THE KASTELLAN HEIR.

THE LAST PAGE.

"Read it," Aldric said. "Aloud, if you please. I want Preston to hear it."

Ronan knelt on the cold concrete, the briefcase open before him, the muzzle of Preston's pistol trembling three feet from Sienna's temple. Behind Aldric, Crane stood with his arms folded. The city lay silent beyond the glass.

"It's a transfer of ownership," Ronan said. His voice was quiet. "Sixty-one percent of Kastellan Global Holdings, conveyed in full to Aldric Neville, effective at the moment of signing."

"Sixty-one percent," Aldric murmured. "Your grandfather's fortune, given freely. Yes. Do sign."

He drew a gold pen from his coat and held it out.

Aldric slid the pen back into his coat as if the matter were settled, and began to pace in a slow, satisfied circle.

"Do you know what the first thing I will do is?" he said. "I will dismantle the Halloway tower. Brick by brick. Your grandfather was so proud of that building. He used to say it would stand for a thousand years." He smiled. "I'll sell the land to a parking company."

"How tragic," Ronan said.

"And the estate on the mountain, I'll turn into a hotel. With the gates left up, for the novelty. Guests will be able to sleep in your grandfather's bed and eat in his dining room."

"You're a monster," Sienna said hoarsely.

"I'm a businessman, my dear." He tipped his cane toward her. "Your grandfather understood that, at the end. Emeric was always practical. Until the cigarettes."

"Touch him again," Sienna said, her voice trembling with fury, "and I will personally..."

"Sienna," Ronan said quietly.

She stopped. Her eyes found his. There was something in his face, a stillness, a strange steadiness, that she had seen only once before, in the garden beside a fresh grave. It wasn't defeat. She didn't know what it was.

Preston let out a shaky laugh. "Look at him. Look at the great Kastellan. He's kneeling.Vivienne's never going to believe this. She thought you'd become somebody." He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "But you're still just a doormat in a fancy coat."

"I'm still just a man who reads the fine print," Ronan said.

Sienna understood a beat later. She caught Ronan's eye, and a flicker of astonished suspicion crossed her battered face. The papers. The signature. Whatever you're doing. She pressed her lips together to hold in something that might have been a scream or a laugh.

Preston didn't understand. Aldric, though, glanced up sharply, and for a moment something uncertain crossed his face. Then he waved it away.

"Sign," he said.

Ronan took it. He turned to the last page. He read the final paragraph, slowly, his lips moving, as if he were memorizing it. Preston fidgeted. Sienna's breath came in short, shallow gasps.

"Before I sign," Ronan said, "I'd like to ask you one question."

"Ask."

"Why my mother?"

Aldric blinked.

"Why did she have to die?" Ronan lifted his head. "My father was in your way. I understand that. He was idealistic, and you wanted his company. But she was only a woman who loved her child. What was her crime?"

A shadow crossed Aldric's face, so brief it might have been imagination.

"Elena," he said, "was the only Kastellan who ever saw me clearly." He tapped the cane once against the floor. "She told Patrick I was a wolf in a tailored coat. She told him again and again. It became inconvenient."

"So you killed her for being right."

"I killed her for being early," said Aldric. "There is a difference."

Ronan nodded slowly. He looked down at the page.

Then he signed.

The pen scratched. The signature was small and neat, the same signature he'd once put on a divorce paper with a shaking hand. He blew on the ink, lifted the page, and handed it up.

The room seemed to shrink around the small lamp. Crane shifted his weight. Preston lowered the pistol a fraction, then jerked it back up. Even the wind beyond the glass seemed to hold still, as though the tower itself were waiting to see what a man would do with everything he had ever wanted.

Aldric took it with trembling fingers. His face was luminous. He held it to the lamp, and the light shone through the paper like something holy.

"Sixty-one percent," he whispered. "At last. At last."

"You should read the last paragraph," Ronan said.

Aldric frowned.

"The last paragraph," Ronan repeated. "It's on the back."

The old man turned the page over. His eyes scanned it, once, then again, and then his face changed. It was subtle at first. A tightness at the corners of his mouth. A stillness in his brow. He read the paragraph a third time.

"What is this?"

"A conveyance clause," Ronan said. "It states that upon transfer, Kastellan Global Holdings assumes all liabilities of the acquirer. That includes, in the event of a hostile takeover..." He tilted his head. "A very large tax lien. And a criminal indemnity."

"Nonsense."

"Nonsense? You asked for the shares free and clear. But you didn't ask who was going to pay for Emeric's poison, or my father's brakes, or the two hundred million dollars in bribes Crane's been laundering for twenty years." Ronan rose slowly to his feet. "You didn't read the fine print, Aldric. Neither did anyone else. That's the beauty of it."

Aldric stared at him.

Behind him, a soft ding sounded from a tablet propped on a sawhorse. Ronan turned toward it and smiled.

"Quill," he said gently. "You can start now."

The tablet flickered to life, and an elderly voice crackled through the speaker.

"Good evening, Mr. Neville," said Edmund Quill. "As of eleven fifty-seven this evening, the board of Neville Holdings International has met in emergency session."

Aldric's face went slack.

"Impossible. The board doesn't meet without my summons."

"The board meets at the demand of its majority shareholder," said Quill. "Which, as of Tuesday, is Sienna Orvelle."

Silence.

Every head turned toward the chair.

Sienna sat perfectly still, bound and bloodied and staring at Ronan. Then, slowly, unmistakably, she began to laugh. It was a cracked, painful, breathless laugh, and it shook her whole body.

"The delegation," she gasped. "The form you asked me to sign. I told you I was busy. You said it was routine!"

"You never read things I gave you."

"You swindled me!"

"I made you rich."

"Ronan Kastellan," she wheezed, tears streaking the blood on her cheek, "I'm going to kill you."

"After," he said, "you've fired your kidnapper."

"Mr. Neville," said Quill's voice from the tablet, formal and unhurried, "the board has voted, seven to two, to remove you as chairman and chief executive of Neville Holdings, effective immediately. Your access to all corporate accounts has been frozen. Your signing authority is revoked. Your personal guard, Mr. Gideon Crane, has been dismissed."

Crane's head snapped toward him.

"And," Quill added, "the board has forwarded a complete dossier of your activities to the Capital Police Department. Inspector Delaine has been waiting for this call since nine o'clock."

Aldric made a sound like a punctured bellows.

"Kill him," he whispered, and then screamed it. "Crane, kill him!"

Crane's hand slid to his hip.

The window behind him exploded inward.