The Will

The Reading III

Gunnar POV

If you're watching this, that means I'm dead.

For a second, I thought it was a joke. Not a funny joke. Not even a good one.

Just the kind of dramatic opening Mr. Ashwood loved.

Then he said the next word.

Murdered.

The ballroom went silent. I felt my stomach drop.

Mr. Ashwood couldn't be dead.

I'd spoken to his assistant three weeks ago about quarterly projections in Manchester. Nobody had said anything about funeral arrangements or memorial services or corporate succession plans.

Nothing.

Just business as usual.

A dozen questions crashed into each other inside my head.

When? How? Why hadn't anyone told me?

I looked around the room.

The beautiful, tall chick looked devastated, like somebody had reached into her chest and pulled something out. The maintenance guy looked confused. The blonde one had already started writing in a notebook.

Meanwhile, I sat there trying to reconcile the man on the screen with the one I'd known.

Mr. Ashwood had always felt permanent. Not immortal, exactly. Just inevitable. Like the estate. Like the company. Like the mountains surrounding the lake. The idea that he could simply stop existing felt fundamentally wrong.

Then he said the number: Four hundred and twenty billion dollars.

My head snapped up. The entire Ashwood empire. Split four ways. That's like a hundred billion dollars each.

My first thought wasn't even about the money itself. It was about what it represented: Control. Influence. A seat at every table that mattered. A chance to build something that lasted.

Mr. Ashwood used to say wealth wasn't about buying things. It was about buying time. Buying options. Buying freedom.

A hundred billion dollars could buy a hell of a lot of freedom.

Then reality caught up with me.

Why us? Why these three?

I understood Lily. She was a genius. In every tabloid from here to Rhode Island after her sad meltdown.

The groundskeeper had spent his entire life on the estate.

Maybe loyalty counted for something.

The girl, though? I glanced toward her again. She looked young. Terrified. Heartbroken. Like she'd lost more than the rest of us.

Interesting. Is that the girl...No...it can't be...

"First, all four of you must remain on Ashwood Estate grounds for six months."

Six months. That wasn't ideal. But manageable. I'd worked remotely before. I could delegate. Move meetings online. Make it work.

"Second, you must correctly identify my killer."

My mouth went dry. Because suddenly the inheritance wasn't an inheritance anymore.

It was a competition.

No. Worse. It was an investigation.

Mr. Ashwood had always loved testing people. Putting them under pressure. Seeing what happened when the stakes got high.

Apparently death hadn't changed that. I looked around the table again.

Tall girl's eyes glistened with unshed tears.

Dirt cowboy frowned at the screen.

Ms. Smarty Sad-Sack kept writing.

Nobody looked dangerous. Nobody looked like a murderer. Then again, if there was one thing I'd learned in business, it was that appearances meant very little. Mr. Ashwood had taught me that, too. The video continued, but I barely heard it. All I could think about was the last time I'd seen him. The way he'd clapped me on the shoulder after a meeting and told me I had potential. The way he'd smiled when he said it. The nausea sitting in my stomach deepened.

Mr. Ashwood was dead.

And somehow, despite everything he'd built, everything he'd taught me, everything he'd planned, he'd left behind one final lesson: Trust nobody.