Copyright: July 2013
Find the rest of the story here: http://amzn.to/1jBqIbW
Prologue
April 23rd, 2005. Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA.
The sky shines a crisp, azure blue, but my heart is a lifeless gray and quickly turning as black as the muddied dirt I'm holding in my hands. I squeeze my fingers so tightly into a fist that my hand begins to shake and bits of grit embed into my palms.
The task set before me is customary and very common among men. But the woman I mourn today was anything but common. She was brilliant, wise, and beautiful.
Now she's gone. . . Forever.
Sorrow will no longer consume her heart and soul. Instead it passes on to me.
I toss the black dirt into the dark and musty grave and fall to my knees. The eerie hollow sound of the clumps of dirt hitting the wood below is more than I can bear.
The tears I’ve been suppressing for days now fall freely down my face like a dam’s flood after a breach. An unrestrained sorrow pours out of me, and the whirl of emotions I’ve hidden within myself is no longer concealed. My grief is freed as I realize all I love is now six feet below me, but it might as well be a million miles away. The distance will never be broached this side of heaven as she is God’s angel now.
Returning to the hearse, I see a man’s face in the distance. We make eye contact before he raises the tinted window of his black limo. His vehicle pulls away, disappearing into the morning’s mist. Anger rises above my grief because he has no right to be anywhere near this solemn ceremony.
He’s the bastard who slowly and silently destroyed the woman I’m leaving behind today in this cold and wet cemetery. She was my mother . . . My selfless life-giver, and I owe her everything.
Chapter 1
My legs feel as heavy as lead pipes, but somehow they carry me through the marbled lobby to the sidewalk outside of my office high rise. I find myself standing on grimy concrete with the New York City rain pelting me, staining my yellow silk tie. I am numb to nature’s onslaught, as my thoughts remain at the conference table forty stories above—where the last meeting of the day still haunts me.
My head of corporate security had informed me that my trusted partner and friend, Simon Edwards, betrayed me by stabbing me in the back. My stomach almost retches as I think about his deceit. I’ve known him since our freshman year at MIT fourteen years ago. Through random selection, we’d shared a dorm room together. We weren’t extremely close because we were polar opposites and different personality types. Especially when it came to dealing with people. Basically, I tolerated them and he didn’t. But we formed a common respect for one another during our college years and beyond. Maybe it was our desire to make our mark in the business world, as we both had something to prove to the fathers we hated. It was likely the only thing we had in common.
After graduating college, four of us from MIT, including Simon, headed to New York City and formed Kings Capital, largely using the inheritance I received after my mother’s death. It served as the company’s seed money and positioned me as the company’s head. Although Simon seldom made his way to the boardroom, his presence there was felt by us all. We’d relied on his genius mind to design a way around any obstacle or shortcoming we found in our software ventures. We capitalized on so many deals thanks to Simon. We had a saying among the board, “If Simon says so, we buy.”
Never in a million years would I have thought he’d try to sell me out. When others said my dreams were impossible or if a wall was placed in my way, he was my go-to man. Now he was the wall. Simon was caught trying to sell me out by giving away corporate secrets to another company. My corporate secrets. Secrets stained with my own blood, sweat, and fears. Although I was assured our company secrets never touched any outsiders’ hand, his act of betrayal has set my world’s axis askew.
