Elizabeth turned slowly. Ivy stood with her arms wrapped around herself, looking younger than nineteen. Ash sat rigid in his chair, processing everything with the methodical precision that reminded Elizabeth painfully of their father.
"You're going to be whatever you choose to be," Elizabeth said, the lie flowing smoothly despite its hollowness. "The structure gives you options. You can learn the business, take on more responsibility as you're ready. Or you can take the dividends and build something entirely your own."
"But we won't have real power," Ash said quietly. It wasn't a question. "Not while the professional management team runs everything. Not while every major decision requires board approval that you've already stacked with people loyal to you."
Elizabeth felt something crack inside her-not the tumor, but something deeper. The narcissistic certainty that had protected her from feeling.
"No," she admitted finally. "You won't have real power. Not the way I do. Not the way I did."
"Why?" Ivy's voice broke on the word. "If you're dying anyway, why not just... let go? Why not trust us?"
The question hung between them like an accusation, and Elizabeth had no good answer. Because the truth was ugly: she didn't trust them. She'd spent her entire adult life building this empire, destroying competitors, crushing anyone who stood in her way. The thought of handing that power to people who still believed in concepts like fairness and compassion was unbearable.
"Because I'm afraid," Elizabeth whispered, the admission costing her more than any business negotiation ever had. "I'm afraid that you'll destroy what I've built. I'm afraid that you're too good, too ethical, too human to do what needs to be done to keep this empire intact."
"What if we don't want to keep it intact?" Ash asked softly. "What if the empire you built is something we'd rather see fall apart than perpetuate?"
The words hit Elizabeth like a physical blow. She sank into the nearest chair, her legs suddenly unable to support her weight.
"You're talking about Morrison Industries," she said flatly.
"I'm talking about all of it," Ash replied. His voice was steady now, carrying a strength Elizabeth had never heard before. "The families you displaced. The workers you terminated without severance. The competitors you destroyed. Marcus Blacksilver put a gun to his head because of what you did to him, Liz. His daughter will never forgive you. And neither will I, not really."
Elizabeth felt tears prick her eyes-a sensation so foreign that for a moment she didn't recognize it. "I know what I've done. I know what I am. That's why I can't let you-"
"Can't let us what?" Ivy interrupted, her voice gaining strength. "Can't let us be better than you? Can't let us build something that doesn't require destroying people to survive?"
The silence stretched, broken only by the sound of Elizabeth's ragged breathing.
"I don't know how to let go," she finally admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "I've spent my entire adult life controlling outcomes, dominating challenges, refusing to surrender. The tumor is taking that from me piece by piece, and I'm... I'm terrified."
Ash moved from his chair to kneel beside Elizabeth, his hand finding hers. The gesture was so unexpected, so gentle, that Elizabeth felt the tears she'd been holding back finally spill over.
"I'm terrified too," he said quietly. "I'm terrified of failing you. Of failing the company. Of becoming what you became in order to keep it all running. But most of all, I'm terrified of losing you. Of watching you disappear while we're still fighting about corporate structure and succession plans."
Ivy moved to Elizabeth's other side, her hand resting on her sister's shoulder. "Do you regret any of it? Building all of this? Becoming what you became?"
Elizabeth looked at both of them-really looked at them for the first time in years. Ash, who had their father's kindness and their mother's moral clarity. Ivy, who still believed in the possibility of doing good in a world that rewarded cruelty.
"I regret what it cost me," Elizabeth said finally, her voice breaking on the words. "I don't regret what I built-the companies, the wealth, the power. But I regret who I had to become to build it. I regret pushing both of you away. I regret never learning how to love something more than I loved winning."
She paused, gathering strength for what came next. "I went too far with Morrison Industries. I should have listened to you, Ash, about the severance packages. I should have listened to both of you more. About everything."
The admission felt like surrender, like the final breaking of the armor she'd spent years constructing.
