Chapter 4: THE VIGIL
The hospital waiting room smelled like bleach and bad decisions.
We'd been shuffled to a private wing—money bought that much, at least. Leather chairs instead of plastic. Real coffee instead of vending machine sludge. A television mounted on the wall playing muted news that probably already had Logan's collapse as breaking coverage.
I sat. Stood. Sat again. My body didn't know what to do with itself.
Kendall paced. Phone pressed to his ear. Probably talking to Frank or Gerri or whoever needed to know that the king was down and the princes were circling.
Shiv had claimed a corner. Laptop open. Already working the political angle. Crisis management. Spin control. Making sure the world saw a united family instead of the knife fight we actually were.
Connor stared at the wall. Looked lost. He always looked lost.
Marcia stayed with Logan. Behind closed doors where the doctors worked and the machines beeped and the great Logan Roy lay diminished and vulnerable.
Executives started arriving within the hour.
Frank first. Navy suit. Concerned expression that might have been genuine. Hard to tell with Frank—he'd survived decades of Roy family chaos by being professionally worried about everything.
He shook my hand. Squeezed my shoulder.
The Empathy Engine flared.
Stability. Need stability. If Logan dies the company fractures. Thirty years of work. Can't let it fall apart. Which kid can actually hold this together? Not Roman. Never Roman. Kendall maybe. If he doesn't collapse under the pressure—
I pulled back. The headache that had been building since I touched Logan spiked.
"How is he?" Frank asked.
"Alive. Stable. That's all they're telling us."
"And you?" He studied my face. "You handled the crisis well. Very... unexpected."
"Yeah, well. Surprises all around today."
Karl arrived next. CFO. Numbers guy. The one who'd crawl on the floor like a pig if Logan asked him to. I knew that from the show. Watching him now, you wouldn't guess it. He looked concerned. Appropriate.
I shook his hand anyway.
Stock price. Media coverage. Board confidence. Need to project stability. Which way does this go? If Logan dies does Kendall hold the votes? Does anyone? Sandy and Stewy will smell blood. Move fast. Consolidate before—
I jerked my hand back. Rubbed my temples.
"You alright?" Karl's concern looked genuine. Wasn't.
"Fine. Long day."
More executives filtered in. Board members. Senior vice presidents. People whose names I half-remembered from the show and from Roman's inherited memories. They all wanted to shake my hand. Offer condolences. Position themselves.
Each touch brought fragments. Fear. Calculation. Opportunism wearing concern like a mask.
The Empathy Engine was getting stronger. Or I was getting worse at controlling it. Proximity activated it now. Touch made it overwhelming.
My head felt like someone had taken a power drill to my skull.
I needed space. Air. Something.
The cafeteria.
I walked there without telling anyone. Down sterile hallways. Past rooms where people fought death and mostly lost. The fluorescent lights made everything look slightly unreal.
The cafeteria was nearly empty. Late afternoon. Between lunch and dinner. A few nurses. A doctor who looked like he hadn't slept in thirty-six hours.
I grabbed a sandwich from the refrigerated case. Turkey and swiss on wheat. Chips. A bottle of water. Paid the bored cashier and found a table in the corner.
The sandwich was aggressively mediocre. Hospital food. But I'd forgotten to eat since breakfast and my body needed fuel.
I took a bite. Chewed. Let the normalcy of it ground me.
This was real. The sandwich was real. The hospital was real. Logan's stroke was real.
Everything else—the powers, the transmigration, the knowledge of four seasons worth of future—felt like a fever dream. But the sandwich was simple. Concrete. Something my brain could hold onto without fragmenting.
"Roman?"
I looked up.
Gerri Kellman stood three feet away. Tailored suit. Silver hair. Sharp eyes that missed nothing. The General Counsel. Logan's fixer. The woman who would eventually become president of the company while navigating more crises than should be possible.
In the show, she and Roman had... something. Inappropriate. Complicated. A relationship built on power dynamics and mutual destruction.
I wasn't that Roman.
"Ms. Kellman."
"Gerri." She gestured at the empty chair. "May I?"
"Free country."
She sat. Studied me. I kept eating my sandwich. Let her look.
"That was impressive," she said finally. "What you did. In Logan's office."
"I didn't do anything. Just didn't panic."
"Most people panic."
"I'm not most people."
"No." Something flickered in her expression. "You're not."
I took a drink of water. Waited. She wanted something. They always wanted something.
"The company needs continuity," Gerri said. Careful. Measuring each word. "Logan's incapacitated. We don't know for how long. The board will want reassurance. Leadership. Someone to steady the ship while he recovers."
"Kendall."
"Probably."
"You're worried he'll fuck it up."
"I'm worried about a lot of things." She folded her hands on the table. Professional. Controlled. "I'm trying to assess all variables."
"And I'm a variable."
"You're Logan's son. That makes you relevant."
I finished the sandwich. Crushed the wrapper. Looked at her directly.
