Chapter 3 - Delusions in Marble
The view from the fifty-fourth-floor terrace of the Beacon Street penthouse was legendary.
To the east, the harbor was a sheet of obsidian glass, reflecting the distant, glittering explosions of midnight fireworks that welcomed the new year. To the south, the financial district rose like a fortress of light and ambition.
Grant Vance stood by the glass railing, a crystal tumbler of thirty-year-old Macallan balanced between his fingers, inhaling the cold Atlantic air with the deep, theatrical satisfaction of a conquered general surveying his spoils.
"You see that, Ryan?" Grant barked, gesturing with his tumbler toward the glowing towers. "That’s leverage. A woman needs to know that when she steps into this family, her little titles don't mean a damn thing. You let her walk all over you for two years. Letting her talk about balance sheets, letting her question the consultancy invoices. That’s what happens when you don't break them early."
Ryan sat on the outdoor sectional, an ice pack pressed against the top of his foot, his phone resting on the low cedar table. The screen showed twelve sent text messages, none of which had been delivered.
Claire, where are you?
Claire, pick up the phone.
Dad is ready to let this go if you come back and apologize.
You’re overreacting. The baby is fine.
"She took the car, Dad," Ryan said, his voice laced with an uneasy, hollow tension that he couldn't quite shake. "She didn't take her purse, but she took her keys. What if she goes to a hospital?"
"Let her go to a hospital," Grant scoffed, turning back to the heated interior of the great room. "What’s she going to tell them? She had an accident with an ember while she was fussing around the kitchen island. No doctor in Boston is going to challenge the Vance name over a tiny blister. Your grandfather sat on the overseers' board at Harvard Medical, for God's sake."
"That was thirty years ago, Dad," Ryan muttered.
"Reputation doesn't have an expiration date, son," Grant said, walking through the sliding doors into the warm, cedar-scented air of the apartment.
In the dining room, Diane had already recruited Brooke to help her rearrange the cabinetry. Two shelves of hand-thrown Japanese ceramic tea sets—items Claire had collected during her post-graduate fellowship in Kyoto—had been boxed into cardboard cartons and stacked unceremoniously near the pantry door.
"Too austere," Diane announced, holding up an ornate, silver-plated Victorian soup tureen she had brought from her own storage unit three weeks ago. "Claire has the decorative sensibility of an airport lounge. When the baby arrives, this room needs warmth. It needs heritage. Grant, did you find the key to the master cedar closet?"
"Ryan has it," Grant said, waving his hand toward his son. "Brooke, go through her jewelry armoire. See if that diamond tennis bracelet she wore to the symphony is in the top drawer. Your mother needs something appropriate for the New Year's luncheon at the Somerset Club tomorrow."
Brooke squealed with delight, dropping an armful of Claire’s cashmere coats onto the sofa as she sprinted toward the master wing. "She has three Birkins in the dressing room! Can I borrow the ostrich one? She never even uses it!"
"Take whatever you like, sweetheart," Grant said comfortably, sinking into the leather reading chair by the fireplace—the one Claire had commissioned from a workshop in Milan. "It’s all family property now. Ryan, pour me another splash. And tell the concierge to send up four more cases of San Pellegrino. The water in this place tastes like copper."
Ryan didn't move. He stared at his phone.
A notification had just flashed across the screen from his corporate banking app:
ALERT: Commercial line of credit ending in -8841 has been suspended pending administrative review. Operating balance: $0.00.
"Dad," Ryan said, his voice dropping into a tight, nervous register. "Did you clear the quarterly reserve for the brokerage this afternoon?"
"What are you talking about?" Grant asked, not looking up from his Scotch. "Claire handles the reserve transfer. She usually does it on the thirty-first."
"Well, the line is locked," Ryan said, his fingers flying across the keypad, trying to log into the primary portal. "It says 'Administrative Freeze.' The portal won't let me access the payroll escrow."
Grant waved his glass dismissively. "It’s a bank holiday, you idiot. The servers are resetting for the fiscal year. Everything resets on January first. Stop sweating like a clerk, Ryan. You’re the master of this house now. Act like it."
In the master bedroom, the sound of drawers opening and closing echoed through the private hallway. Brooke was laughing, holding up dresses against her frame in the full-length mirror, tossing silk blouses onto the carpet when they didn't suit her fancy.
Diane was already measuring the wall space above the fireplace, planning where her mother’s oil portraits would hang once Claire’s contemporary abstracts were moved down to the basement storage bins.
May you like
They were kings in a castle of sand, drinking wine they hadn't purchased, planning futures they hadn't earned, entirely oblivious to the rising tide that had already swallowed their foundation.
And down on the street, parked in the shadow of the elm trees three blocks away, a black unmarked sedan sat with its engine idling, two investigators from the Suffolk County District Attorney's office keeping their lenses trained on the penthouse terrace, their digital cameras logging every movement behind the floor-to-ceiling glass.