"The succession plan..." Elizabeth's voice was hoarse now, raw with emotion she'd spent a lifetime suppressing. "It was never about protecting you. It was about protecting my legacy from your humanity. From your capacity to care about things I stopped caring about years ago."
Ash's grip on her hand tightened. "Then change it. Give us real power. Trust us to do better than you did."
"I can't," Elizabeth whispered. "Even knowing what I know, even understanding what I've become, I can't just... let it all go. The empire is all I have. It's the only thing I've ever been good at."
"That's not true," Ivy said fiercely. "You were good at loving Sage. You were good at protecting us when we were kids. You were good at so many things before you decided that only winning mattered."
The mention of Sage made Elizabeth's chest tighten with something that felt like regret mixed with longing. Sage, who had stayed through the migraines and the rage and the slow dissolution of everything Elizabeth had been. Sage, who deserved so much better than what Elizabeth had given her.
"I'm dying," Elizabeth said, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. "And the tumor is taking pieces of me every day. The rage comes faster now. The confusion. The moments where I don't recognize myself or remember why I made certain choices. Soon I won't be able to control any of it."
She looked at both of her siblings with eyes that held more vulnerability than they'd ever seen from her. "I need you to promise me something. Both of you. When I'm gone, when the company is yours, do better than I did. Build something that matters, not just something that generates profit. And if you can't do that, if the only way to keep the empire intact is to become what I became, then let it fall apart. Let it all burn."
The tears were flowing freely now, years of suppressed emotion finally breaking through the narcissistic armor that had protected her from feeling.
"I built this empire on broken families and ruined lives," Elizabeth continued, her voice shaking. "I told myself it was necessary. That business required ruthlessness. That success demanded sacrifice. But the truth is, I just... I just wanted to be powerful enough that no one could ever hurt me. And in the process, I became the thing that hurt everyone else."
Ash pulled her into an embrace, and Elizabeth collapsed into it-the first real physical affection she'd accepted in years. Ivy joined them, wrapping her arms around both of them, and for a moment they were just siblings again. Not executives, not inheritors of an empire, just three people bound by blood and grief and the impossible weight of what came next.
"We forgive you," Ash whispered into her hair. "We don't agree with what you did. We don't excuse it. But we forgive you. And we'll try to do better."
Elizabeth cried then-really cried for the first time since her parents' funeral. She cried for Morrison Industries and Marcus Blacksilver and all the families she'd displaced. She cried for Sage and the love she'd weaponized instead of cherishing. She cried for the person she might have been if she'd chosen differently at every crucial juncture.
And most of all, she cried for the time she'd wasted building an empire when she could have been building a family.
When the tears finally subsided, Elizabeth pulled back and wiped her eyes with trembling hands. Her siblings watched her with expressions that held equal parts love and sorrow.
"The succession plan stays as written," Elizabeth said finally. "For now. But I'm adding a clause. When I'm declared medically unfit to serve-when the tumor takes too much-you get full operational control. No board approval required. No restrictions. Just... your judgment and your conscience."
She managed a weak smile. "Try not to bankrupt us in the first quarter."
Ivy laughed through her tears. "No promises."
…
That night, Elizabeth sat in her office long after everyone else had gone home. The city lights stretched out below her like a circuit board, all connections and pulsing energy. Her empire, viewed from forty-three floors up.
She thought about the succession plan, about the control she was relinquishing in increments so small they felt like paper cuts rather than amputations. About Ash and Ivy, who would inherit both her wealth and her sins.
About Sage, who deserved to know that Elizabeth had finally cracked open the armor enough to feel something other than the need to dominate.
The folder from Dr. Hammond sat on her desk, full of treatment options and prognosis statistics. Eighteen months to two years. Time enough to try to make amends, though she knew that some things couldn't be forgiven. Time enough to learn what it meant to love people more than she loved power.
Time enough, maybe, to become someone worth mourning.