Page 75 of The Cruel Heir
Professor Delgado’s expression didn’t falter, but the way her fingers twitched against her podium told me she was considering it. "You think you can just-"
"I know I can," Sterling interrupted smoothly. "But if you'd like, I can arrange for a meeting with the Dean, to discuss your salary increase instead."
Silence. The kind that pressed against your chest.
I wanted to sink into the floor. This was my life now.
Professor Delgado exhaled sharply, then turned toward the whiteboard, choosing to ignore him.
Sterling shot me a knowing smirk.
I was going to murder him.
Class dismissed.
The hallway was still settling after my class dismissed, when Sterling’s voice slid over my shoulder, soft, decisive, alreadywalking. I trailed him through the quad’s lingering fog, dazed, until the Bentley’s rear door yawned open. A maid thrust a garment bag at me.
“Change on the way,” Sterling ordered, climbing in first.
I obeyed, because my knees had forgotten how not to.
Inside, city blocks blurred past tinted glass, while I fought with a zipper that smelled of fresh dye. The dress was black crepe, the sort people pick for respectable grieving, when there’s no time to tailor respect. By the time I smoothed the skirt, Sterling was tapping his watch at the driver. We ran three red lights. Grief, it seemed, had a schedule.
The cathedral loomed, thirty minutes after class ended, limestone wet with half-hearted drizzle, reporters penned behind barricades like livestock. Flashbulbs sparked. Sterling’s fingers locked around my elbow, steering me through the storm of questions.
Inside, St. Sebastian’s nave stretched, half-empty. Two coffins rested beneath lilies that looked anaemic under the harsh sconces. Incense hung in stale pockets, unburnt and cold, as if even the sanctuary had been rushed. A violin waited on the first pew, rosin scent fighting candle wax. Sterling had arranged it, of course he had.
The priest’s Latin rolled out in clipped syllables, verses stitched too tightly together. I counted six board members in the front row: Langford, Harlan, Grayson, plus their wives, and one junior VP, who looked as if he’d wandered in by accident. Their whisper-corridor began, before the kyrie ended.
“Share price is hemorrhaging,” Langford muttered.
Harlan answered, “Wall Street hates incest almost as much as it hates uncertainty.”
Grayson leaned forward, voice oily. “Give it another quarter, and we’ll vote him out for misconduct.”
The priest beckoned, and I realised he expected music. My hands shook as I lifted the violin. A single adagio, Sterling’s idea of solemnity. Bow met string, and the first note quivered like a held breath. While I played, Sterling stood behind me, gaze fixed on the caskets, but his shadow stretched across the marble toward the board, claiming territory.
When the last chord died, the priest closed his Bible with a decisive clap, service length twelve minutes, and attendants moved in. There were no eulogies, no childhood anecdotes, not even a moment of silent prayer. Just a mechanical pivot toward burial.
Rain thickened to needles, as we followed the coffins along a slate path, slick with moss. My heels skidded twice, and Sterling’s grip tightened each time, not affectionate, simply unwilling to slow. The board trailed behind, umbrellas colliding like dark wings.
At the family mausoleum, the pallbearers wrestled the coffins onto brass rails. A hydraulic hiss swallowed the coffins whole, no roses, no earth, only stone closing like a vault on unfinished sentences. Rainwater pooled on the metal threshold, beading like mercury.
I placed my palm on the cold door. The goodbye in my throat tasted of salt and jet fuel.
From behind me I heard whispers.
“Drive-thru burial,” Grayson scoffed.
Langford’s wife sniffed. “He’s turned tragedy into a business expense.”
Another voice, maybe Harlan’s, answered, “Embarrassment breeds discount shares. We’ll clean house soon enough.”
Sterling pivoted. The rain glazed his hair, but his smile was winter-sharp. “Those who find my methods distasteful,” he said, voice slicing through drizzle and dissent, “are welcome to liquidate their positions. Grief is temporary; legacy is not.”
Silence swallowed them. Even the rain seemed to hesitate.
He motioned for me to move beneath the umbrella, ushered me toward the car, and hurried me away from the graves. Cameras clicked beyond the gates, capturing the moment his hand slid over the slight curve of my abdomen. Proof of succession. Optics managed.
