Chapter Twenty-Five
Ashen
When the invitation came to meet Walt Bellerwood, I agreed without hesitation. Not only was he considered one of the greatest minds of our time, he was also Monica’s father, and she had already started teaching their daughter to call me Uncle Ashen.
Monica led me to a waiting area outside her father’s office.
It was a large glass area with white furniture and had a futuristic, showroom feel to it.
After encouraging me to have a seat, she walked over to speak with the receptionist. Upon her return, she said, “My father said he’d like to meet you on his own.
I’ll be out here if you need me, but just remember what I told you—he struggles to connect with people.
If you’re patient and authentic with him, he’ll open up.
And if that doesn’t work, come get me. Sometimes I can reach him when others can’t. ”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“You will,” she said with a supportive smile. “He’s . . . just don’t be offended if he doesn’t seem welcoming at first.”
I nodded then shrugged. For her, I’d put up with however he turned out to be.
I smoothed my hands over the trousers of my dark charcoal suit.
It had been tailored to fit me, just as suits always had been, but this time it didn’t feel like a costume for a role.
The pristine cleanliness of the glass, the absence of comfort items, the quiet deference of the staff—it was a world I’d been raised in, but I was seeing it through new eyes.
No longer was I an inconvenient accessory, ordered to be silent and afraid to be dismissed.
Wealth didn’t impress me and power no longer intimidated me.
I was groomed to be small, silent, and to question myself.
Spending time with each of the twins had helped me shake free of that programming.
Thane and Jesse had introduced me as family to the man who’d adopted them.
Scott and Monica trusted me not only with their animal sanctuary and their business, but around their daughter as well.
Gene and Leslie now demanded I attend the weekly dinners they hosted at their home and from that I’d built a relationship not only with Mark, but with Dylan as well.
No longer was I an outsider in my own life.
I had family.
And, Walt Bellerwood, as eccentric as he sounded, was family too.
Monica had told me about her father on the drive over.
He hadn’t been born to wealth or power; he’d built both up, forging an empire in cutting-edge technology from a working-class background.
Water desalination, rocket design—he didn’t just join industries; he redesigned them.
She said he demanded perfection from others because he’d demanded it from himself.
He wasn’t a man who had inherited a name; he was a man who had made his name mean something.
I understood that. And I wasn’t intimidated.
I had seen the weakness and ugliness that often festered beneath the polished surfaces of great wealth.
I was prepared to meet Walt Bellerwood with an open mind, but I was also prepared to look him in the eye without blinking if he turned out to be anything less than the man his daughter believed him to be.
A pleasant-faced woman approached from behind a large desk. “Mr. Ryse? Mr. Bellerwood is ready to see you now.”
Mr. Ryse. The name still felt new, a suit I was just starting to grow into. I rose, squared my shoulders, and offered her a small smile. “Thank you.”
Monica gave me a quick hug that I returned after a slight hesitation. Open displays of support were still something that took me by surprise.
I followed the receptionist through a set of imposing double doors into an office that was less an office and more a command center for the future. The desk was a minimalist slab of dark metal, holding nothing but a sleek monitor and a detailed, beautiful model of a rocket.
Walt Bellerwood stood by the window, his back to me. He was tall, dressed in simple dark slacks and a gray dress shirt. He didn’t turn around.
“The enzyme,” he said, his voice a flat, direct baritone that echoed slightly in the large room. “Explain the historical precedent.”
There was no greeting. No handshake. Just a demand for data.
I felt a strange sense of relief. This was a language I could speak.
I walked farther into the room and began, detailing the 17th-century journal, the specific moss, the tribe’s detoxification process, and the logical leap to an enzymatic solution.
I spoke calmly, presenting the information as a series of facts, not a brilliant discovery.
“I like a simple solution to a complex problem,” he stated.
“Thank you.”
“Having never run a company before, what makes you think you’re capable?”
It was a fair question and one I might have asked myself before my life fell apart. Now? “My sheer determination to be.”
