14. Vincent
14
VINCENT
I t’s been ten years since I’ve sat in this house, eaten these sandwiches, and faced this man across the table. I’d forgotten how effortlessly he can make me feel small. How quickly he can strip me down to nothing with just a look. How easy it is to see the soullessness behind those sharp blue eyes.
I forgot this particular brand of torture. But forgetting doesn’t stop the weight of insignificance from slamming into me the moment his gaze locks onto mine.
Gerald Beaumont also known as ‘Papa’ used to hold the world in the palm of his hand. Now, he’s a shell of the man he once was, but that doesn’t make him any less terrifying. If anything, it makes him worse.
“You’re thinner,” he finally says, his voice as cold and detached as I remember. “Not eating well?”
My stomach knots, but I keep my posture straight, my hands folded neatly in my lap to keep them from trembling. “I eat just fine. ”
He hums, unconvinced, and dabs at the corner of his mouth with a linen napkin. “I’d say you look like your mother, but you don’t.” His lips curve, but there’s nothing warm about it. “She had a softness to her.”
The words land like a slap, but I don’t flinch. I won’t give him that satisfaction. “Ouch, Papa, and I thought I was your favorite.” I sigh in an over dramatic manner, widening my eyes so it looks like I am pouting.
“You wouldn’t be the devil's favorite,” he grunts, opening a cucumber sandwich and peeking inside.
I force myself to lean forward, resting my elbows on the pristine tablecloth—a deliberate breach of the etiquette drilled into me as a child. Etiquette he prides himself on.
"We need to talk about the family finances," I say, my voice steadier than I feel.
Papa's eyebrow arches slightly—the only indication that I've caught him off guard. "Do we now?" He sets down his sandwich, untouched.
"The Beaumont accounts are empty." I keep my eyes locked on his, searching for any flicker of surprise or concern. There is none. "The properties are mortgaged to the hilt. The art collection's been replaced with forgeries." My voice hardens. "We're broke, Papa. The empire you built is nothing but smoke and mirrors now."
For a moment, silence hangs between us, heavy and suffocating. Then, unexpectedly, Papa throws his head back and laughs. It's a harsh, grating sound, devoid of any real humor.
"Broke?" he repeats, his eyes glittering with cruel amusement. " You think the Beaumonts are broke?" He leans forward, mirroring my posture. "You never were very bright, Vincent."
“I've seen the accounts. I've talked to the bankers. The family is in ruins.”
Papa reaches for his teacup, taking a slow, deliberate sip before responding. “And you came running back to me for what?” Another laugh, shorter this time. “Oh I know! Thank you, Vincent. It is very noble of you to keep an old man in the loop.”
“Papa,” I snarl, my eyes widening as I get closer to the table and push my finger into the table. “Your legacy is gone, the Beaumonts--”
“The Beaumonts will never be broke, dear boy.” Papa clicks his tongue, filling my teacup with the hibiscus tea from the teapot on the table. “Do you know how the Beaumonts got our money?”
“Thomas Beaumont made some mechanical parts that revolutionized the automobile.” I rattle off and Papa gives me a toothy smile that immediately makes my skin crawl.
Papa chuckles, “Is that the story they're going with now? Well more imaginative than what my father told me. He said Taylor Beaumont made the coffee lid.”
I stare at him, confusion written across my face. This isn't the family history I was taught, the carefully curated legacy that's been drilled into me since childhood.
"Neither story is true," Papa continues, setting the teapot down with deliberate precision. His blue eyes—the same shade as mine—gleam with a strange pride. "The Beaumonts were never inventors, Vincent. We were never creators. We were something far more effective." He leans forward. "We were thieves."
My throat tightens. "What are you talking about?"
"Your great-grandfather, the illustrious Thomas Beaumont, was nothing more than a con man with expensive taste and excellent timing. He didn't invent a single thing in his miserable life." Papa takes a sip of his tea, watching me over the rim. "What he did do was marry the daughter of the Cooliage household maid."
I shake my head slightly, trying to make sense of what he's saying. "The Cooliages? The Boston family?"
"Old money," Papa confirms. "Very old money. Shipping magnates, railroad investors, all that boring legitimate wealth that takes generations to build." His lips curl into a sneer. "The kind of wealth that makes people soft and trusting."
A cold feeling starts to spread through my chest. "What did Thomas do?"
