Epilogue
Eian
The room looks like any other conference room in the city, I suppose, except it has no windows. The table seats eighteen, though, and has to be at least fifteen feet long.
“This is one of several locations where we meet,” Harry explains, like he’s a realtor showing a house to a buying couple.
I snort at the thought and watch Colby’s face as he listens intently to every word coming out of Harry’s mouth as if it’s gospel.
The nudge in my side has me looking down at Iris.
“What?” she whispers.
“He’s such a dork,” I tell her, and she can’t hide her snort, so I know she agrees, but she also clearly admires her dad so damn much.
“After he told me about the Turris I started to understand why he’s like that,” she murmurs. “He needs to have fun in his life because believe me, this right here ain’t it.”
“I hear you.”
The door behind us opens and all the people from Friday night flood in, one by one realizing I’m here, one by one stopping in their tracks.
“What is the meaning of this, Harrison?” I’ve familiarized myself with them all with Colby’s help, so I know the woman who just spoke is Michelle Blackwell, Chair of Theatre and the biggest name in Broadway. The one who decides what gets made and what doesn’t.
“Sit down so we can get started,” Harry says with an amount of patience I do not possess.
But then Stephen Windsor, Chair of Art and supposed owner of most museums in the city, scoffs like he has any right to.
“You can’t possibly mean—”
“Sit. Down.” Harry’s words sound like shots in the room. Not because he shouts, oh no, he just wields his voice like a weapon infused with every ounce of power behind his name, and everybody listens—they have no choice but to listen.
Me included.
I walk to the head of the table opposite Harry and pull the chair back, but a delicate throat clearing behind me stops me.
“That’s my seat, Uncle Eian,” Iris says, not bothering to lower her voice, and her smirk tells me how much she enjoys the gasps around the room. I gesture at the chair, for her to sit, and then push it forward. When she’s settled, I lean down to kiss her forehead.
“Of course, princess.”
A snort comes from the other side of the table.
Zachary Wall—or Zack, I suppose.
I know all about him.
“Princess,” he says like it’s the funniest thing ever.
“If you’re stupid enough to not fear her after she almost cut off your balls,” I say, in an almost bored tone but make sure my face looks anything but bored as I stare him down. “Then I suggest you fear the man who taught her how to throw a knife.”
His poker face sucks. No matter how hard he tries to, he can’t hide his fear from me.
Iris told me about their confrontation when we were in the car and Colby was hounding Harry with a million questions, so that little asshole is on my shit list forever.
“Sit, Eian,” Harry says, but the smirk on his face doesn’t lie.
Yes, Your Highness, is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite that back and sit next to Iris with Colby on my other side.
Next to him is Michelle Blackwell, then her son Matthew, then Eli Ellsworth, the tablet guy from the other night, and his father Michael. And lastly Baron Alton, the oldest Alton brother, and his daughter Beatrice is next to Harry.
The museums guy is right in front of me, one of the other two girls from this weekend beside him—his daughter Patricia.
Then there’s the hotels guy, Richard Cockerton—which will never not be funny—and his daughter Virginia.
Next to them sits Jim Barclay, who owns almost every professional sports team in the city, and his son Tucker, and finally . . .
“Well?” The woman on Harry’s right asks. She’s Shirley Wall, Chair of Wealth, and boy is she wealthy.
The world thinks she’s richer than Harry, and of course now I know that’s not technically true, but she does own and lead one of the largest banks in the world.
She’s Zack’s mother. The little rat.
“You heard her.” Harry nods at Iris. “Eian is my cousin and Iris’s uncle.
Yes, he’s also the head of the Irish Mafia, and yes, I’ve been keeping this a secret from everyone all my life, as did my father.
Yes, my mother is the sister of Ronan Dempsey, and you should all be glad she has better self-restraint than he did or more than a few of you would’ve died while she was Dad’s heir then mine.
Yes, today we’re inducting Eian as the roof of the Turris and Chair of People, and no . . .”
His steel gaze meets every face in the room except mine.
“I don’t care if any of you think that’s a good idea or not.”
Well then . . .
“Let’s get started, shall we?” I ask, all smiles for my new friends. “Don’t look so gloomy.” I chuckle at the varying emotions—rage, confusion, and almost hate in some. “You’d all still be listening to that asshole Brent if it weren’t for me.”
I smirk over at Michael Ellsworth then drop the funny act and make sure every word comes out very clearly.
“And you’d still be firing good people without cause.”
“It’s fine,” Colby says, and pats my forearm. “I’m sure he feels bad enough, don’t you, Michael?”
Colby’s smile is not kind. At all.
Fuck I love him.
An hour later, after discussing in excruciating detail how the Russians, Chinese, and even Italians helped us close down the human trafficking operation upstate, how the FBI has taken over, and what the situation with the mayor will be moving forward, everyone stands to leave.
“May I have a word?” I ask Michael Ellsworth, then look at his son. “With both of you?”
Michael turns scared eyes to Harrison, who nods in reassurance.
“He won’t hurt either of you, but I’ll stay if you want.”
Clearly no one gives a fuck what I want, but it’s Harrison, so I don’t mind.