He was silent for a moment before he finally turned.
His eyes were a pale, piercing blue, and they analyzed me with an unnerving intensity.
“I look forward to working with you, Mr. Ryse,” he said.
It wasn’t warm, but it was sincere. He was watching me closely, gauging my reaction to the praise.
“You may have just solved the problem of world hunger.”
I held his gaze. “If so, that’s an honor I’ll share with all of those who made my small contribution possible of such a feat.”
“Ashen Ryse,” he stated, more an observation than a question. “It’s a better name than the one they gave you.”
I didn’t flinch beneath his scrutiny. “Any name would be.”
“Monica says you are kind, despite how you were brought up.”
What could I say to that? I shrugged.
He continued, “She’s a good judge of character.” He looked me over again. “So am I.”
A slight smile curled one side of my mouth. “I feel like I’m being interviewed.”
He blinked and frowned, and I regretted my choice of words.
His attention seemed to turn inward, and I finally understood what Monica had been trying to tell me.
Speaking to me was an effort for him. I thought about how Scott described his first meeting with his father-in-law and how far he’d come from then.
From being completely closed off to having bonded enough with Zachary’s mother that they’d married.
And still, despite all that, he struggled to not be trapped within himself.
I understood that too well. “Zachary told me his mother has never looked happier than you’ve made her. She must be a good judge of character as well.”
Walt’s attention ricocheted back to me. “Brenda is a good woman with the patience of a saint.”
“She’d have to be,” I said lightly. “Zachary is a handful.”
The smile that spread across Walt’s face was unexpected. In that moment, I felt not only that he saw me, but he was letting me see him. “I’m glad Monica chose Scott. Zachary could argue with a filing cabinet.”
I chuckled at that. “I’m glad he’s on my side.”
“Me too,” Walt said. “He loves Brenda with his whole heart and that makes him an important person in my life.”
The way he looked at me, as if somehow I’d joined the ranks of people who mattered to him, was unsettling. I wanted to trust him, but he had no reason to care about me.
“Mr. Bellerwood,” I began, my voice steady, “why did you want to meet me?”
He moved to his desk, his movements precise and deliberate. “I take a personal interest in anything that involves my daughter. Your success is now tied to hers and Scott’s. Therefore, I have an interest.” He picked up a photo of Monica, Scott, and Sylvia. “Also, I’ve never liked the Gravestones.”
The last part was a jolt, but I kept my composure. “You know my . . . them?” I asked, the word ‘my’ still catching in my throat like a fish bone.
“Oh, yes,” he said, his focus still on the photo.
I took a breath, my heart starting to beat a little faster. This was a leap, but I had to take it. “Then you know about Simmons as well?”
“Of course.”
The air in the room grew thick with unspoken history. I pushed forward, my voice barely above a whisper. “Do you know why the Gravestones feared him? What did Simmons use to blackmail them into funding his work?”
Walt Bellerwood finally looked up from the photo, his pale eyes meeting mine. He didn’t answer. His gaze went distant, his entire body becoming unnervingly still, as if he had retreated inside his own head to access a long-sealed file.
A moment later he surfaced from his thoughts as if from a great depth, his pale eyes fixing on me once more. He didn’t answer my question directly. Instead, he began laying out facts, like a man assembling a complex puzzle on the table between us.
“When Zachary Danford discovered what Charles Simmons had done to him and the other twins,” Walt began, his tone flat and academic, “his first instinct was to go after what he perceived as the weakest link in the Simmons chain: his granddaughter, Charlotte.”
“His wife?” I asked, the pieces clicking into place.
“Yes. She’s the reason the journals surfaced. It was through her that we all came to understand the true nature of her grandfather’s experiments, as well as his personal history.”
“About his father choosing his brother and abandoning him in Austria?”
“Correct,” Walt confirmed. “If you’ve read the journals, you understand the roots of Simmons’s psychosis.”
