Beck ticks off the encounters on his fingers.
"Dubai—the Al-Hassan property. You won, but he drove the price up by eight figures before he backed off.
And that chunk of Amalfi coast you wanted eighteen months ago?
He sniped it out from under you, then flipped it to a resort developer for a thirty percent premium.
" A slight smile. "And most recently, there was his attempt to outbid you for the Elysium. "
My jaw tightens at the reminder. The stunning sailing yacht I bought for Avery. The wedding gift she doesn't know about yet.
"I might've had to kill the sonofabitch if he'd snatched that yacht from me."
Beck chuckles, low under his breath. "I'm starting to think that was less about acquiring another toy and more about taking your measure. He's been watching you, Nick. Trying to see what you're made of."
Because he knew. The entire time we were competing for properties and positioning, Sebastian Roth knew we shared a grandmother. Knew my mother was his mother's sister. He knew I had family practically living right under my nose and said nothing.
My family situation has required careful navigation.
That's what he said to me at the gala. I'd assumed they were meant as some kind of deflection at the time. Now they land differently.
My phone buzzes with a text, pulling my attention.
I glance at it, expecting to see Avery's number, but it's not her.
She left the penthouse this morning to drop art supplies at the rec center—some sketchbooks and pencils she'd forgotten in her trunk before our trip to the Keys.
She should be finished by now, and off to the half-dozen other items she said she wanted to tackle today before meeting me here for lunch.
The thought of her cuts through the cold analysis I've wrapped around this conversation. I can still feel her lips on mine as she kissed me on her way out this morning, her hand resting against my jaw. Hours later, the ghost of that touch is still warm against my skin.
"Shall we move on to the rest of the family?" Beck asks.
At my nod, he pulls another sheet from the folder. "Four siblings total. Sebastian is the second child."
"Start with the eldest."
"Roman Roth." Beck scans the notes. "Thirty-seven.
Runs East Coast operations—the legacy properties, the flagship hotels, anything that touches the family name directly.
Reputation for being unforgiving. Emotionally walled off.
The one who sets the tone for the empire and makes sure everyone falls in line. "
The heir apparent. I know the type. I've negotiated across tables from men like that. Born to authority, wearing it like a second skin.
"Tell me about the third son."
"Devlin Roth. Thirty. Handles acquisitions and what the file politely calls 'difficult negotiations.
'" Beck's mouth twitches. "Translation: He's the one they send when someone needs to be reminded who they're dealing with.
Unpredictable. Sleek. First into the fray when the family needs blood drawn. "
I glance at the dossier Beck's put together on him. The enforcer. Every dynasty has one.
"And there's a sister too?"
"Alessandra Roth. Twenty-seven. She's the youngest of the siblings.
Moves in society and cultural circles—foundation boards, museum galas, philanthropy that doubles as power brokering.
" Beck pauses. "She's quietly expanded the family's charitable footprint into areas her father considered beneath his attention.
Make no mistake, there's steel under the grace. "
I absorb this information too, cataloging each Roth sibling like pieces on a board I didn't know I'd been playing. Four cousins I've never met, a legacy of wealth on both sides of their DNA. Raised in the rarefied air my mother walked away from.
"Tell me about the father." I can't refer to him as my uncle yet. Even acknowledging Sebastian as my cousin requires an emotional leap I'm not ready to take. If I ever will be.
Beck's expression shifts as he slides another Roth family dossier in front of me.
"Harrison Roth. Seventy-one. Primary controlling shareholder of the family empire.
Worth roughly eighteen billion personally.
" He sets the paper down. "A callous man, by every account I could find.
Went through a string of women in his younger years—affairs, mistresses, the occasional tabloid scandal that got quietly buried.
Still rumored to keep one or two on the side even now. "
I scoff. "Charming."
"It gets better." Beck's voice is flat. "He's known for playing his children against each other. Pitting them for his approval, his favor, control of various pieces of the empire. Takes a particular delight in the chaos and competition he ignites."
The words land in my chest like shrapnel.
A father who destroys what he should protect. Children navigating dysfunction, learning survival through cunning and control because that's what the man who was supposed to love them taught them instead.
I know this story. I lived a poorer, uglier version of it.
Bill Baine with his drunken fists and his rage and his refusal to believe me when I told him what his own father was doing to me.
But the architecture is the same. The neglect, the cruelty.
The children who carry the weight of wounds they didn't choose.
My scarred hand closes around the arm of my chair. I make myself release it.
It took me a long time to forgive my father, to understand him. Reading the letter he wrote for me before his death a couple of years ago helped, even though it came a bit too late. And the pain he caused—the scars, physical and otherwise—will never fully leave me.
I have no idea how deep the Roth family secrets run, or how many skeletons they've tried to bury. Part of me hopes that none of my cousins have felt the same kind of fear and desperation that I have. I wouldn't wish my past on anyone.
What Sebastian told me at the gala makes better sense now.
He wasn't playing games. He was navigating a patriarch who treats his children like chess pieces.
The time he spent watching me, competing against me, saying nothing about what we are to each other…
maybe that was caution, not just about control. Or maybe some of both.
Does it change anything?
I don't know yet.
"As for Mrs. Roth," Beck says, sliding another page toward me, "Madeline Xavier Roth is harder to pin down.
I wouldn't call her a recluse, but she's an extremely private person.
Doesn't do interviews, rarely appears at Roth corporate functions, keeps her name off the society pages as much as possible. "
"Unusual for a woman married to a man like Harrison Roth."