The King Is Dead

Beloved Mayor Dies in Tragic Accident. The bold letters across his screen screamed at him. The traffic noise coming through the windows, the clacking of his assistant's nails on her keyboard, and the chatter of employees in the office all faded away. As if a switch had been flipped, the normal sounds were replaced by a roar in his head like a giant waterfall.

He felt an icy chill skitter down his spine followed almost immediately by a burning rage in the pit of his stomach. He forced himself to look at the monitor again. There was no mistake. It was him. His picture was there in vivid color below the headline. Jonah Carrington, the man he had hated his entire life, the man who, ironically, had also set him on his path to success, was gone. God damn it!

Wyck threw the first thing his hand touched, a stress ball, at the wall. It made a wholly unsatisfying, soft thunk against the sheetrock. He abruptly jolted from his seat and ran his hands through his carefully styled black waves in frustration. It gave him a wild, untamed look that ran contrary to his usual perfectly polished style.

He must have made more noise than he thought as Mindy, his executive assistant, looked up from her keyboard, her eyes going wide as she focused on him standing behind his desk, hands on his head, looking like a bomb about to explode.

“Mr. Ward? Is everything okay?” She rose from her seat and approached his open door with careful steps, her heels clicking slowly across the hardwood floor.

His nostrils flared as he blew out heavy breaths trying to calm himself. His normally full mouth tightened into a straight line. Usually implacable grey eyes looked like dark storm clouds as they met his assistant's nervous eyes in the doorway.

“It’s fine, Mindy,” he growled through gritted teeth. “Hold all my calls.”

“Yes, sir.” The uneasy woman agreed quickly, backing out of the room and shutting the door with a quiet snick behind her.

Wyck threw himself back into his chair and whirled toward the windows that looked out over West Franklin Street in the upscale historic district of Richmond, Virginia. He stared blankly at the dark red brick of the buildings, the iron scrollwork, and the historic landmarks in front of him that usually instantly calmed him. Today, he didn’t even see it.

His vision was filled with the sunny mountain tops, the switchback ridges, and the shaded hollows of the world he grew up in. A world without a straight line to be seen, where there were as many secrets as the countless trees in the vast Jefferson National Forest that bordered the town of his boyhood, Carrington Ridge.

Wyck gave a derisive laugh. He had deluded himself all these years thinking that he had left that godforsaken place and never looked back. That was a lie. His whole life had been dedicated to looking back and planning the takedown of the man who had destroyed his boyhood dreams, run him out of town, and destroyed his heart so long ago.

Jonah Carrington was a monster as far as he was concerned. He ran that town like his own personal fiefdom and expected to get his way in everything. And more often than not, he did, considering he owned half the county's land and over half the town's businesses, including the very buildings that housed those enterprises. It was how he kept getting elected mayor.

No one wanted to cross Jonah lest they find their rent doubled or more of their land gobbled up next time they were late paying their land taxes. He shook his head with the ugly reminiscence. He'd never understood how Harper and that man could be related.

That single name flitting through his mind felt like a body slam. Harper. Memories of her that he had suppressed for years flooded back to him in a deluge. Her throaty laugh, her smile that shone like a sunrise, her genuine kindness to everyone. A more specific memory came unbidden then. One that had him groaning aloud. Her long, honey-colored hair cascading over the back of a leather sofa, her lips warm and soft on his neck, her changeable hazel eyes looking at him with all the love in her heart.

He ran a hand over his eyes as if that would make the image disappear. He suddenly sat up straight in his chair. The funeral! When was the funeral? Harper would be there. He turned back to the online paper pulled up on his monitor and scanned the article. “A private graveside service for family only will be held on Saturday, December 4 at the Carrington family cemetery.” He had two days.

“Mindy!” His door popped back open a few seconds later.

Mindy stood in the doorway, her hand holding onto the doorknob tightly. “Yes, sir?”

“Cancel everything for the next week unless it can be done by phone. I have to go out of town,” Wyck announced.

“Do you need me to make you a reservation?” she asked. Usually, he had his exacting assistant create detailed itineraries for any of his trips.

“No, I’ll take care of it. This is personal,” Wyck said, stuffing his laptop and files into his leather laptop bag. He grabbed his coat off the rack next to the door causing Mindy to hop out of the way. “I’ll be in the mountains so my cell service might be sporadic. I’ll check in when I get settled.”

“Okay,” his assistant said. “Um, have a safe trip. I think they’re calling for snow in the mountains.”

A grim smile tipped up one corner of his mouth. “Yeah, what’s new,” he mumbled as he headed for the stairs.

As he fought his way through the afternoon traffic ten minutes later, he called Davis, his Chief Acquisitions Agent, and his best friend since his days at Old Miss.

"Hey, my man, what are you doing out of the office before seven o'clock? Isn't that against one of your rules?" Davis chided him over the Bluetooth.

"Yeah, well. I have something personal that came up. That's why I'm calling you," Wyck answered distractedly.

Normally, he'd bullshit with Davis for several minutes before getting down to business, but today his mind was consumed with what he'd just learned and where he needed to be. "I need you to pull up everything you can find on that Carrington Development Corp. Reach out to that attorney that has handled our previous acquisitions and find out what's left. The principal died." Wyck paused and his voice turned icy. "I want it all, Davis. Everything."

"Ah, shit! The old man kicked it?"

Besides Wyck, and Jonah himself,

Davis was the sole individual who knew the circumstances that had led a poor kid from hollers of the Southwest Virginia mountains to end up at Old Miss on a full ride scholarship. Wyck, with mediocre football skills, cash to burn, and a chip on his shoulder as large as the mountains he was from, had taken that boon and turned himself into a new man. One that set out to ruin the man who'd exiled him there – Jonah Carrington.

"Yeah, some accident," Wyck answered shortly. "I'm headed out to Carrington Ridge now. The bastard escaped me being able to personally tell him who was ruining him, but I'll finish what I started anyway. He can watch his kingdom crash and burn from hell."

"Okay, man. I'll get right on it," Davis agreed. "I'll holler at you when I find out."

"Thanks, Davis." Wyck blew out a breath.

"Sure, man. Hey, it's almost over."

"Yeah," Wyck responded, but he didn't sound nearly as sure.