Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2022 18:49:49 GMT -5
Veneras International
Arlington, Virginia
I left Rhode Island at about midnight. Being alone with my thoughts often allows me to clear my head of the constant ‘noise’ within it. My hope was that the seven hour drive from our summer residence in Newport, Rhode Island to my dad’s former office in Virginia would give me the peace and quiet I needed in order to do so. If anything, I’ve only made things more convoluted in my head.
You know me by now. I’m a busy man, a complicated man with several business interests outside of professional shoot wrestling. When my father was executed for his crimes, I inherited another one. Veneras International was founded by my father several years ago when he retired from regular active competition. In the years since, he built his security company from the ground up successfully winning several lucrative government contracts along the way. What began as a small force, grew exponentially into what it is today. As a son, I couldn’t care less. As a business man myself, it was impressive.
It’s been more than two months since he passed away. I didn’t have a funeral. There was no celebration of life. I never shed a tear, I didn’t mourn, I never grieved. Maybe it’s cold of me, I don’t know, but to be entirely honest, I was just glad it was all over. For all intents and purposes, Sebastian Duke just ceased to exist. Today though, is the first time I’ll have visited his office in damn near a year. We never had a great relationship, but even still… Sebastian Duke was my father.
Slowing the rumbling big block Monte Carlo to a stop in the parking garage beneath the high rise office complex, I hesitate several moments before killing the engine. Stepping out of the American classic, I’m stopped in my tracks. Across the way, my fathers Lincoln Navigator sits alone and covered in dust. Untouched since his arrest on the first of February. It’s an insignificant detail, really. It’s what it represents though. For a second, I stare at the blacked out Lincoln with a temporary hint of fondness from within me. For the briefest of moments, I almost forgot he was gone. I don’t think about him very often. Though several times, something will come up in my daily life, like one of my kids does something hilarious, and I’ll think ‘man, I should really call my dad and tell him’ and that’s when I remember he’s gone. Each instance brings me a temporary moment of sadness before my mind wanders somewhere else.
Making my way across the garage toward his Lincoln, I stop beside it. Taking a couple of moments to allow my eyes to gaze upon the length of the vehicle, I place my hand against it. Maybe for a moment, I felt close to him.
It’s a life I’ve left behind now so I won’t discuss the what’s the why’s and the how’s. For what it’s worth, it was me that ordered his execution. Aside from selling off everything I had pertaining to that life to the United States government, my final act in that world was kicking the lever on the gallows, sending my own father plunging to his death. While I don’t regret it, hearing his neck snap still haunts me and I’d imagine, it will always. After living almost my entire life without my mother because of him, it was important to find closure. It was important to finally give my mother the justice she so rightfully deserved.
Removing my hand from the car, I head into the elevator and up into the building. It’s a weekend and the office is closed so today, the purpose of this trip is to meet with Sebastian Everett-Bryce to continue the transfer of power from me to him. A transaction worth a fortune to him, but just pennies to me.
The door opens with a ding and I hesitate to step out of the elevator car. My heart pounds and races and I’m not entirely sure why. Stepping out into the darkened office space, the overhead lights begin switching on as I make my way up the main corridor toward the big office at the end. My father’s office.
Just as I reach the door, I stop and think back to the many times in the past that I’ve been here. This is the place I came with Garrett, a former boyfriend of mine, to tell him that I liked guys. It’s the same place I came when I returned to professional wrestling two years ago to tell him I was going home to the XWF and this time it’d be different. It’s also the place I came when I told him more than a year ago I was opening an investigation into my mothers death. That same investigation is what led to his own death.
Entering the office I stop at the door and flick on the lights. Looking over the office, I venture inside. In a tall glass display case rest the replicas of the titles he wore during his career. The originals, once resting in the XWF Hall of Legends, have since been melted down and turned into an entrance jacket for yours truly. Nothing remains of my father.
Except me.
His legacy is mine.
And I am his.
Making my way around the desk, I take a seat in the big chair. On the desk is a picture. I remember it like it was yesterday. December 12, 2020. The eighth anniversary of my fathers XWF debut. It was on Saturday Night Savage. My first show since winning the Universal Championship. Eight years to the day of the beginning of Duke dominance and the son stood tall, stood proud, as the undisputed champion of the world. I told him this run would be different, and there I was, standing in the middle of the ring with my son Frankie on my shoulder holding my tag team title, my father and my Uncle Theo on either side of me and all three of us holding our Universal titles.