A lot of significant looks get thrown around as everybody else takes their sweet-ass time getting the fuck out, but then Iris stays too, and when I raise an eyebrow in question, she raises one right back, daring me to tell her to leave.
I let out an annoyed sigh.
“You’re becoming annoyingly similar to your father,” I tell her.
“Thank you.” She stands taller.
“Wasn’t a compliment.” I send her a wink then look at Eli. “It’s my understanding that you’re exceptionally good with computers?” I phrase it like a question, but Harry already gave us the rundown of every member—Chair or heir—of the Turris.
“I-I am,” the poor boy stutters, and manages to sound even younger than he looks. Only twenty-one, but it makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old.
“I have a guy, young like you, in my family. He’s pretty good too, but Harry assured me you’re better. I was wondering if he can . . . contact you.” I really don’t like asking anyone for any favors, but Seamus deserves the chance to become who he wants to become.
When we told him—and only him—someone had controlled the speakers of Brent’s office, he was very intrigued by how they managed to do that so quickly.
“I could’ve done it,” he said. “But only if I’d already hacked into the system and had been right there with you guys.”
He looked so fucking excited about the prospect of learning how to do that, and I felt bad all over again about ending his time in college without warning. Especially since, as his father told me, he’d finally made some friends besides Bran.
So yeah, for him I’ll ask.
“Sure, of course,” Eli says quickly after sharing a glance with his father. “I’ll text you my handle, and he’ll know how to find me.”
“I have no idea what a handle is, but yeah, sure, let me give you my number.”
He smiles at me in a sheepish but sneaky kind of way—how he manages that is beyond me.
“That’s okay,” he says simply, and I’m stupidly confused for a long second before I get it.
“Right. You already have my number?”
“Uh-huh,” he says and bounces a little on his shoes.
“I got it the other night to erase your GPS footprint before the Feds got there. It was a good idea to turn it off.” He speaks even faster now, more animated.
“But it was still on when you got there, so I took care of that for you and for the two people you had cut the lines on the transformers down in the sewers.”
I stare for a long moment, honestly a little worried about how much information he has, so I turn to look at Harry accusingly and he lifts his hands in surrender.
“All I told him was to make sure no one could ever find out you’d been there.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Eli mumbles. “I know I can sound like a creep sometimes.”
Colby snorts loudly next to me.
“If there’s someone you don’t have to worry about sounding like a creep to . . .” He pauses to point his thumb at me, and for dramatic effect or some shit like that. “It’s this guy.”
“Ha,” Eli laughs loudly, then turns right back to shy. “In any case, I’ll get you the details so your guy can contact me.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, still feeling like a tornado just passed through me.
“And I want to say,” Michael pipes up, looking right at Colby. “I’m really sorry about how you were fired, Colby. And that you were fired.”
“It’s okay.” Colby waves that off and I can see he actually doesn’t hold a resentment toward Michael.
That makes one of us.
“I want you to know I didn’t hear about it until a week later, and Rufus told me it was because you violated the code of ethics. I didn’t have any reasons not to believe him. Brent went directly to him.”
I guess that’s something . . .
“If you want to come back, I can assure you, the new head of ENN would love to have you.”
“Rufus is gone?” Colby asks, surprised.
“Of course! He fired you without cause and . . .” He pauses to throw an arm over Eli’s shoulder. “Eli here found he had a deeper connection to Brent.”
“Oh,” Colby says simply. “I—can I think about it?”
“Take all the time you need,” Michael says with a warm smile that makes me want to snarl at him. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to get back home because my step-son is in town for a game today.”
“A game?” Colby asks, then shakes his head. “Oh right, sorry. Your wife’s sons play hockey, right?”
“Yes, they do.” He looks so wholesome and proud of them.
It’s really annoying. “Lex is coming in to play the Demons, so a long night with Jim in the owner’s box awaits.
” The eye roll as he says his name tells me everything he thinks about the owner of the New York hockey team.
I guess Michael’s not the worst. He jostles Eli a little and looks down at him with a big smile.
“We’re excited to have him visiting anyway, aren’t we? ”
“Y-yes, we are,” Eli says.
He’s trying to pretend he’s not blushing, that he might not be as excited.
Or is he excited for a whole different reason?
I control my damn face, but damn if Eli didn’t just impress me even more with that reaction—I never would have thought he’d have it in him.
The Ellsworths take their leave and I watch Colby, Harry, and Iris closely, trying to see if they saw what I just saw.
“That poor boy,” Iris says with an empathetic sigh after the door closes behind him.
“Right?” Colby exclaims. “I bet there’s a story there.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Iris shouts excitedly then grabs Colby’s arm and steers him to the exit.
I watch them go, unable to stop my smile. I fucking love seeing Colby talking to Iris. I love that he knows her, that he knows how important she is to me.
Harry claps me on the shoulder.
“Wanna stay over? Nan wants more time with Maggie and Theo is threatening to go to your house to meet Colby, and they’ll be home tonight to watch the game.”
I laugh. I can only imagine what that scene would look like to my security guards.
“I’ll call Bran.”
“Rory and Duffy too,” Harry says.
As we walk out, my shoulders drop with the knowledge that at least for tonight we’re all safe.