[center][h3][color=91AABA]E D W A R D[/color][/h3][/center]

"Well, children, if you're all quite finished with your bickering, shall I elaborate a little more on why we have the pleasure of one another's company?"

Edward stifled a chuckle with a sharp exhalation, taking his place near a window that gave way to a cloudy sky. His sisters, as was typical, were at each other's throats in the subtlest of ways, something he learned to tune out when he was younger. It was annoying, always hearing the family bicker.

"As you all know, a few days ago I found your father... I found your father dead in our bed. At first, paramedics assumed some kind of cardiac arrest. A hemorrhage, maybe. They believed he'd died somewhat peacefully in his sleep."

Already, he knew the paramedics were mistaken, or perhaps he wished them to be. Edward couldn't remember a time where he didn't wish his father was plagued with nightmares. For all the good Anthony supposedly did in the world, his son knew it was to keep up an image. Real life was often worse.

"The police are saying, after their medical experts reassessed the scene, that your father was actually murdered. Asphyxiation is the conclusion so far, but the postmortem will reveal more details. They're not sure how long this will take but in the meantime, we need to prepare ourselves."

[i]Prepare for what,[/i] Edward wondered. [i]To protect our reputation? Why? We have more money than the world knows what to do with. We can literally[/i] [b]buy[/b] [i]silence.[/i]

If people were cagey with being questioned, then they had something to hide, he figured. There was nothing Edward felt needed to be kept secret. If there was a murder, he'd be an open book on when and where he'd been. The clubs could vouch for him, and the women he'd brought back to his bed—even if they hated the way he casually paid them the next morning—would attest to his escapades between the sheets. Edward's thoughts turned to the next time he'd be away from this place, his eyes casually following his mother as she slowly paced around the pool house.

"Your father's death is bound to be in the press by tomorrow. I've managed to keep it out of the public eye thus far, give us some privacy as a family, but my luck's about to run out. The leeches can only stay away for so long before a good story brings them out of the woodwork. The vultures will descend and when they do, I want us ready. Katherine, I want you to deploy close-protection security to each of us. If Anthony's murder is as suspicious as the police say, none of us are safe." 

[i]None of us are safe.[/i] After all these years, what an ironic thing to say.

"The will reading is tomorrow. You all need to be there. Not that I think you'd miss the opportunity to hear first-hand what small fortune you're each inheriting. Ryland will be distributing the estate and assets. Funeral arrangements are being made. It'll be on Friday next week, providing they release your father's body in the next couple days."

There was a certain tone in his mother's voice that pinched a nerve. She was clearly on the attack, trying to do damage control. Underneath her words, he could hear how the tears she shed tinged every formant and pitch, and it was this that dug at him. Edward knew for a fact that none of those tears were realistically for her now-dead husband. No—instead, they were for the very possibility that their lives were going to collapse around them, that none of what transpired across the years would remained unburied, as it would ruin the family's good—good?—name. Edward's eyes darted over to the window, watching the backyard and the pool in particular. In the midst of the speech, he briefly daydreamed being younger, yet still having the wherewithal to...

[color=91AABA]"So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?"[/color] Edward asked, stepping away from the window and rejoining the family. At the same time, he took notice of Mariana, who had suddenly become visibly distraught and reached for her phone as she immediately left the pool house. It was an odd behavior, one that could betray two possible causes. Regardless—[color=91AABA]"Are we staying here, booking a hotel, what? If the detectives are going to be grilling us about Father's death, I assume we're not going far."[/color]