“I skimmed most of it,” I admitted. “But yes. I think I understand how his mother’s suicide and his father’s abandonment destroyed him.”
“His life was full of unfortunate occurrences,” Walt said, a flicker of something—disdain, perhaps—in his eyes.
“But he chose what that turned him into.” He paused, his gaze sharpening.
“A piece of advice, Mr. Ryse. Never trust a man who grows oleanders and knows more than one person who has died of a heart attack.”
The words hung in the air, cryptic and chilling. And then it hit me. A flash of a memory, sharp and unwelcome: Sara, in her apartment, her voice soft as she spoke of the man who had saved her and her mother had died from a heart attack . . .
I shook the memory off, forcing myself to focus on the more pressing question. “Do you think Charlotte would know what Simmons used to blackmail the Gravestones?”
Walt placed the family photo back on his desk, his movements precise. “Simmons’s father was a Nazi officer in World War II. After the war, he fled to Canada. My guess has always been that Simmons knew exactly how the Gravestones made their initial fortune.”
My mouth went dry. “And how was that?”
Walt seemed to retreat again for a moment, his eyes losing focus before he returned, his voice dropping to a cold, hard whisper. “Helping Nazis escape Germany and hide their assets all over the world was extremely lucrative for those who could stomach such things.”
I swayed on my feet, the pristine office seeming to tilt around me. The velvet drapes, the polished marble, the lifetime of cruelty—it was all built on a foundation of pure evil. “That’s how the Gravestones got rich?”
Walt frowned, as if the answer were obvious.
“If you ever want the Gravestones gone,” he said, his voice dropping even lower, “I know people. Groups who have spent the last eighty years hunting down the men who did what they did, and the families who helped them. Especially if they discover a second generation used that blood money to continue down a dark path.” He met my gaze, his eyes devoid of emotion.
“I’m sure they could arrange for it to happen in a way that would allow you to keep your inheritance. ”
I recoiled, shaking my head vehemently. “No. I wouldn’t want a single cent of their dirty money.”
“Money is only as dirty as the hands that hold it,” Walt countered smoothly. “You could do a great deal of good with it. Perhaps even help your FBI friend stay safe. She’s making some powerful enemies.”
My friend? The words felt foreign. “Sara Linde?”
“She’s still digging for the truth,” Walt explained, a hint of what might have been admiration in his tone.
“Interviewing people she shouldn’t, connecting dots others have worked very hard to keep separate.
People are beginning to take notice. It won’t be long before someone sees her as a problem that needs to be erased. ”
A cold dread washed over me, a feeling I had been trying to suppress for weeks. I shoved it down. “She’s no one to me.”
“Well, that makes things easier, then,” Walt said, turning away with an air of finality, his tone utterly dismissive.
“I thought for a moment you were going to ask me to orchestrate the downfall of a powerful family while simultaneously protecting a federal agent who is actively making herself a target. If you don’t care about her, we could probably pin the whole ugly mess on her and move on.
No loose ends. It would be . . . clean.”
The room went silent. The casual cruelty of his suggestion, the way he offered up her life as a convenient solution, was a test. And I knew, with sickening certainty, he was not bluffing.
“No,” I choked out, my voice raw. I waved a hand, a desperate, clumsy gesture. “Wait.”
Walt turned back slowly, his expression a blank slate, and waited.
The words were ripped from me, a confession that tasted like ash. “God help me, I . . . if she’s in danger, I want your help. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”
Walt’s lips thinned into what might have been a smile. “I’m not God, Mr. Ryse. But I can bring a level of wrath down on the Gravestones that even He would approve of.”
I swallowed, the air in my lungs feeling thin and useless. He was offering me justice. Vengeance. And Sara’s safety. But the price was my soul. No matter what they did to me, no matter what they were, could I be the reason they were . . . erased?
“I need a day to think about this.”
“You do that,” he said smoothly as he walked me to the door of his office. “But do yourself a favor and don’t tell anyone what we spoke of today.”