"What do you want to know?"
"Where you stand. What you want. Whether you're going to make this harder or easier."
Honest question. Deserved an honest answer.
"I want the company to survive," I said. "I want my family to not destroy itself. I want to not be a fuckup for once in my life."
Gerri's eyebrows rose. Fractionally. "That's surprisingly... direct."
"Yeah, well. Near-death experiences do that."
"Logan didn't die."
"Came close enough."
She watched me. Calculating. Running some internal assessment I couldn't quite read without touching her.
"There's something different about you," she said. "Since the stroke. Since before, maybe. I can't identify what. But something has changed."
My pulse spiked. Careful.
"People change when they watch their father collapse in front of them."
"Do they?"
"You tell me. You've worked for him longer than I've been alive."
She almost smiled. Almost.
"The board meets tomorrow," she said. "Emergency session. Interim leadership vote. It will be contentious."
"Kendall has the votes."
"Does he?"
"He should. Oldest son. Was already groomed for succession before. Makes sense."
"And you'll support him?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Because you're a Roy. Roys don't support each other. They compete."
"Maybe I'm tired of competing."
Gerri stood. Smoothed her skirt. Looked down at me with those sharp eyes that had watched the Roy family implode a dozen times and would watch it a dozen more.
"If you're serious about wanting the company to survive," she said, "call me. I can help you navigate this. But only if you're actually serious."
She pulled a business card from her jacket. Set it on the table between us.
"My direct line. Not the office number."
I took the card. Felt the weight of it. Expensive cardstock. Simple design. Gerri's name and a phone number.
"Why would you help me?"
"Because you asked intelligent questions. Because you didn't make a crude joke. Because maybe—just maybe—you're actually worth helping."
She walked away before I could respond.
I sat there holding her card. The cafeteria's fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The exhausted doctor left. A new nurse arrived and bought terrible coffee from the machine.
My headache was brutal now. Hours of using the Empathy Engine without understanding its limits. I needed sleep. Rest. Time to process.
But there was no time.
I stood. Pocketed Gerri's card. Walked back to the waiting room through halls that smelled like antiseptic and slow death.
The television was unmuted now. News coverage. Logan's collapse. Waystar stock dropping. Analysts speculating about succession. Talking heads who knew nothing pretending to know everything.
Kendall watched it with the intensity of a man watching his future get decided by strangers.
Shiv had her phone out. Taking calls. Managing the narrative.
Connor still looked lost.
Frank and Karl stood in the corner. Talking quietly. Plotting. Planning. Figuring out how to survive what came next.
I mapped it all. Stored it. The factions were forming. Frank loyal to the company's stability. Karl loyal to whoever kept him employed. Gerri calculating the best path through chaos.
The board members who'd arrived—I catalogued them. Who'd want Kendall. Who'd resist. Who'd see this as opportunity to push their own agenda.
Knowledge was power. The Empathy Engine gave me knowledge. I just had to survive long enough to use it.
"Mr. Roy?"
A doctor stood in the doorway. Young. Tired. Carrying the weight of Logan's life in her clipboard and professional detachment.
We all turned.
"Your father is stable," she said. "The stroke was significant, but we've controlled the bleeding. He's conscious. Responsive. We're optimistic about recovery, though rehabilitation will take time."
"Can we see him?" Marcia's voice. Strained.
"Immediate family only. Brief visits. He needs rest."
"Thank you, doctor." Kendall's CEO voice. Already performing leadership.
The doctor left. We stood there. Four siblings and the reality that Logan would survive.
He'd survived.
Which meant the game continued. Just with new rules.
"Tomorrow," Shiv said. "The board votes tomorrow. We need a strategy."
"We vote for Kendall," I said. Simple. Direct.
She stared at me. "Since when do you support Kendall?"
"Since Logan can't run the company from a hospital bed."
"That's..." She couldn't find words for whatever she was thinking.
Kendall looked at me. Surprised. Suspicious. Calculating whether this was genuine or some new form of mockery.
"I'm serious," I said. "You're the oldest. You've been training for this. You should do it."
"Roman—"
"Don't fuck it up."
I walked away before anyone could respond. Out of the waiting room. Down the hall. Found an empty corridor and leaned against the wall.
My head pounded. The Empathy Engine had given me too much. Too many thoughts. Too many emotions. Too many people's fears and ambitions crashing into my consciousness.
I needed to learn control. Fast.
Tomorrow the board would vote. Tomorrow Kendall would become interim CEO. Tomorrow the succession game would officially begin.
And I would be there. Playing my part. Building my alliances. Using my powers.
I pulled out Gerri's card. Looked at the phone number.
One genuine ally. That's all I needed to start.
I put the card back in my pocket. Pushed off the wall. Walked back toward the waiting room and the family that wasn't mine and the future I was trying to rewrite.
The game had begun.
Now I just had to learn the rules before they killed me.
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