"He seduced their maid's daughter, married her, and gained access to the household. Over the course of five years, he systematically emptied their accounts, forged documents, redirected investments, and ultimately, when the timing was right—" Papa snaps his fingers, "—he vanished with the entirety of the Cooliage fortune."
I sit back, stunned. "That's impossible. Someone would have noticed."
"Oh, they noticed," Papa says with a wave of his hand. "But by then, Thomas had created an entirely new identity, complete with a fabricated family history going back generations. He moved across the country, established himself as a respected businessman with his 'inherited' wealth, and the Beaumont dynasty was born."
The sandwich in my hand suddenly feels heavy. I set it down untouched.
"The Cooliages were ruined," Papa continues, a note of admiration in his voice. "Three generations of wealth, gone overnight. The patriarch shot himself. The rest of the family scattered, trying to escape the shame."
"And no one ever connected it to us?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
Papa's smile widens. "There were suspicions, of course. But money buys excellent lawyers and even better silence. Besides, this was before the days of telephones and telegraphs. By the time anyone thought to look westward, Thomas Beaumont was already halfway to becoming the respected patriarch of a newly minted dynasty."
I struggle to process this information. Everything I thought I knew about my family, about my legacy, is a carefully constructed lie.
"Every generation of Beaumonts since has continued the tradition," Papa says, leaning back in his chair. "We find wealth, we take it, we reinvent ourselves. Your grandfather was particularly skilled at it. The Robinson fortune in the fifties, the Miller estate in the sixties... All absorbed into the Beaumont coffers through various creative means."
"We're thieves," I say flatly.
"We're survivors," Papa corrects sharply. "And survivors understand that wealth isn't created, Vincent. It's taken. "
I stare at him, seeing him clearly for perhaps the first time. "And you? Whose fortune did you steal?"
Papa chuckles to himself like it's a fond memory. "I stole the fortune from my father, shot him dead in the middle of our dining room."
The words hang between us like smoke. I search his face for any sign of deception, but his eyes hold only that cold, familiar pride.
"You killed your own father," I whisper, the teacup trembling slightly in my hand.
"I liberated his assets," Papa corrects, dabbing the corner of his mouth with his napkin. "And secured my future. In this very room, as a matter of fact." He glances at the polished wooden floors. "The bloodstains were such a nuisance to remove."
"Jesus Christ," I breathe.
"Don't act so shocked, Vincent." Papa's voice hardens. "The world runs on bloodshed and betrayal. The Beaumonts simply acknowledge what others pretend not to see."
I set down my cup, afraid I might drop it. "Why are you telling me this?"
Papa leans forward, his eyes suddenly sharp and focused. "Because it's time you understood your birthright. Your true inheritance." He points a bony finger at me. "The Beaumont fortune isn't gone—it's simply waiting for someone with the courage to claim it."
"What are you suggesting?" But I already know. The sickness rising in my throat tells me I've understood perfectly.
“Your father,” Papa says the word with undisguised contempt, “sits on resources he doesn't deserve and wouldn't know how to protect. He's a leech, Vincent. Always has been. He doesn’t know how to make a dynasty, only how to drain it dry.”
“Unlike me?” The question comes out barely audible.
Papa's smile is slow and satisfied. “I've watched you since you were a boy. You have it—that obsessive need behind your eyes. The ability to calculate, to detach. You're a true Beaumont.”
“You want me to steal from my own father.”
“I want you to take what's rightfully yours,” Papa corrects. He reaches across the table, his cold fingers gripping my wrist with surprising strength. “He's squandering what generations of Beaumonts have built. What I built. Your father took your mother’s last name for crying out loud. He’s not fit to be a Beaumont.”
I try to pull away, but his grip tightens.
"Think of it, Vincent. All that wealth—yours to control, to multiply. To use as it was meant to be used." His voice drops to a whisper. "All it takes is one moment of courage. One pull of a trigger."
"You're asking me to murder my father," I say, finally yanking my arm free.
Papa sits back, his face impassive once more. "I'm asking you to be a Beaumont. To continue a proud tradition."
"There's nothing proud about parricide," I spit.
"Isn't there?" Papa's eyebrow arches. "The weak make way for the strong. It's the natural order of things." He takes a sip of his tea, watching me over the rim. "Your father wouldn't hesitate if the roles were reversed. None of us would. "
I stand up so quickly my chair topples backward. "I'm nothing like you."
