Operation 16 Blood, Lies, and Legacy
River Blackwell
River Blackwell was Celestine Ashford’s son by blood, Bennett Ashford’s son by paperwork.
He walked down the west hallway of their house—Celestine Seas Manor—a sprawling stone monument on Pacific Coast Highway above Carbon Beach.
Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the sound of waves broke against the shoreline with an overlapping, insistent pattern.
River had been on his way to his stepfather’s office to tell him he was going to visit his mother. A quick courtesy, because Bennett liked knowing everything, even regarding the people he didn’t care much about.
He’d just turned the corner when he heard Bennett cursing.
Not the annoyed profanity he used on studio calls or when fussing with his mother’s management team.
This was uglier. Meaner.
River stopped two doors away from the office and listened.
Bennett’s voice carried through the heavy door, loaded with a fury he didn’t recognize.
“What is taking so fuckin’ long? How hard can it be to get one clueless actor? He was alone on the lot. Alone at home. Twice, he was right in front of you, and neither of you could do the job you were paid generously to for.”
A man answered with a rough voice. “If you want this done now, the price goes up.”
Bennett gave a sharp, humorless laugh. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I’ve already paid you.”
“You paid half, for a different job.” A second man spoke this time, quieter than the first but just as gruff. “The kid doesn’t have studio rent-a-cops around him anymore. He has new muscle.”
“So what?”
“Maybe do your goddamn homework before you start throwing money at troubles you don’t understand,” the first man snapped. “These guys are professionals. Whoever Vale has around him now, they’re fuckin’ tactical cops. They’re not gonna let us just walk up on him.”
“That’s your problem.” Bennett’s voice shifted from left to right, as if he were pacing. “You said you could handle this.”
“And now I’m telling you what handling it costs,” the second man said. “We need more men. More eyes. And a sharpshooter.”
River’s breath stopped.
Shooter.
“Whoa. I didn’t say I wanted Xander Vale dead,” Bennett said sharply.
“I didn’t say dead either. I said a shooter. A marksman can take him out of commission without a kill shot. Leg. Shoulder. Something crippling that’ll shut down the filming and scare him away.”
River pressed his palm against the wall, nausea stirring in his gut.
He’d known Bennett was stressed. Spiraling, even. But he never thought he was capable of this.
Real violence. Criminal stuff.
There were actual men in his stepfather’s office talking about hurting Xander Vale as if it was their day job.
Since Xander’s film had overtaken his mom’s, their house had been falling apart.
Celestine Ashford was Hollywood royalty, the kind of star whose films would go down in the history books as the greatest of all time, a class act younger actresses bowed to.
She’d survived a childhood River only knew pieces of.
A predatory first manager. An absentee father and a mother who’d spent most of her money before she was emancipated at sixteen. Two abusive marriages until she’d met Bennett. Years of addiction and public humiliation before clawing her way back to respect one role at a time.
Her film, Where the Sea Ends, was her legacy piece.
She’d written, directed, and put up her own money to produce it when every financier in town told her it was too intimate, too feminine and private. Too late in her career.
Then it had hit theaters and turned into a film the critics worshipped. Audiences raved over it, and awards predictors were calling it unbeatable.
Bennett had been so proud, he’d immediately purchased a thirty-thousand-dollar marble and crystal cabinet for all the awards she’d win.
Then What Breaks in Silence dropped a week later and swallowed her dream.
Xander Vale’s film hadn’t just overtaken it, it had stolen all momentum and one award after another.
Every time his mother had smiled and applauded Xander’s name with each win, River had watched another small part of her collapse behind the mask.
Bennett was everywhere but at home, trying to stop the hemorrhaging of her brand, but nothing he did was working.
It wasn’t long after that she’d relapsed, breaking nineteen years of sobriety.
The drinking came first. Silently. A glass of champagne here, a couple of glasses of Merlot there. Then the pills she swore were vitamins. Finally, River found cocaine dusted along the vanity in her bathroom.
It wasn’t a month later he’d found her passed out on her bedroom floor. He’d sat with her until she came to, lying to the house staff, her assistants, and to Bennett, telling himself that it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
Though his mother was heartbroken and barely coping, there was no way she knew about this.
If word got out about what Bennett was doing, it wouldn’t just ruin him, it’d end his mother’s career.
People would say she’d ordered it. Headlines would infest every media outlet, reporting the aging starlet couldn’t stand being beaten by a younger actor.
Even if she knew nothing, the scandal would attach itself to her like a plague and never go away.
If his mother believed people thought she was responsible for hurting someone, no amount of rehab would save her.
Bennett’s voice jerked him back to the shady meeting.
