Page 48 of Lords of Ruin: Cherished

“Unlike me?” The question comes out barely audible.

Papa's smile is slow and satisfied. “I've watched you since you were a boy. You have it—that obsessive need behind your eyes. The ability to calculate, to detach. You're a true Beaumont.”

“You want me to steal from my own father.”

“I want you to take what's rightfully yours,” Papa corrects. He reaches across the table, his cold fingers gripping my wrist with surprising strength. “He's squandering what generations of Beaumonts have built. What I built. Your father took your mother’s last name for crying out loud. He’s not fit to be a Beaumont.”

I try to pull away, but his grip tightens.

"Think of it, Vincent. All that wealth—yours to control, to multiply. To use as it was meant to be used." His voice drops to a whisper. "All it takes is one moment of courage. One pull of a trigger."

"You're asking me to murder my father," I say, finally yanking my arm free.

Papa sits back, his face impassive once more. "I'm asking you to be a Beaumont. To continue a proud tradition."

"There's nothing proud about parricide," I spit.

"Isn't there?" Papa's eyebrow arches. "The weak make way for the strong. It's the natural order of things." He takes a sip of his tea, watching me over the rim. "Your father wouldn't hesitate if the roles were reversed. None of us would."

I stand up so quickly my chair topples backward. "I'm nothing like you."

"Aren't you?" Papa doesn't even flinch. “I’ve heard of your little friend group. Gaining the loyalty of Juan Castillo, the heir to the cartel. Good job, boy.”

My hands are shaking. Not with fear, but with something worse—recognition. Because deep down, in places I've tried to ignore, I know he's right. About the coldness. About the calculations I make. About the lines I've already crossed.

He rises to his feet, steadier than a man his age should be. "Think about it, Vincent, be who you truly are.”

He leaves me standing there among the cucumber sandwiches and fine china, the weight of generations of theft and murder pressing down on my shoulders. And the worst part isn't his monstrous suggestion or the casual way he speaks of patricide.

The worst part is how clearly I can see it—the plan, the execution, the aftermath. How easily I can imagine myself pulling the trigger, but he’s wrong. I am not obsessed over money. I can see myself doing all of this for a doe-eyed girl with curly black hair and a smile that makes me fucking feral. I can see myself doing anything for that girl, and if this is the only way to go back to her, then so be it.

I am staying in Rosemary's apartment as it's the only place where I feel secure anymore. Though Cast, Damien, and I all have keys, Damien relocated to the penthouse three years ago and only visits on Rosemary's birthday. Cast processes his pain in the boxing ring or by burying it deep, letting it ferment like a toxin. Damien's sentimentality manifests in preservation—Rosemary's bedroom remains frozen in time, exactly as she left it the day ambulance lights flashed outside our windows. And I... I return whenever I want to feel safe, or loved. I haven’t been here since Willow said no to my proposal the first time.

Now this apartment offers shelter while I plan something unthinkable: my father's death.

Bile rolls up my throat as I think about it. I am going to make myself a fucking orphan, how fucked up is that?

I drift toward Rosemary's room as if pulled by invisible threads. The signature scent of cashmere and coconut has faded but still lingers like a ghost. The soft pink decor remains so perfectly intact that I half-expect her to emerge from the adjoining bathroom, hands glistening with cocoa butter, lips syncing to Eartha Kitt's velvet voice. I miss her with an ache that never dulls. She embodied everything I imagined a mother should be—everything my birth mother might have become had she not died in a mental institution miles away from me when I was six.

Leaning against the doorframe, I stare at the rumpled sheets and the half-burned Saint Maria candle on her nightstand. The room still smells faintly of cherries and smoke, like she was just here. I don’t know why, but words spill from me into the emptiness.

“Mama Rose, I haven’t talked to you in so long.” I let out a quiet laugh, though it barely reaches my lips. “I don’t remember the last time I felt lost enough to need to.”

I drag a hand through my hair, eyes catching on a photo propped up on the dresser. Me and the guys, ten years old, grinning on the beach with Rosemary. Her copper hair is a mess of knotted waves, and she’s smiling like she was the happiest person in the world. Maybe she was.

“Mama Rose, I fucked up. We all did.” My throat tightens. “We fell in love, and despite you keeping her alive, we keep putting her in danger.”

I scoff, pressing harder into the doorframe. “I don’t know what to do. Do I really kill my father? Or do I give up the girl I love?” My voice drops. “Is Papa right? Am I really just like the other Beaumonts?”

Murder has never been my thing. That’s always been Cast. But I know what I am—I get obsessive. When I want something, Ineedit to be mine. And in the Chessmen, sharing is everything. We have always shared everything we had.

But some things, I can’t. Some things, I have to keep for myself, even if it makes them cry.

First, it was the purple dinosaur. Now, it’s Willow.

And I won’t let her go. No matter how much they bitch, moan and complain, because loving Willow makes me feel fucking invincible, and how many people can say their love makes them feel like that? I’ve never seen it. I didn’t know it was possible until Willow.

I am a man split in two—one side ruthless, willing to burn the world down to have what’s mine, and the other is terrified of what I will become in the process. This is why the Chessmen was formed.

---