1939.

Below them, the Englehart River rushed through the snow that clung to its shores, and falling flakes caught streetlights in their crystals. Will pressed his back against the cold metal railing of the 6th Avenue Bridge, his eyes on the barrel of the pistol Robert pointed at his chest.

“That’s it,” Robert said with a smile. “Now, jump.”

“Why?” Will asked, still feeling foggy and strange. “I don’t understand.”

“Why?” The question seemed to anger Robert. “Have you still not put the pieces together?”

“You want the inheritance yourself, want it enough to kill your oldest friend.”

“You were never my friend!” Robert shouted. “I have hated you since I saw you, since he brought you to our house, into my home.”

“Then take it,” said Will. “Take everything, the money, the house. Take whatever you want.”

“Do you think this is just about money? Do you think I would murder you just for your fortune? That I would have murdered Josiah for his?”

Just the week before, Will was called back from London, where he had been handling the European accounts for Finn Industries since his college graduation. There was trouble brewing on the continent. That man in Germany had everyone very concerned, but he wasn’t what brought Will back to Titan City. It was a telegram from Miss Glenda: 

Your father has passed away. Come home.

He boarded a ship the next day, with the hastiest of farewells to friends and acquaintances. They offered condolences that Will accepted politely, numbed by the shock. It was so sudden, so unexpected.

After five days at sea, his ship reached Marshal Bay, and for the first time in years Will saw the Angel of Prosperity, arms outreached to welcome him. Then he wept. Will was home, but the man who had made it home for him was no more.

Miss Glenda had arranged for their driver to pick him up from the docks, and as the car pulled through the gates, Will saw majestic Finn Manor crouching against the flat, white winter sky. He met her inside and received the details of how his father had fallen ill. Josiah had been laid beside the grave of his wife and daughter in the plot behind Finn Manor, the resting place of his family for generations. Miss Glenda accompanied Will as he walked through freshly fallen snow to kneel at his father’s grave and placed his hand upon the icy stone.

That night, the family attorney announced how the estate would transfer. “All property, lands, and holdings of this house, Finn Manor, and of Finn Industries, both its local and international assets, are conferred in total upon my one and only heir, William Finn.” From scrounging pennies off the streets of the city, Will had become a millionaire, but he would have traded it all to have his father back.

Robert Caine had returned for the funeral. Robert had grown muscular and broad-shouldered, becoming a serious and studious man who had also been sent to school and received responsibilities at Finn Industries. Sometimes, Will heard business associates remark that Robert would show startling flashes of anger in meetings, but it was hard for Will to think ill of his childhood friend. 

That night, as Robert and he sat in the study together, Will pulled out a bottle of Irish whiskey he had brought across the Atlantic.

“This wasn’t easy to come by,” he said, letting Robert pour for them both. “Ireland and Great Britain have been in a trade war. Strange how two nations so close to each other could feel such bitterness.”

“Familiarity breeds contempt, Will,” Robert said. “You get to see what someone else has. You get reminded of what you don’t.”

“Let us hope they make amends soon.” Will raised his glass. “To Josiah Finn — my father, your benefactor.”

“To your father.” Robert raised his glass as well.

They spoke a little about their time apart, how neither had found a woman to settle down with and wondered if they ever would. Both were men who moved in moneyed circles, but neither with the heritage enjoyed by their peers.

Then, as Will stood by the fireplace, he started to feel strange and heavy. The light seemed to dim, its warmth contracting as shadows stretched around him.

“Something wrong?” he heard Robert ask. His voice seemed to be coming through water. 

Suddenly, Will’s legs gave out beneath him.

Awareness returned first with the smell of leather, then the pressure of his face against a car seat. His body jostled in the rhythmic rumble of the ride, then jerked forward as the vehicle came to a halt. A door clicked open. Biting winter cold embraced him, and Will was dragged out into the night, shoved onto his feet against the bridge’s railing.

His eyes took time to focus on Robert, on Robert’s pistol. Then, he was commanded to jump by his oldest friend, who confessed to his father’s murder.

“You murdered him?”

“Arsenic, Will. It works slowly. Requires patience and planning. I added a little bit to his dinner, night after night, until…”

Outrage cleared some of the fog from Will’s mind.  “He gave you everything! Set you up as a man of business! What more could you want?” Then understanding dawned for him. “You wanted him to be your father.”

“No!” The snowflakes seemed to swirl at the force of Robert’s shout. “He was my father! 

“For years, I held that secret! It was my mother’s wish. They had been having an affair while his wife still lived, and when she died, my mother thought her time had come. But noble Josiah Finn wouldn’t dare disgrace his wife’s memory with scandal. He told my mother that it could never be and pushed her away, but not before she allowed herself to get pregnant with his child, with me.

“My mother bore me in secret, and when she returned, begging for a job from the man who should have been her husband, she told Josiah that I was the product of some drunkard slinging cod at the Infantino Fishery. 

“After she passed away, I came to Josiah with the truth. Was I the fool then? Thinking I might, in all my laboring over the years, have shown myself worthy of his recognition?”

“I’m sorry,” Will said. It was impossible for him to imagine his father showing such cruelty, but clearly Robert had suffered silently for so long that it had driven him mad.

“Yes, you are sorry, Will. So very sorry. You are overcome, in fact. The regret, the grief, knowing just how little you deserve every comfort that has come to you. It is too much to bear. And that is why tonight, you have decided to take your life by jumping from this bridge.” Robert raised the pistol. “You have until I get to one. Ten… Nine…”

What Robert didn’t know was that the lifestyle his father — their father — had granted Will had felt so odd to him that he had secretly spent years sneaking away from high society, returning to the streets that raised him. In dark basements throughout London, in the Camden docks, in a Chinatown grocer, and in several Brixton pubs, Will had found unexpected joy in fighting for sport.

“Eight… Seven… Six…”

A fortnight could not pass without Will finding his way there, squared off against another shirtless man in some grimy hole, while the crowd around them shouted for blood and placed their bets. Will learned how to throw a punch and how to take one, how to stand and how to step. 

From that knowledge, Will possessed absolute certainty that he had no chance to disarm Robert. His opponent stood too far away, and his body felt too heavy, his senses too dull from whatever Robert had slipped into his drink.

“Five… Four… Three…”

Turning to face the night, Will said a prayer and jumped. The Englehart River struck him like a wall of ice. And as its darkness swallowed him, he heard the strange sound of Robert crying out from the bridge above, a shriek of rage and pain and triumph — the wail of a banshee.