Inheritance Clause

Chapter Nine

“Let's begin from the very start,” she said, “and don't omit a single thing this time.”

So he did.

Three years ago.

Damian learned it on a Tuesday during a security briefing which was meant to be routine—the last check before the wedding, in accordance with the standard procedure for a family that has as many enemies as friends. Marcus gave it to him the same way he gave everything important: in a flat and fast manner, with no softness.

"There's some talk," Marcus said, sliding across the table instead of handing it to him a single sheet, as if merely holding it for too long might cause it to become true. "It's not about you. It's about her."

Damian read it twice before it all really got through to him. The name was one that he didn't know, although he did recognise the shell company it was linked to, the connection being three steps removed and at every stage deniable. There was an informal but clear contract concerning Ines Reyes, the contract being set so that it would come into effect at the moment the marriage became legally binding.

"Why her," he said, even though a cold and quick portion of his mind had already begun to answer that question before Marcus had opened his mouth. "Why now."

When you marry her the trust arrangements which Vivienne has taken ten years to keep in place will come into effect. She's not trying to attack you; rather, she's getting rid of the factor that makes you difficult to control. Marcus's jaw was clenched and his voice was just as tight. "Four days, Damian--that's all the time we have before the wedding turns this into permanent leverage rather than a threat which we can still deal with."

Four days.

At first he tried to come up with a version of the truth that he could tell Ines without causing her death sooner than she would if he kept quiet. He worked it over in his mind a dozen times—either telling her everything, going to the police together, hiring more security and marrying her anyway with the hope that prudence would beat out his aunt's patience. All the versions ended in the same way: as soon as Ines found out, she would do precisely what made her so extraordinary and exactly what would lead to her death. She would fight, she would investigate, and she would refuse to be controlled, since that was precisely why he had fallen in love with her, and it would be the very reason why he would lose her if he allowed her to try.

On the second day he was with lawyers, carefully making alterations to anything that could be changed without raising suspicions, so as to prepare the way for amending the trust even though he wouldn't be able to carry out the amendment in full until after whatever took place at the altar, since carrying it out beforehand would have caused Vivienne to realize that he already knew.

On the third day he rehearsed in the mirror at two in the morning, carefully practicing the exact words he would have to use in order to make the humiliation seem genuine enough for even Ines—Ines, who was sharp and incapable of being fooled—to believe each and every moment of it. He worked on looking at nothing rather than at her, and he practiced walking away without turning around, since he was absolutely certain, in a way that made him physically ill, that if he turned around even once he wouldn't be able to carry out the scene.

On the fourth day, four hours before the ceremony, Marcus saw him in his hotel suite, still wearing only his undershirt, with the tie left on the bed next to him as if he just couldn't bring himself to pick it up.

“You don't have to do this”, Marcus said, “there being other methods.”

“Give me an example of one that doesn't get her killed within the first six months.”

No one had one. They had put in three nights without sleep looking for it, and all the paths ended up at the same harsh conclusion: the only version of Ines who would survive what was coming was one who was completely certain that she had nothing left to protect—since a woman who thought she had merely been heartbroken would grieve and then rebuild before eventually moving on, whereas a woman who knew she was a target would spend the rest of her life on guard, be easier to find, easier to use against him and easier to lose altogether.

“They’ll hate me,” Damian said, mostly to himself and not to Marcus.

“Yes.”

“For years. Maybe forever.”

“Perhaps,” Marcus said as he sat down heavily in the chair opposite him. “I won’t tell you that it’s worth it, since I don’t believe that any version of today can be considered worth anything; what I will say is that this is the only way of keeping her alive long enough so that she may eventually hate you from a position of safety rather than failing to hate you when you’re dead.**

Damian took the tie. He noticed rather remotely that his hands were no longer shaking. Apparently, certain things cease when you give up the hope of there being another way.

Four hours later he entered the ballroom and saw her walking down the aisle in white silk, the veil shaking with each step, looking at him as if he were the only safe thing in the room—so he forced himself to maintain that expression for as long as it took to check that everyone was looking, and then he forced himself to stop.

Later on he couldn't quite remember exactly what he had said; only that it had been cold and final. He did remember her face as the disbelief in it gave way to something which he would spend the next three years trying to forget, and he remembered turning and going out through the side door before looking to see what happened next, since if he had watched her go out by herself he would have gone back for her, whether the truth was on his side or not, whether there was a contract or not, and would have killed her simply because of his own weakness.

Twelve days later he submitted the amendment to the trust. He hid it deep enough that anyone not looking for it would never discover it, arranged it so as to safeguard her as soon as the documents were in place and to continue protecting her for exactly the same length of time as the marriage, since dissolving it before time ran out would raise questions which he couldn't afford and dissolving it after the marriage had ended would tie her to him in ways which he had already decided he had no right to ask for.

He then began the slow and careful process of investigating each person linked to that shell company, pulling one connection at a time without pulling so hard that Vivienne felt the pull before it was already too late to stop.

It took three years.

When he had finished speaking the kitchen light was only soft and yellow and the two of them were still sitting face to face at her table with the folder and the trust papers having remained untouched by them for the previous twenty minutes since neither of them had picked up anything else to look at.

Throughout most of it Ines had remained silent. When she did speak, her voice was rougher than she had anticipated.

You worked at it, in the mirror.

“For two nights.”

In order that I should completely believe it.” At some point during the fourth day of his tale something in her chest had broken and never resealed. “You didn’t merely lie to me at the altar, Damian; you had the lie constructed over several days, deliberately designing it to be impossible to break, since you knew precisely how well I could see through anything weaker.”

“Yes.”

It's not romantic, and I must make it clear that it isn't some great sacrifice which I'm expected to just forgive since the ending turned out to be love rather than cruelty. My voice trembled a bit, the first sign of weakness in three years of careful self-control. You took from me the right to make any choices about that day, about my own wedding; you alone decided which version of the truth I was permitted to keep.

I know," he didn't defend it, and it was that, more than anything else he had said all night, that made her look up and meet his eyes fully. "I've known it every single day for the past three years. I'm not asking you to consider it romantic. All I want is for you to realise it wasn't nothing at all. It hadn't been easy, and it probably won't be the last time I fail to get this right, since apparently I've never once known how to protect you without also managing you, and I don't yet know how to unlearn that."

Ines settled herself back in her chair, the folder still lying between them, and for the first time since the situation had begun realised that she had no slightest idea what she wanted to do next, after three years of grief had finally been placed in the same room as three years of explanation.