"Aren't you?" Papa doesn't even flinch. “I’ve heard of your little friend group. Gaining the loyalty of Juan Castillo, the heir to the cartel. Good job, boy.”
My hands are shaking. Not with fear, but with something worse—recognition. Because deep down, in places I've tried to ignore, I know he's right. About the coldness. About the calculations I make. About the lines I've already crossed.
He rises to his feet, steadier than a man his age should be. "Think about it, Vincent, be who you truly are.”
He leaves me standing there among the cucumber sandwiches and fine china, the weight of generations of theft and murder pressing down on my shoulders. And the worst part isn't his monstrous suggestion or the casual way he speaks of patricide.
The worst part is how clearly I can see it—the plan, the execution, the aftermath. How easily I can imagine myself pulling the trigger, but he’s wrong. I am not obsessed over money. I can see myself doing all of this for a doe-eyed girl with curly black hair and a smile that makes me fucking feral. I can see myself doing anything for that girl, and if this is the only way to go back to her, then so be it.
I am staying in Rosemary's apartment as it's the only place where I feel secure anymore. Though Cast, Damien, and I all have keys, Damien relocated to the penthouse three years ago and only visits on Rosemary's birthday. Cast processes his pain in the boxing ring or by burying it deep, letting it ferment like a toxin. Damien's sentimentality manifests in preservation— Rosemary's bedroom remains frozen in time, exactly as she left it the day ambulance lights flashed outside our windows. And I... I return whenever I want to feel safe, or loved. I haven’t been here since Willow said no to my proposal the first time.
Now this apartment offers shelter while I plan something unthinkable: my father's death.
Bile rolls up my throat as I think about it. I am going to make myself a fucking orphan, how fucked up is that?
I drift toward Rosemary's room as if pulled by invisible threads. The signature scent of cashmere and coconut has faded but still lingers like a ghost. The soft pink decor remains so perfectly intact that I half-expect her to emerge from the adjoining bathroom, hands glistening with cocoa butter, lips syncing to Eartha Kitt's velvet voice. I miss her with an ache that never dulls. She embodied everything I imagined a mother should be—everything my birth mother might have become had she not died in a mental institution miles away from me when I was six.
Leaning against the doorframe, I stare at the rumpled sheets and the half-burned Saint Maria candle on her nightstand. The room still smells faintly of cherries and smoke, like she was just here. I don’t know why, but words spill from me into the emptiness.
“Mama Rose, I haven’t talked to you in so long.” I let out a quiet laugh, though it barely reaches my lips. “I don’t remember the last time I felt lost enough to need to.”
I drag a hand through my hair, eyes catching on a photo propped up on the dresser. Me and the guys, ten years old, grinning on the beach with Rosemary. Her copper hair is a mess of knotted waves, and she’s smiling like she was the happiest person in the world. Maybe she was .
“Mama Rose, I fucked up. We all did.” My throat tightens. “We fell in love, and despite you keeping her alive, we keep putting her in danger.”
I scoff, pressing harder into the doorframe. “I don’t know what to do. Do I really kill my father? Or do I give up the girl I love?” My voice drops. “Is Papa right? Am I really just like the other Beaumonts?”
Murder has never been my thing. That’s always been Cast. But I know what I am—I get obsessive. When I want something, I need it to be mine. And in the Chessmen, sharing is everything. We have always shared everything we had.
But some things, I can’t. Some things, I have to keep for myself, even if it makes them cry.
First, it was the purple dinosaur. Now, it’s Willow.
And I won’t let her go. No matter how much they bitch, moan and complain, because loving Willow makes me feel fucking invincible, and how many people can say their love makes them feel like that? I’ve never seen it. I didn’t know it was possible until Willow.
I am a man split in two—one side ruthless, willing to burn the world down to have what’s mine, and the other is terrified of what I will become in the process. This is why the Chessmen was formed.
Damien keeps our heads straight as a knight; Cast keeps our hands clean as a rook. What do I sacrifice for them as King?
Nothing, they know I can’t handle the darkest parts of anything. They know how easily I can break into a million pieces. I was never meant for the darkness. I was only meant to love .
But this isn’t about them. This isn’t about the Chessmen or even my father. This is about her.
My princess, my obsession, my inevitable downfall.
I look over at Rosemary’s picture again. “What does a King sacrifice for his Queen? Everything, down to his fucking soul.”