Murieann.
Meanwhile…
I’m in my house.
In my office.
My eyes track the figures climbing across my computer screen as my man of business speaks over a virtual meeting.
His voice smooth and practiced and reverent.
Status reports, percentages and projections of my holdings scattered across the world, like jewels I placed there myself.
The numbers rise.
They always do.
My popularity in the corporate world soars through the roofs.
My name whispered with awe in boardrooms and behind closed doors.
But none of it, none of it, matches the satisfaction of knowing the ones who hurt me are lying six feet beneath my feet.
Cold, silent and forever forgotten.
“As you can see, Ma’am, our holdings across the major continents have quadrupled over the last quarters of the year.”
Rack Gifford’s throaty voice slices into my thoughts now.
His face replaces the charts on the screen from earlier.
His face hard and respectful and faintly uneasy beneath my gaze.
“I suggest this would be the best time to invest in any major company you’ve set your sights on.
With numbers like these, only a fool would turn down your proposition.”
He praises, carefully.
I let my gaze drift away from the screen and settle on the file resting on my desk.
The name Tarian Sawyer written on it .
It has been there since the day Peter Stag sent me the electronic folder.
I trail my fingers along the edges, slow, absent and possessive.
“I do have my eye on a large fish.” I murmur, quietly.
The corner of my mouth lifts.
A fish, and the Sawyers own a fishing empire.
How amusing.
I’m certainly more poetic than I thought.
“Is it a major company?” Rack asks, cautiously now.
“Should I conduct a feasibility study?”
My eyes snap back to his.
“No.” The word is sharp from my lips and final.
“Continue handling my existing interests.
Lar already had someone dig deep into the company.
I have everything I need.”
I smile into the camera and add in a measured tone, “I only hope the owner isn’t foolish enough to turn me down.”
Rack swallows.
He always does.
All the men in my employ do.
They can’t stand the weight of my presence, yet desire keeps them orbiting me like moths drawn to flame.
The intercom buzzes.
“Ma’am,” one of my security men says when I answer it, “Lar Shaw is here.”
“Send him in,”
I say and cut the connection.
Then I glance back at the screen.
“Rack, this meeting is over.
Keep me informed.
I expect progress reports soon, particularly regarding my partnership with this new company.”
My most charming smile seals his fate and I end the call.
I rise and cross to the bar, selecting one of my finest bottles of brandy.
Two glasses.
One for Lar.
An anticipated celebration of sealing this deal with Tarian Sawyer.
A girl can dream, can’t I?
I sip from my drink and move to the window, watching the water rise and fall in a rhythm that has never left my blood.
I love water.
I always have.
That is why I chose this mansion, perched close to the water, when I settled in New York City after the Second World War, in 1945.
A home I’ve occupied for eighty years, under different personas.
The same name.
The same me.
Murieann Amran as grandmother.
Murieann Amran as daughter.
And now, I’m Murieann Amran as granddaughter.
Memory claws its way inside me now.
England.
The war.
Blood hunt masked by uniforms and gunfire from the war.
I hunted the Daorheches’ firstborn sons under the cover of chaos.
Possessing soldiers, turning men into weapons.
Entire branches of their family trees and any standing opposition, erased.
Only for the papers to report they’d fallen to enemy fire.
If only they knew that I had being responsible for those deaths.
That I had possessed human soldiers to claim those Daorheche lives.
When I tried to widen the hunt for the Daorheches, the war stopped me.
Magic scent trackers vanished into hiding or died beneath weapons born of human hatred.
Even magic has its limits.
When I arrived in New York City in America, searching for witches rumored to track any soul, I was struck by the city’s defiance.
The noise.
The life.
The hunger for greatness.
The world burned, yet New York pulsed with ambition.
I slipped into character easily.
“Name?” The immigration officer asked at the port of entry.
I met his gaze without flinching.
“Murieann Amran.”
“It says here you’re a pearl farmer.
You wish to invest?”
“Yes.” I smiled, slowly and deliberately.
“With the war over, your country will need investors.
Money isn’t my concern.
I have a clean record in Ireland.”
I adjusted my gloves.
My pearl ring caught the light.
He studied me.
Then the documents.
Meanwhile around us, women and children waited, some already condemned to deportation.
Dreams dissolving in silence.
I nodded.
Once, I hadn’t been.
Once, I loved Lysander Daorheche, and had agreed to marry him.
Once, he slaughtered my family.
The stamp hit the paper.
The word ‘Approved,’ sealed on my document.
I walked away with adrenaline flooding my veins.
A beginning to a new life and a pause in my vengeance.
For a time, I allowed myself distraction.
I built an empire.
Pearl production.
Trade.
Contracts with jewelers whose names filled newspapers.
My face was everywhere.
I became a force in the world to be reckoned with.
Then rumors started.
Whispers of my youth that didn’t fade.
The world is never satisfied.
So I called my partner.
“You want me to fake my own death?” I’d whispered when he suggested it.
He shrugged.
“You come back as her daughter.
Same name.”
“And the papers?” I asked him.
He gave a dark chuckle.
“I told you I would help you destroy your enemies.
Every time you need to become someone else, I’ll handle it.”
Twice now, I’ve died on paper.
Five years ago, I died again.
And rose as the thirty five year old Murieann Amran, granddaughter, heiress, carefully hidden from the world.
“Good evening, Ma’am.”
Lar’s voice pulls me back to the present now.
I turn my gaze, smiling despite the ache that never truly leaves me.
“Lar.” I hand him a glass.
“Tell me celebrations are in order.”
But his face tightens and my smile instantly fades.
“What happened?” I ask.
He exhales heavily.
“Mr.
Tarian Sawyer refused to cooperate.”
My gaze sharpens.
“He insists on meeting you before proceeding.
Says he prefers to know his investors personally.”
The air leaves my lungs.
Fury coils, hot and violent inside me.
How dare he make demands?
I make demands.
I end lives.
His fate already rests in my hands and yet he dares to ask for me.