Chapter 20 I Kill You After Becoming You
# Chapter 20: I Kill You After Becoming You
Six months later, I stood alone at the edge of the Monette family plot, watching as workers lowered Callum's casket into the ground. The funeral had been a spectacle befitting a man of his stature—hundreds of mourners, eulogies from world leaders, media coverage that painted him as a visionary businessman and philanthropist. None of it captured the complex, manipulative, brilliant man I had known.
The official guests had departed hours ago, leaving only immediate family for the interment. Even they had gone now—Gideon to the airport for a flight to London, where he'd established a new life away from the Monette name; Silas back to his treatment facility, his condition stable but his future uncertain; Valencia to her suite at the Plaza, where she'd agreed to stay temporarily while we negotiated her return to public life.
My hand rested on my swollen belly, feeling the child within me shift and turn. Seven months pregnant now, I had reached the point where hiding my condition was impossible. The press had been ravenous for details—the dying CEO's young widow, carrying his posthumous heir. The timing had worked in our favor; no one questioned that the child was Callum's, conceived shortly after our wedding.
Only I knew the truth—that the conception had likely occurred before, during those heated encounters in my apartment or on his yacht. Before I knew who I was. Before I understood the game he was playing.
"Mrs. Monette?" The funeral director approached cautiously. "The workers are finished. Would you like a moment alone before we leave?"
I nodded, and he retreated with a respectful bow. When I was truly alone, I stepped to the edge of the grave and looked down at the polished mahogany casket.
"You didn't suffer in the end," I said quietly. "The doctors made sure of that. But I think you would have preferred consciousness until the last moment, wouldn't you? To witness every detail, to maintain control until the very end."
The cancer had accelerated dramatically in his final weeks, as if once Callum accepted his fate, his body rushed to meet it. He had remained clear-minded until the last three days, when the pain medications finally clouded his legendary intellect.
During those lucid final weeks, we had talked constantly—planning, strategizing, ensuring the transition of power would be seamless. In those intimate conversations, as death approached, Callum had shown me glimpses of the man he might have been without the weight of the Monette legacy—reflective, occasionally remorseful, capable of a tenderness I hadn't believed him capable of.
"I've done everything you asked," I continued, speaking to his casket as if he could hear. "The press release goes out tomorrow announcing the restructuring. The board has approved all the changes. Project Monarch has been officially terminated, though I've preserved the research under new ethical guidelines."
A light rain began to fall, pattering on the leaves above me. I didn't open my umbrella, welcoming the cool drops on my overheated skin.
"Valencia has agreed to return publicly as Vivienne Monette, with a carefully crafted story about mental health treatment abroad. The DNA tests confirming my parentage have been sealed—as far as the world is concerned, I am your niece by marriage only, not Vincent's daughter." I smiled faintly. "The scandal of you marrying your son's ex-wife was enough without adding incestuous undertones."
The rain fell harder, soaking my black dress, plastering my hair to my face. Still, I remained.
"You were right about one thing," I admitted. "I am like you. I see the patterns, the possibilities, the points of leverage. I understand power—how to acquire it, how to wield it, how to make others believe surrendering to it was their idea all along."
Lightning flashed in the distance, followed by a low rumble of thunder. The storm was approaching, but I wasn't ready to leave. Not yet.
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"But you were wrong about the most important thing," I continued. "Control isn't the ultimate goal. Connection is. The Monette legacy you built isolated everyone it touched—you, Valencia, your sons, me. We were all alone together, manipulating each other from behind walls of strategy and suspicion."
I reached into my pocket and withdrew a small object—the black diamond ring he had first offered me, which I had never worn. Kneeling awkwardly with my pregnant belly, I placed it atop the casket.
"I won't raise our child that way," I promised. "They will know love without calculation, ambition without cruelty, power without isolation. They will be brilliant because brilliance is in their blood, but they will be kind because kindness is in their environment."
Rising, I finally opened my umbrella as the rain became a downpour. "Goodbye, Callum. I did love you, in my way. Perhaps the only way either of us knew how."
As I turned to leave, I noticed a figure standing beneath a distant tree—Odessa, holding a sleeping infant in her arms. Our eyes met across the cemetery, and after a moment's hesitation, she approached.
"I didn't expect to see you here," I said, extending my umbrella to shelter her and the child.
"I thought he deserved one mourner who wasn't obligated by blood or business." Her voice was steadier than when I'd last seen her, her eyes clearer. "And I wanted you to meet him."
She adjusted the blanket, revealing the face of her sleeping son. Despite myself, I caught my breath—the child was beautiful, with delicate features and a shock of dark hair that marked him unmistakably as a Monette.
"His name is Julian," she said softly. "Julian Silas Monette."
"He's beautiful," I said honestly. "How is motherhood treating you?"
"It's clarifying." A faint smile touched her lips. "All the drama, the manipulation, the power games—they seem so small when you're responsible for a new life."
I rested my hand on my own belly. "I'm beginning to understand that."
We stood in silence for a moment, two women connected by the complicated web of the Monette legacy, each carrying its future in our own way.
"What happens now?" Odessa asked finally. "With the company, with everything he built?"
"Evolution," I replied. "The Monette empire will continue, but with a new focus. Transparency where there was secrecy. Ethical innovation where there was manipulation. A legacy that builds up rather than controls."
She studied my face. "And you think you can make that happen? After everything he taught you, everything you've become?"
"I became him to understand him," I said simply. "Now I can unmake what needs unmaking while preserving what's worth saving."
As we walked together toward the cemetery gates, the rain began to ease, sunlight breaking through the clouds. In the distance, I could see my driver waiting, the Monette family car gleaming black against the wet pavement.
"Will you be at the press conference tomorrow?" I asked Odessa.
She shook her head. "That's your world now, not mine. Julian and I are moving to Paris next week. Fresh start, away from the Monette shadow."
"If you ever need anything—"
"I know where to find you," she finished with a small smile. "At the top of that tower, reshaping the world according to your vision."
We parted ways at the gate, Odessa to her waiting taxi, me to the Monette car. As my driver held the door, I paused for one last look back at the cemetery—at the fresh grave that marked the end of one era and the beginning of another.
Tomorrow, I would stand before cameras and microphones, announcing the new direction of Monette Enterprises under my leadership. I would wear Callum's favorite suit of mine—a perfectly tailored navy ensemble that made me look both approachable and authoritative. I would speak with his confidence, move with his purpose, command the room with his presence.
But I would do it all with my own heart—a heart that remembered what it was to be manipulated, to be a pawn in someone else's game. A heart determined that the next generation of Monettes would know a different kind of power—the power that comes not from control, but from choice.
As the car pulled away, my hand rested protectively over my unborn child. "Your father is gone," I whispered. "But you will be greater than he ever was. You will be free."
