Chapter 15
Geri and Quinn told Mark they wished to speak with Rich. Apparently Kevin had given Quinn some grief over wanting a one-on-one with the big man, but Mark just told them he’d let Rich know. An hour later, as they were drinking in the restaurant, he told them to come with him.
Neither dared suggest they finish their drinks first. Something told Geri that they were doing this on Rich’s time or not at all.
Mark herded them into the elevator that went up to the boardroom, but he stopped it at the floor just below the familiar one. He took them to a closed door, knocked once, and ordered them inside.
As nervous as she was to face Rich in his office, there was some serious relief in here—air conditioning. Especially compared to the rest of the hotel, the room was downright arctic.
“Ms. Cole. Mr. Hayworth.” Rich leaned back in his desk chair and gestured at the seats in front of his desk. “Sit down. I understand you want to speak with me.”
As they took their seats, Geri said, “Yes. We do.” She and Quinn looked at each other.
Then Quinn spoke. “To put it bluntly, you’ve made your point. We both”—he gestured at Geri, then himself—“didn’t understand how much damage our families and our companies did to get us the wealth we have.”
Geri nodded. “There’s no excuse for it. We didn’t know, but we do now. And we both want the opportunity to make some of that right.”
Rich studied them both for an uncomfortably long moment. “Well, I’ll give you both credit. You seem to have absorbed my message more quickly than most of your ilk. You seem to understand the damage done in the name of the wealth you now possess.”
“We do,” Quinn croaked. “Very much so.”
Geri nodded. “You’ve, um… You’ve definitely made your point.”
“I’m sure,” Rich said. “And I’m not at all surprised that out of the twelve people I picked for this game, it’s the two of you sitting in here telling me this.”
“How do you mean?” Quinn asked.
Rich folded his hands in his lap. “Some of the others in the boardroom probably won’t come to the same conclusions you two have. I’ve long believed it takes a psychopath to be a billionaire, because only a billionaire could hoard so much wealth while so much suffering goes on around them. Especially when that wealth came from the suffering of others.” He half-shrugged. “So I’ll commend the two of you for possessing enough humanity to finally recognize what you have.”
“I’m ashamed that I didn’t know before,” Quinn said. “I should have. But…” He sighed, shaking his head.
“You have the capacity for it,” Rich acknowledged. “That’s more than some of the other people in your social class can say.”
Hope swelled in Geri along with some cautious preemptive relief. He believed them that they’d seen the light. Thank God.
“Heirs like the two of you can go either way in that respect,” Rich went on. “Realizing their part in the destruction versus willfully turning a blind eye or not believing they’re responsible for it. They’re born into a gilded life. They don’t make the destructive decisions that fill their bank accounts.” He rocked his head from side to side. “Some follow right in their parents’ footsteps. The entitled apple doesn’t fall far from the rotting tree, after all. They’re incapable and unwilling to conjure up the empathy or the perspective to see—or care—how much people suffer so they can be wealthy.”
Geri’s face burned and she stared down at her hands.
Rich wasn’t done. “But others, especially those whose parents encourage them to get educated and travel, can often stay more grounded. More in touch with their humanity. And when they realize where their family’s wealth comes from, they try to balance the scales. Maybe they don’t give away the wealth and destroy the business, but they try to do good. Humanitarian projects. Activism.” He shrugged. “Things that can hopefully tilt the karmic scales in their favor.”
Geri shifted in her chair. “I won’t lie—I feel terrible for being in that first category. But now that you’ve shown me…” She swallowed hard.
“Me too,” Quinn said softly. “This has been, um… eye-opening.”
“I’m sure it has.” Rich inclined his head. “Which is why you’re in here to ask if you can still claim the golden ticket.”
Geri tensed. Beside her, Quinn straightened so fast his chair squeaked.
“How, um…” She shook herself. “How did you know?”
Rich laughed almost soundlessly. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Ms. Cole. And people are surprisingly predictable when facing the things I’m making you all face.”
Geri gulped. “So you understand that you’ve made your point.” She gestured at Quinn. “That we’re willing to take you up on your bargain—divest our wealth to your exact requirements—and work to make things better.”
“I do understand that,” he said with a nod. “And I do believe that you recognize where you and your families have gone wrong.” His expression hardened and his tone went with it. “The problem is that you only recognized it when you had something to lose.”
“What?” Geri sat up. “But… why didn’t you show us the things you did before you gave us that choice? Everything you put on our walls?”
Rich turned a bored expression on her. “Because the offer wasn’t to see who could be shocked or scared into parting with their wealth. It was to see who hadn’t become fully consumed by their greed. Once you all told me who you were, well…” He half-shrugged again. “Then it was time to play the real game.” He paused. “And if you’re wondering why we went with those projections—well, quite frankly, if any of you possessed a conscience, you’d be kept up at night anyway. Since none of you have one, we’re improvising with projectors.” He made a dismissive gesture. “And either way, the golden ticket was a one-time offer. If you want off the island now… you have to win the game.”
