Chapter 18 Colby #2
“I’ll leave you to talk about whatever the second thing is.” Eian comes in right then, looking only slightly ridiculous holding a silver tray. “Are you going to tell Duffy, Mac, and Blake?” Rory asks him.
“I don’t know yet,” Eian mumbles. “Probably,” he adds after setting the tray down on the coffee table.
It’s then that I notice a stack a good seven inches high of papers.
What makes me gasp, though, is the ring on top of them. The ring that’s on a chain and has the letters brETT on it. They’re spaced out differently, though, in a circle.
It’s a typical class ring, but I’ve never seen any other like it.
It’s Brent’s ring, the one Luisa told us about.
I open my mouth but the words get stuck in my throat.
This is that other thing.
Whatever those papers are, whatever that ring means, that’s what Eian doesn’t want to tell Rory.
Has Eian known all this time? Did he realize what would happen the second Luisa mentioned the ring?
No.
I can’t believe that. I won’t believe that. So I swallow those questions down and wait as Rory says goodnight to everyone and closes the door behind her.
“Did you explain anything to him?” Harrison’s voice seems distant now.
“No, I just woke him up,” Eian tells him, and it sounds defensive. My gaze snaps up to see him sitting in Rory’s previous spot on the couch.
“Of course you did,” Harrison mutters and sounds just like an older brother.
It only hits me then—like a fucking sledgehammer.
These two are family, they probably grew up together.
The only man who might be more powerful than Eian is his cousin.
And Iris. Iris is Eian’s niece, and—
“Wait a goddamn minute!” I shout, and the lightbulb lighting up in my brain forces me to stand. “You were testing me!” I point accusingly at Eian.
“What?”
He looks so adorable. No. Focus, Colby!
“When we talked about the bakery, MP, and the baker. You knew it was his son all along?” I point my thumb at Harrison.
“Oh,” Eian says and starts chuckling. “Yeah, it’s a good thing you didn’t tell me who you thought it was, and thanks to you, now we’ve made sure Mike knows to mind his words when he’s not in the kitchen.”
“Yeah, that was some impressive investigative work, Colby,” Harrison says like he’s actually impressed.
“This is such a mindfuck,” I mumble. I can’t freaking imagine Eian and Theo Crawford talking, hanging out.
Unlike Harrison and Iris, Theo shies away from the media, so most people know very little about him.
So much so that he wasn’t photographed at all from when he was just a kid—when his mother and father divorced—till about four, five years ago?
Yeah I think it was five years ago when pictures of him and Harrison came out.
They were in the hospital, and Theo was crying. His husband—boyfriend back then, I suppose—is a football player and he’d taken a bad hit during a game.
Since then, he’s been more public. He’s always at the stadium of the Kings, in the owner’s box, and from time to time pictures of him and his husband walking around Manhattan show up in society pieces.
Every single thing I know about Theo Crawford tells me that he might be possibly the complete opposite to Eian.
And they are uncle and nephew?
Seriously?
“I’m sure so many revelations are tough to digest, but I’d really love to finish this as soon as possible. Iris and I have a plane to catch to Atlanta.”
“That’s right!” Eian says suddenly, and gives me one more minute to process. “You were all supposed to be in fucking Georgia, Harry. Why aren’t you?”
“Well, you sent that damn message just as we were leaving the house for the airport. And when I checked your location and saw where you were, I knew I needed to go save your ass.”
“Save my ass? I had it handled,” Eian lies.
“You did not.” They banter back and forth until Harry holds up a hand. “In any case, as far as any official records show, Iris and I were on that plane, so no one knows we’re even in the city.”
“That’s good,” Eian grumbles.
“Okay, Colby, are you ready to pay attention?” Harrison asks me.
“Yes. I think. I’m pretty sure.” I nod at him to start but slide down to kneel on the floor and make myself a cup of coffee. I know for a fact I’ll need it.
As he goes through a pretty quick and dirty explanation, my coffee cup is forgotten on the table, and I can only stare when he finishes—super lamely. “So now Eian is going to do the work of the Chair of the People, and you are his heir.”
“What?” I ask. Okay, maybe scream. “Me? Why me? When?”
“You have a lot more questions than Eian,” Harrison mumbles then shrugs. “But then again, I should’ve known you would. Oh, hell, pour me a coffee while you get your shit together,” he tells me.
And I . . .
Well, I pour the man a coffee, then allow Eian to drag me over so I’m sitting between him and Harrison on the couch.