It’s a strange business we’re in. Goats and Kings and Queens pop up like dandelions at every turn talking about legacies and destinies. Me? I’m building a fucking dynasty. One that was planted by my father and his father before him. One that will continue on with my children and with any luck, their children. A dynasty that will outlive me and long after I’ve left this mortal plane, my name, one way or the other, will still be in lights.
There’s royalty.
Then there’s a fucking Empire.
“Hey,” comes the voice of my best friend, Sebastian Everett-Bryce.
“How long you been here?” I ask of him.
“Long enough to watch you shed a teardrop on that picture,” he says as he leans off the door jam. Entering the office, he takes a seat across from me.
“Did not,” I protest in jest. This picture… it’s one of three. Well, two. One is with my Uncle Theo, the other I might have thrown in the fireplace in anger. “Anyway I was just um…”
“I get it,” Seb interrupts as I begin to stammer. “We spend our whole lives wishing we weren’t them. Doing everything we can to not be them.
“But no matter what we do, no matter how much we might protest, they are and always will be a part of us.”
With a tear, or maybe several in my eyes while choking back emotion, I stare across the desk at the best friend I found by pure chance. “You’re really the only one that gets it,” I say to him.
“My whole life I hated him. I despised every breath he took and loathed the ground he walked on. But now that he’s gone…” my voice trails off.
“Now that he’s gone, you miss him?” Seb suggests.
“Yeah a little,” I admit. “It’s not that I didn’t try ya know? I tried so hard to just accept who and what he was and let him be a part of my life, a part of my kids' lives. But every time I turned around something reminded me of the evil piece of shit he was.
“So I’d pull back.”
We sit quietly and for a second, I was almost waiting for Seb to have some answer, some wise advice or acknowledging feelings of similarity, but he offered none in this instance.
“Here I am more than two months after his death and only now have I mourned his departure even a little bit,” I pause. “And I’m taking the one thing I gained from his demise and practically giving it away.”
“Thad,” Seb interjects. “We don’t have to complete this deal. If you want to hang on…”
“Oh fuck no,” I interrupt. “I have other aspirations dude. I have OCW to run, I have Lion’s Guard, I have the movie, Inhalation starts this fall.
“This is one business venture I can do without.”
“You’re sure?” he asks.
“Deadly,” I answer back as I take the top off a box and start removing folders. Inside these folders are the financial reports and most lucrative contracts for Veneras International. Opening the very top folder, I slid it in front of him.
“What am I looking at?” he asks.
“Veneras profit and loss statement,” I answer him. “Overhead is rather high, but as you can see, it banks a decent chunk of money.
“As I told you previously, the business comes with a lot of contracts and I don’t know if you’re gonna relocate the headquarters or if you’ll run it remotely, but either way I can help you get set up in New York to do it.”
“This is all…” Seb begins.
“If you relocate,” I continue on, interrupting him. “I’d imagine you’ll have to void a lot of the smaller local contracts. But being in New York City, I can’t imagine you’ll have trouble replacing them several times over.
"I'll put Robert Zane on that. You shouldn't have any trouble."
"Robert Zane?" he questions.
"My attorney. He's god damn ruthless."
“Are there any shareholders, or a board I need to be concerned with?” he asks as he peruses the contents of the folders.
“Veneras is privately owned,” I answer back. “My father was never very good at kowtowing to authority.”
“Like father, like son,” he jokes.
“He turned away several investors over the years,” I continue on, choosing to ignore his insolence. “Dad was pretty adamant that he’d never answer to anyone for anything.”
Like father, like son, Seb said to me. In the moment, I rolled my eyes inside. But I get it now. No matter what I want, no matter what I think, my father will always be my father and there’s nothing I can do to change that. I am a melting pot of my parents. My mother was beautiful and good and kind and decent. My father had hints of all of those things but he also had a very dark, cold and uncaring side.
I am many things.
Without either of them, I cease to exist. Without either of them, I’m not who I am. Over the years, I convinced myself that everything good and righteous within me, I got from my mother. Everything bad and dark, even evil… I got it from him. Only now in self reflection, do I truly get it. I live because they loved each other. If my mother was any of those things I believe she was, then my father had to possess some of that too.
They planted the seeds for the Duke Empire. My job, is to grow it without mercy. To turn it into a worldwide juggernaut.
And that’s exactly what I’ll do.
By any means necessary.