Quinn fidgeted. “Even after—”
“Yes,” Rich snapped. “Listen, I had high hopes for the two of you. Bright. Educated. You even seemed moderately empathetic. Seemingly decent human beings, despite living in ivory towers. That was why I gave you both time to show that you were better than your parents. That you wouldn’t fall into their traps and be like them.” He waved a hand. “You could have broken the cycle, but you didn’t. You chose greed over an opportunity to make a massive difference to enormous numbers of people less fortunate than you.” He spread his hands. “And that’s why you’re staying here.”
Quinn and Geri glanced at each other, then faced Rich again.
“But we want to break the cycle,” Geri insisted. “We want—”
“You want to save your own skin,” Rich growled. “Otherwise we’d have had this conversation before two of your peers ruined the boardroom carpet.”
Geri’s mouth went dry. Quinn sat back, exhaling hard.
“I tried to be optimistic that the utter psychopaths in this social strata could learn to see reason,” Rich said. “And certainly some of them can, but I have yet to meet those who will get there without a literal gun to their heads. I’ve run out of patience and I don’t have three ghosts at my disposal.” He eyed them both coolly. “So I’ve begun the process of ridding the world of its most toxic vermin. I give the heirs a chance to prove their humanity. If they don’t— when they don’t…” He trailed off and shrugged dismissively.
“Wait, when you say you’re ridding the world—and you wait for the heirs to…” Quinn shifted in his chair. “Are you saying you killed our parents?”
Rich looked right at him. “Are you surprised?”
Quinn paled. Geri’s stomach knotted. She was shocked, and yet… somehow not. Maybe because she’d stopped assuming there was any depth to which Rich would not go. Murder was very clearly not beneath him. Why should she think that Eric Valentine was his first kill?
A memory swam to the surface. The people moving body bags when she first came to the island.
Holy shit.
“How?” she breathed. “How do you get away with—”
“With killing some of the most high-profile people in the world?” Rich smirked. “Oh, my dear. It’s so much easier than you would think.”
They both stared at him.
Rich grinned that unsettling grin. “The lifestyles of the rich and famous mean extremes that lesser mortals never experience. Every corpse on Mount Everest is a wealthy idiot who thought he could conquer the world. And most of them stay up there. Some become landmarks for other climbers. And some… Well, some are never found.” He chuckled. “Who’s going to go up and confirm that Ken Whitney actually fell after an ice ledge collapsed during a storm?”
“You…” Quinn blinked. “He didn’t die on Everest?”
“No. A lot of people do, so no one questions it.” Rich picked up his coffee and idly swirled it like wine. “And as I’m sure you’re aware, Mr. Hayworth, helicopters are far more dangerous than people realize. Statistically, very few of them crash. But when they do crash… well.”
Quinn’s breath left him in a rush, and Geri caught up fast. Months before her own father’s death, he’d attended the funeral after Janice and Philip Hayworth had been killed on their way home from Aspen when their helicopter went down.
She sat back, her mind reeling.
Rich wasn’t finished. “Sometimes it isn’t so elaborate. Sometimes a person’s circumstances make killing them without raising questions extraordinarily easy. Incidentally, Ms. Cole, did you know that thallium poisoning mimics Guillain-Barré syndrome?”
Her lips parted as her heart hit the floor. “You… you poisoned my dad?”
He held her gaze. “How difficult do you think it is to offer a life-changing bribe to a desperately underpaid employee to slip something into their employer’s food?”
The memories of her father’s horrible end crashed over her. The doctors had all said it was pneumonia associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome, which he’d been suffering from for years and had suddenly worsened. That they’d managed his symptoms and done the best they could, but in the end…
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered.
“So, what?” Quinn asked. “You’re just going to… pick us all off? I mean, even if you kill us, our money goes to others. My sister will inherit my estate. My parents’ company will continue. The board of directors and the shareholders will—”
“I’m quite aware, Mr. Hayworth,” Rich snapped. “And I assure you, while I may have run out of patience with individuals, I am still a very, very patient hunter. And I will continue to hunt and neutralize and eradicate, following the money from heir to heir, successor to successor, until it lands in the hands of someone who hasn’t lost touch with their humanity.”
“How many are you going to kill?” Geri rasped. “When does it end?”
“It ends one of two ways.” Rich folded his hands on the edge of the desk. “When the heirs use their wealth and power to benefit the masses instead of themselves. Or when the billionaires are too scared to continue their high-risk lifestyle, and redistribute their wealth out of cowardice.” He chuckled and shrugged. “I’ll accept either outcome, and I’ll keep going for as long as it takes to reach that objective. At the end of the day, there will be fewer billionaires one way or the other.”
Icicles formed along Geri’s spine.
Rich wasn’t a madman.
He was worse—completely rational and coherent, and fully committed to his crusade.
He wasn’t going to let them use the golden ticket. He wasn’t going to let either of them leave unless they won the game.
And he wasn’t going to stop killing until there were no billionaires left.