She crossed toward the adjoining suite, and I headed to the desk.
“I mean it, Edward,” she scolded.
“I will. I promise. Give me ten minutes.” I smiled at her until she’d disappeared into the next room, the door shut behind her.
Then I hung my jacket on the back of the chair and sat down at the desk. I pulled the pad of hotel stationery from the top drawer, centered it in front of me, and stared at the blank page.
The day spent researching Hudson Pierce hadn’t been a waste. I’d learned a lot about the man in relatively few hours, quite a bit I’d already known from previous investigations—I never did business with anyone without a thorough background check. Still, a good deal of what I’d discovered had been new, details that shed new light on the man I very much wanted to confront.
So much had changed in the past few days. New information had been revealed. My beliefs had been challenged. It was a different man who sat in my skin today than the one who’d worn it a week before. I wasn’t even the same man as the one I’d been the night I’d learned Hudson’s real role in my wife’s life.
Change was inevitable. Of course it was. I expected it. I took pride in being someone who could pivot when needed, and I’d done it successfully in both my business life and personal life on many occasions. But through the years, as far back as I could remember, my core had been rooted in a well-proven tradition of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Entire civilizations had thrived on that principal. It was simple. Justice in the most base form.
For me, it had been a compass as well as an anchor. Vengeance had dictated my direction and had held me together through the roughest of storms. Who would I have been without a place to put the mass of rage and spite and jealousy that lived inside of me? How could I have functioned? How could I have built my business or provided for my loved ones or even gotten out of bed day after day after day without the inspiration of a mission that I believed in?
But I’d heard Celia as she’d questioned me the night before. With what happened with Frank, with what happened with Ron—which situation feels more resolved to you now that they’re both said and done?
All day it had been in the back of my mind, popping to the front whenever I let it. I wished it had been harder to answer. I wished it had been easier to dismiss with excuses. I wished it wasn’t so obvious what I had to do next.
Wishing did nothing for progress. Only action mattered, and stalling wouldn’t get me what I wanted or what my family needed.
Now was the time.
With my decision made, I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket hanging behind me and retrieved my pen, then scrawled out a note on the paper in front of me.
I’m grateful to hear your wife is back in your arms.
You and I have unfinished business.
Edward Fasbender
I tore the sheet from the pad, folded it in thirds, and tucked it in an envelope that I addressed with Hudson’s name. In the morning, it would go out in the post and be received in the coming days. Then we’d officially be in the endgame. There would be a winner, and one or both of us could move on.
Now, though, with the course finally settled, I did as my wife commanded and went to bed.
A little more than a week later, I met with Hudson at an investor appreciation dinner that both Accelecom and Pierce Industries had been invited to. “Neutral territory,” he’d said, which wasn’t quite true since the whole of New York City seemed to belong to the man.
To be honest, whose territory was whose didn’t concern me, as long as we had the opportunity to speak in private and at length. Hudson had assured me he could make that happen, even though the event had a forecasted attendance of two-hundred-fifty people.
It wasn’t until we were at the top of the stairs to the roof and Hudson pulled out a personal set of keys that I understood how he could make the guarantee.
“You own the building,” I said as we walked away from the door out onto the private terrace. “Seems like that should have been disclosed beforehand.” I reached inside my tuxedo and pulled a lighter and the two cigars I’d bought the week before from my inside pocket. They’d been meant for me and Celia, but this felt more apropos.
Hudson took the cigar I offered and shrugged. “My building, your cigar. Seems an equal amount of trust is required from both of us.”
“Are you so sure about that? Seems a lot easier to lace an item with poison than to push another man off a building.”
He studied me, as though trying to discern how much of a threat I posed. While I’d told him on more than one occasion that I wanted Werner Media, I’d given him no reason to believe I felt any real loathing toward him.
After a beat, he bit the cap off his cigar and spit it on the ground. “Lucky for both of us, neither of us stands to gain by the demise of the other.”
“Perhaps not.” I held my lighter out to him. “Though that theorizing underestimates the value of pure satisfaction.”
He laughed. “Touché.” He toasted the foot, then lit the filler, puffing a bit before drawing the cigar away to study the label. “Gurka? These are high quality. Nice flavor. What’d they run? Twelve k a box?”
“Fifteen.”
“Impressive.” He handed me back the lighter.
I prepared my own cigar, making sure I had a strong cherry before pocketing my lighter. We puffed in silence, both of us looking out over the New York City skyline, the summer night bright with artificial light. It was astonishing how calm I felt. In my head—as I’d planned this approach, what I’d say, what I’d do—I’d expected more adrenaline. Instead, there was a quiet peace, so foreign to my nature it would have alarmed me if I let it.
Instead, I embraced it. Held it like it was my wife. Let it be my foundation, a firmer bedrock than any I’d planted on before.
I wondered in those moments what Hudson must think about this meeting I’d called. He hadn’t asked its purpose, clearly believing my goal was the shares, a natural assumption. Would he bring it up? Or would he wait for me? It was a fun little game trying to guess.
But I wasn’t here for games. The time for those was long over, for both of us.
The past seemed to be on his mind as well, because, after a long brooding silence, it was he who brought it up. “Did you read them?”
I didn’t have to ask to know he meant the journals. “I did. Cover to cover. Every one.”
He tried to hide his wince, but I saw it. “I didn’t want Alayna reading them. I’ve tried to keep her from that as much as I could.”
“Oh, Celia would have liked to keep me from them as well, I’m sure.” I drew again on my cigar, letting him make of that what he would.
He considered. “While I’d like to say that I respect my wife’s privacy, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing in your position.”
I didn’t know enough about Hudson Pierce to make any assumptions, so I asked outright. “And had you been in my position, if you’d read that log of cruel manipulation, what would have been your reaction?”
He answered quickly. “I would have run. As far as possible.”
“But Alayna knows, however much you’ve tried to spare her, and she’s still with you.”