“Just make sure you’re shooter doesn’t miss,” Bennett snapped. “Killing him will involve too many people. Cops, lawyers, media, family. It will never die down.”
“My guy won’t miss,” the second man said.
“I hate to resort to this, but I am sick,” Bennett hissed, “of actors using liberal politics and sexuality as marketing strategies. If Xander Vale hadn’t come out, his movie wouldn’t have beaten my wife’s. The academy didn’t vote on performance. They voted on a cause.”
River stared at the office door in disbelief.
He’d seen What Breaks in Silence three times. Once because his mother wanted them to “know the competition,” and twice alone because he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The film had nothing to do with Xander Vale’s sexuality as a marketing tool. It was just good. Brutal and beautiful and difficult to shake off. And Xander’s performance had been extraordinary.
His mother’s film was beyond amazing too, but so were the four others nominated for best film.
He’d grown up knowing that sometimes brilliance still lost. Sometimes another project landed with more force. That was show business, the cruelest, most unfair lottery ever.
It wasn’t Xander Vale’s fault and it damn sure wasn’t a reason to hurt him.
Oh god, Devyn Frost.
His stepdad had paid for that.
It had been rumored he’d never work again. He and his partner had narrowly survived the vicious beating.
“We don’t care about your motives, Ashford,” the first man said. “That’s not our concern. You hired us to do a job.”
“Then fuckin’ do it, goddamnit! This is dragging on too long,” Bennett barked.
“He’s staying at a public hotel. He’ll be back on the lot soon.
The news is doing half the work for you.
Every idiot with a camera keeps telling the world where he’s been and where he’ll be next.
Now is the time to strike, not sitting in my house complimenting his new bodyguards. ”
A chair scraped across the calcite onyx stone floor.
River bolted into the first open doorway on his right, into the small formal sitting room. He eased the door almost closed, leaving a thin crack.
His pulse hammered so hard he could feel it behind his teeth.
The office door opened and the two men stepped into the hall.
He could only see pieces of them through the narrow gap. Dark clothing, black caps. No faces. Nothing useful enough to identify them later.
Bennett followed them out.
“Forty-eight hours,” his stepfather said harshly. “You have forty-eight fuckin’ hours before I find men who don’t need their hands held.”
The second man laughed. “Yeah, you do that, and you’ll get amateurs who bring cops to your door.”
Bennett stepped closer. “And if you bring them to mine?”
“Have a nice life, Ashford.”
The front door opened and the men left without another word.
Bennett stood in the hall for a long moment, breathing hard.
River didn’t move, watching his stepfather through the crack.
Bennett’s handsome face was drawn tight, his silver-streaked hair perfect, his shirt cuffs immaculate. To the house staff he looked like a powerful man having a difficult business afternoon.
To River, he looked like a madman who’d lost his mind.
Bennett walked toward the back of the house, his shoes striking the polished floor in sharp, angry beats.
River waited until he couldn’t hear him anymore, then slipped out of the sitting room. He stood there with his keys clutched in his hand, unable to believe any of this.
He knew Bennett loved his mother more than anything, but this kind of love was going to destroy her.
Bennett treated his mother like a queen, even when the cameras were gone.
He brought her tea exactly the way she liked it when she was writing for hours at a time, kept fresh flowers in her rooms, complimented her beauty whether she was wearing sweats or an evening gown, gazed at her as if she were the only woman in the room, threatened paparazzi anytime their questions crossed the line, and still kissed her hand each time he helped her out of the car.
Bennett was there for his mother…not him. His stepfather tolerated him at best.
Bennett thought he was lazy because he didn’t want a life in entertainment. Considered him soft and privileged, because he’d chosen to study computer engineering at UCLA instead.
He was in his third year of an accelerated graduate track, counting the months until he could move far enough away from Bennett’s influence and the Ashford name.
River looked toward his mother’s wing of the house. There was no way she would agree with this. She might be shattered right now and grieving over a dying dream she’d built with her own hands, but she wasn’t cruel.
She’d spent too much of her life surviving pain to wish it on someone else.
River couldn’t let this happen.
He pulled out his phone, then stopped.
Who the hell can I call?
The police? What would he say? ‘Hi, my stepfather is Bennett Ashford, one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, and I heard him through a door talking about hiring men to hurt Xander Vale. No, I didn’t record it.
No, I didn’t see their faces. But my mother has nothing to do with this.
Oh, and please don’t leak this to the press. ’
Damnit.
He could call in an anonymous tip. Try to reach Xander’s manager or agent. But how could he do that without sounding like some unstable fan?
River stared at his phone until the screen dimmed.
He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he had to get close enough to Xander Vale to warn him.