“What are your questions?” Harrison asks after two sips.
“What the hell is Chair of the People, and you said the mayor was the roof? What does that mean? Is Brent going to blow the whistle on this Turris thing? What happened to him after we left? And why am I an heir? I doubt I’ll outlive Eian.”
An adorable grumble rumbles out of Eian’s chest, I can feel it in my arm, so I reach over and pat his leg. He might not like it, but I think it’s a strong possibility, after all he’s a healthy, ripped hunk of a man, and I’m . . . well, a reporter. Yeah, more than ten years younger, but still.
“You’re the same age as my husband, did you know that?” Harrison asks.
“No, I didn’t,” I mumble distractedly.
“I’m sure you’ll make Eian happy and die after he does,” he says as if waving that last part away.
“But to answer your questions, let me go over some of it again. Turris means tower in latin. Our ancestors built this whole diagram you could say, where we’re all stacked on top of each other, and when they had to bring in the mayor around a hundred years ago, they invented a freaking roof, so he’d still be part of that symbolism.
The Turris is made up of nine chairs, and previously eight heirs because the Chair of People didn’t have an heir, naturally. ”
“Naturally,” I repeat, a bit breathless, but damn it, I’m doing my best to take all of this in.
“Now it will have one, but let’s table that for a moment.
Brent is in the custody of the FBI . . .
that’s what happened after you left his house.
He won’t tell anyone about the Turris, not only because he’d sound insane, but because he cares enough about his family.
He signed a lot of very binding legal documents that will put his family’s future at risk, so he’ll be disgraced and let his family still have a somewhat stable future.
I can assure you the FBI is very satisfied with the confession they got from Brent, and they’re already working on tracking down the hacker he hired to keep the auction site working.
As far as they know, there’s no mafia involved in this whatsoever.
“The Crawfords are the Chair of Foundation, the Walls are the Chair of Wealth, the Altons are the Chair of Law. The rest are Sports, Information, Art, Theatre, and Residence which is really just their fancy way of saying hotels.”
“Barclay, Ellsworth, Windsor, Blackwell, and Cockerton,” I mumble, remembering all the people who were there.
“Precisely,” Harrison agrees with a very wide smile.
“What’s with the ring?” I ask, nodding in the direction of the stack of papers.
“Ah, another silly tradition, but it has its purpose. So I have this one.” He reaches under the collar of his shirt and pulls out a gold chain with a ring on it. He shows it to me, and when I lean in, I can make out the shape of a . . . a rook. Like in chess.
Well, I suppose that’s a tower.
“The Crawfords hold the tower.”
“The Chair of Foundation,” I whisper, almost to myself. “Ah, because you own the land, and the buildings?”
Again, Harrison smiles and leans around me to smirk at Eian.
“He’s so much smarter than you.”
“He is,” Eian agrees, and I don’t need to turn around to see the sappy smile on his face. I pat him on the leg again, he deserves it.
“So each Chair has a ring, and each ring has a different piece of the puzzle you could say, so when every Chair puts their seal on whatever it is we’re doing, the seal of the Turris appears.
When it does, it says, aequilibrium servandum est ut turris stet.
It means balance must be met for the tower to stand.
” Harrison’s blue eyes fly up to connect with Eian’s then.
“Did you know my dad suggested the name Brett for you?”
“He did?” Eian asks quietly.
“Yes, he told me that one time when I came home on break from college. I can’t know, of course, if this is why.
” He reaches for the ring on top of the papers and offers it to Eian.
“But I’m choosing to believe it’s a sign that he would have approved of this move, and a sign that you should hold the Chair of People. ”
Eian takes the ring, and in the sudden silence I feel this instinct to move things along, to bring Harrison’s focus back to me so Eian can process this . . . this insanity.
“So everybody has to put their seal in for something to be like . . . validated?”
“Exactly. But there are some exceptions, like today. Sometimes a Crawford makes a decision, and everyone else just needs to kind of . . . deal with it.”
“Deal with it?” I repeat, hoping for some clarification.
“Harry’s an entitled asshole,” Eian says and I turn to look at him. “But he kind of has his reasons.” He shrugs while still looking at that damned ring, then grips my chin to turn my head back toward Harrison.
“What are those reasons? What does the Turris even do?” I demand.
Harrison stares at me for a long moment. I don’t know if it’s to let the silence linger and make me uncomfortable or to think of how to answer. I don’t know him at all so it’s really hard to tell.