Chapter 4 - The Cold Cabin
The mountain roads outside Aspen were officially impassable for commercial traffic by nine o'clock, but my money and the local drivers I commandeered managed to secure a private, secluded timber-frame cabin nestled in the pines near Red Mountain. It was owned by a hedge fund colleague who kept it fully staffed and heated year-round.
Within an hour of leaving the chaotic airport, we were inside.
A roaring fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting dancing amber shadows across the vaulted cedar ceiling. The drivers had performed miracles: the kitchen counter was lined with infant pain relievers, fever reducers, pedialyte, fresh fruit, warm soup, and clean clothes.
I had stripped off my tailored suit jacket, tossed my silk tie onto an armchair, and rolled my white shirt sleeves up to my elbows.
On the oversized leather sofa, Luke lay wrapped in a soft wool blanket, his head resting on Cassandra’s lap. I knelt on the hardwood floor beside them, holding a small plastic syringe filled with cherry-flavored fever reducer.
“Come on, buddy,” I coaxed, keeping my voice gentle, lower than I had ever used in a boardroom. “Just a little sip. It tastes like candy, I promise.”
Luke whimpered, turning his hot face into Cassandra’s jeans. “No. Tastes yucky.”
Cassandra looked at me, her eyes weary, the emotional whiplash of the last four hours clearly draining the last reserves of her strength. “He hates medicine, Damon. When he had ear infections in the spring, it took me forty minutes just to get five milliliters down him.”
“Let me try something,” I said.
I looked at Violet, who was sitting on the floor a few feet away, solemnly feeding imaginary tea to her plush elephant.
“Violet,” I called softly.
She looked up with those identical green eyes.
“Does your elephant need medicine to make his trunk feel better?”
Violet blinked, processed the question, and nodded vigorously. She toddled over on her chubby legs, offering the gray stuffed toy.
I took the empty plastic cap from the medicine bottle, pretended to pour a drop into it, and tapped it against the elephant’s stitched cloth nose. “All better! Big strong elephant.”
Violet giggled, a bright, chiming sound that cut through the tension of the cabin like sunlight through winter fog.
Luke watched through half-closed, feverish eyes. The competitive twin instinct flickered to life. “Me too,” he mumbled weakly. “I’m strong too.”
“You’re the strongest,” I told him.
I held the syringe to his lips. He hesitated, then took the liquid in three small gulps, making a sour face before collapsing back against Cassandra’s knees.
I let out a breath I felt like I had been holding for three years.
“Good job, son,” I murmured, the word slipping out before I could filter it.
Cassandra went entirely still. The word *son* hung in the warm air between us, heavy with gravity. She didn't correct me. She didn't pull away. She simply looked down at Luke’s forehead, gently brushing back his damp curls as his breathing gradually slowed into a calm, steady rhythm.
Twenty minutes later, the medicine took hold. Luke’s skin cooled down from dangerous heat to a mild, manageable warmth. He fell into a deep, healing sleep.
Violet, too, finally succumbed to exhaustion, curling up into a ball on the far corner of the massive sofa, clutching her elephant with one hand and my discarded suit jacket with the other.
Cassandra carefully slid out from beneath Luke, tucking the wool blanket securely around his small shoulders. She walked slowly toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked out over the raging blizzard. Outside, pine trees bent under the weight of heavy, driving snow.
I walked over to the open kitchen, poured two mugs of hot chamomile tea from the kettle on the stove, and carried them over. I handed one to her.
She took it, her fingers brushing mine. A current of static and memory passed between us, sharp and undeniable.
“Thank you,” she whispered, looking out into the white darkness.
“You don't ever have to thank me for taking care of them, Cassandra. Or you.”
She took a sip of the tea, watching the steam rise. “I spent thirty months hating you, Damon. Do you know what that does to a person? Every time Luke ran out of formula, every time the landlord threatened to evict us because my paycheck cleared a day late, every time I had to take two city buses in the freezing rain to get them to their vaccinations... I looked at their eyes, and I hated you for living in luxury while your children had nothing.”
Every word struck my chest like a physical blow. I didn't defend myself. I didn't make excuses about corporate espionage or my father’s machinations. I stood there and took the punishment I deserved for being blind.
“I was an idiot,” I said, my voice thick with self-hatred. “I let my father convince me you walked away. I was so consumed by building Prescott Technologies, so obsessed with never being powerless like I was when Clara died, that I failed to see the monster standing right next to me.”
Cassandra turned to face me. The warm firelight outlined the delicate curves of her face—the high cheekbones, the determined jawline, the lips I had kissed ten thousand times in our small college apartment when we owned nothing but a mattress and a dream.
“Why Clara?” she asked softly. “You never told me the whole story, Damon. You always shut down whenever you talked about your sister.”
I stared down into my black tea, watching the dark liquid ripple.
“Clara was six months old when I was twelve,” I whispered, the memory clawing its way up from the vault of my childhood. “She contracted a simple respiratory syncytial virus. In a top-tier hospital, it’s routine. But my father’s first company had just gone bankrupt. We had lost our private insurance three weeks prior. He refused to take her to the county emergency room because he was terrified the press would find out he was broke. He waited forty-eight hours, trying to manage it at home to save his pride.”
Cassandra gasped softly, her hand flying to her mouth.
“By the time he finally swallowed his ego and drove her to the hospital, her airways had collapsed,” I continued, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth ached. “I sat in the waiting room while they tried to revive her. I watched two doctors walk out with their heads down. My father didn't cry. He looked at me and said, *‘Money is the only thing in this world that keeps you alive, Damon. Never let anyone take your leverage.’*”
Tears welled in Cassandra’s eyes.
“I thought if I built the Merritt neonatal platform,” I said, looking over at Luke and Violet sleeping peacefully on the sofa, “if I controlled the technology that prevents infant lung failure and made it accessible to every hospital in the country, I could balance the ledger. I thought I could bring Clara back in some twisted, corporate way.”
I looked Cassandra straight in the eyes.
“I was trying to save a ghost, Cassandra. And while I was chasing that ghost, my father stole my real family right out from under me.”
Before Cassandra could reply, the harsh, electronic ring of my personal phone shattered the quiet of the cabin.
I pulled it from my pocket. It wasn't my father.
It was Victoria Kane, Prescott Technologies’ Chief Legal Officer, calling on an encrypted, direct satellite line.
And the clock on the mantle read 10:45 PM.
May you like
There were seventy-five minutes left before the Merritt deal expired forever.
***
