Chapter 3 - The Price of Power
While I was building a new life in the quiet hills of Asheboro, thirty floors above downtown Charlotte, Nathan Prescott stood in his corner office, staring out at the rain through floor-to-ceiling glass.
The room was sleek, modern, and utterly devoid of warmth. On the massive mahogany desk sat a glass of double-poured scotch, untouched for hours.
The door to his office swung open without a knock. Victoria Prescott stepped inside, wearing a dark mink coat over an ivory silk blouse. She moved with the predatory grace of a woman who had spent forty years maintaining absolute dominance over one of the South's most powerful crime families.
"You're late for the board dinner, Nathan," she said, her sharp voice cutting through the quiet hum of the air conditioner. "The city council members are waiting. We need their signatures on the harbor development contract before midnight."
Nathan didn't turn around. His broad shoulders were tense beneath his tailored suit jacket, his hands clenched into fists in his trousers pockets.
"Did you really think I wouldn't find out about the offshore accounts, Victoria?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
Victoria paused, her expression unreadable. "I do what is necessary to protect our family's assets."
"You threatened me," Nathan said, turning slowly to face her. His striking gray eyes were cold, filled with an intense, burning hatred that would have terrified any other person in the state. "You stood in my office on my wedding morning and told me you'd leak the regulatory audit files to the federal prosecutor if I walked down that aisle."
"I saved you from yourself," Victoria replied smoothly, walking over to the bar to pour herself a glass of water. "Claire Bennett was a sweet girl, Nathan. Charming, really. But she was a nobody. A counselor from a family that makes fifty thousand dollars a year. The moment you married her, our political enemies would have used her as a target. The rival families in Atlanta would have seen her as a weak spot. You cannot afford a weak spot."
"She wasn't a weak spot!" Nathan slammed his fist down onto the desk, making the heavy crystal whiskey glass jump. "She was the only real thing in my entire miserable life!"
"She was a distraction!" Victoria snapped back, her eyes flashing with sudden heat. "Look at what you've accomplished in the last five years! We own the entire northern waterfront. We cleared twenty million in legitimate real estate development last quarter alone. The Prescott name is respected in every bank in Washington! You think you could have done that while dragging around a girl who buys her clothes on sale?"
Nathan stared at his mother, the disgust in his chest rising like bile. He remembered the look on Claire's face through the tinted glass of his SUV six months ago—the way she had walked down that chapel aisle alone, her head held high, refusing to let his associates see her break.
He had stayed in the car because he thought he was protecting her. Victoria had threatened to unleash the full force of the Prescott syndicate against Claire's family if he went through with the ceremony. He had believed that by leaving her, he was keeping her alive, shielding her from the violent, unforgiving blood-sport of his world.
He hadn't known then that Victoria had been bluffing about half of it. He hadn't known that his mother’s control over the board was already slipping.
"Get out," Nathan said quietly.
"Nathan, the board meeting—"
"Get out of my office, Victoria," he repeated, his tone dropping into the deadly register that made seasoned mob hitmen step back. "Before I forget that you're the woman who gave birth to me."
Victoria straightened her shoulders, her lips pressing into a thin, bitter line. "You're a fool, Nathan. You always were soft when it came to her. But she's gone now. She packed her apartment, left her job, and vanished. She wants nothing to do with you."
She turned on her high heels and walked out, clicking the heavy oak door shut behind her.
Nathan stood alone in the dark office. He walked over to his desk, opened the bottom locked drawer, and pulled out a small velvet box. Inside was the platinum wedding ring he was supposed to slip onto Claire's finger six months ago.
He brought the ring to his lips, closing his eyes as a wave of suffocating regret washed over him.
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"Where are you, Claire?" he whispered into the empty darkness. "Where did you go?"
He had no idea that at that exact moment, two hours away in a small clinic in Asheboro, a nurse was placing four tiny, miraculous newborn boys into incubator cribs—each of them bearing his features, his dark hair, and his unmistakable gray eyes.
