Shattered Mask

CHAPTER 3

A HUGE INHERITANCE

Rothwell Tower stood like a glass-and-steel monument to everything Jack had tried to leave behind.

Sixty-eight floors of corporate power in the heart of Manhattan, each window reflecting the morning sun like a thousand judging eyes.

Jack stood across the street, coffee cooling in his hand, staring up at the building that bore his family name in letters ten feet tall.

He was seventeen the last time he walked through those doors. Angry, idealistic, and convinced that money was the root of all corruption.

His grandfather had offered him the world... an executive position, a penthouse, a future paved in gold... and Jack had thrown it back in his face.

"I will make it on my own terms," he had said, so sure of himself.

"You will come crawling back," his grandfather had replied, not angry, just certain. "They always do."

Jack had sworn he never would.

Funny how life made liars of everyone, but at least he didn't come back crawling... at least he has proved his grandfather wrong after all.

He tossed the coffee in a bin and crossed the street.

The lobby was exactly as he remembered... marble floors polished to mirrors, a waterfall feature that probably cost more than most people's houses, and a security desk manned by guards in suits that fit too well.

Jack approached the desk in his work jeans and jacket, still smelling faintly of smoke and copper. The guard... young, efficient, already dismissive... barely glanced up.

"Deliveries go around back."

"I am not a delivery man" Jack kept his voice level.

"I am here for Martin Harnes. Estate attorney."

Now the guard looked at him, really looked, and Jack saw the calculation: Could this actually be someone important, or was he just crazy?

“Who in such clothes, with a face clearly showing he had been beaten up, comes looking for such a high-profile attorney?”

"Name?"

"Jack Rothwell."

The guard's face went carefully blank. He picked up a phone, murmured something Jack couldn't hear, paused for a second to take a quick glance at Jack, then hung up.

"Mr Harnes is expecting you. Sixty-fifth floor. Elevators to your right."

No apology for the assumption. Just professional distance reasserting itself.

Jack headed for the elevators, feeling eyes on him...security, employees, and people who recognised the name even if they didn't recognise the face. Whispers followed him like ghosts.

“Is that really him?”

“I thought he was dead.”

“Looks like he has been living rough.”

The words flew around the reception through the murmurs.

The elevator was empty, mirrored walls reflecting a man Jack barely recognised. Hollow-eyed, stubbled, wearing exhaustion like a second skin.

He looked like exactly what he was...someone who had lost everything and didn't know if he cared.

The doors opened on the sixty-fifth floor into a reception area that screamed money: dark wood, leather chairs, and oil paintings of stern men in suits. A woman in her fifties sat behind a desk that probably cost more than Jack's car.

"Mr Rothwell." She stood, professional smile in place.

"Mr Harnes is ready for you. This way, please."

She led him down a hallway lined with photographs...the Rothwell legacy, generation after generation of men who had built empires and crushed anyone in their way.

Jack's grandfather was there, younger but already hard-edged, standing in front of the tower's groundbreaking.

Jack's father was noticeably absent. Dead before Jack was born, killed in a car accident that might not have been an accident at all.

The Rothwell family had a way of destroying itself from within.

"Mr Rothwell." Martin Harnes stood as they entered his office... late fifties, impeccable suit, the kind of lawyer who billed by the minute and was worth every penny.

He extended a hand. "Thank you for coming."

Jack shook it. "Let us get this over with."

"Of course." Harnes gestured to a chair. "Can I offer you anything? Coffee? Water?"

"Just the facts."

Harnes nodded, settled behind his desk, and opened a folder thick enough to be a novel.

"Your grandfather's estate is... substantial. Rothwell Industries, currently valued at $230 billion.

Real estate holdings across three continents. Investment portfolios, art collections, various trusts and foundations. All of it passes to you as sole heir."

Jack stared at him. "Why me? He had cousins, business partners..."

"He had leeches," Harnes corrected mildly.

"Your grandfather spent his final years watching his legacy being picked apart by people who saw him as a resource to exploit.

You were the only one who walked away without asking for anything. That… somehow, impressed him."

"I walked away because I wanted nothing to do with any of this."

"I know. So did he. But he believed you would come back when you were ready. When life taught you that principles don't pay rent." Harnes paused.

"Was he wrong?"

Jack thought about Leslie's face when she called their marriage a mistake.

Thought about four years of grinding poverty, of fixing other people's broken things while his own life fell apart.

"No," he said quietly. "He was not wrong."

"Then, will you accept the inheritance?"

"There is always a catch. What is it?"

Harnes smiled slightly. "You know your grandfather well. Yes, there is a condition."

"Of course there is." Jack responded with a straight face.

"You must marry within one year after inheriting. The marriage must last at least one year. If either condition fails, the entire estate passes to charity."

Jack laughed...sharp, bitter. "He is dead and still trying to control my life."

"He believed family was the only thing that mattered. That a man without family was just... potential. Unrealised." Harnes slid a document across the desk.

"The will is ironclad. I drafted it myself. No loopholes, no exceptions. Marry, or lose everything after a year."

"What if I don't want it?"

"Then several dozen charities will be very grateful." Harnes leaned back.

"But before you decide, there is something else you should know. About your wife."

"Ex-wife." he interjected

"Not yet. You are still legally married." Harnes opened another folder.

"Which brings us to the... complications I mentioned."

He slid several documents across the desk. Jack picked up the first one, started reading, then froze.

Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. Filed by Leslie Anne Rothwell.

Filed two weeks ago. Before his grandfather died. Before he even caught her cheating on him

"She was planning to leave me anyway," Jack said numbly.

"There is more."

Jack looked at the next document. The document detailing everything he owned

"What is this?" Jack said, pointing at a phrase he chanced upon in the document.

“Since you are married, which nullifies the clause to marry in a year or lose everything

That is the clause; the properties are willed to you and your wife…. ”