Ivory Rose

Date: July 21st, 2019 

Signed: Richard D’Ivoire, of sane and sound mind, under no coercion.  

I appoint my daughter, Ivory Rose, as executor. 

He started to loop his signature onto the sheet, but the paper was slightly under him so he had to strain his arm to reach the signing space. The metal cuff on his hand dug into his wrist, causing the wounds there to reopen. Blood began to drip. He hurriedly shifted his hand outwards so it wouldn’t spill onto the ornate paper. It fell down onto the concrete instead. The red seeped into the cracks of the cement, turning the light lines into pale pink. 

“Good move, sire,” the accented voice drawled from the shady corner of the room. “Wouldn’t want you to write that a second time, would we?” 

Richard gritted his teeth. “We wouldn’t.” He adjusted his position on the ground, straightening up and slumping back against the wall tiles. “Ivory will never believe this for a second. It’ll break her. I hope you know you’re making a lot of people disappointed.” 

The shape shifted forward, a dark silhouette at a large mahogany table. The figure was masked, and Richard wasn’t able to tell his kidnapper’s gender. Not that it mattered. He was still here handcuffed to a wall, while he slowly died from the poison he ingested earlier. A cooking mishap, they'd said. Though he knew now it wasn’t the mistake he thought it was. His blood boiled as he remembered how easily he’d been duped – he’d thought he was being taken to the hospital, only to wake up in this strange room. 

“You’d be surprised, Sire. A shame you didn’t think about the people you hurt, disappointed, completely RUINED by your company?” The voice boomed. Richard flinched, but his pride held up stronger. He leaned forward again. “I was doing them all a favour. It’s not my fault the market crashed. People look up to me, and I have a legacy. We can still negotiate something! I’m open to anything. A decent percentage. Just let me get the antidote!” 

Said antidote, two syringes of fluid, lay under a spotlight on the mahogany, tantalizingly out of reach. A gloved hand reached out and tapped them, checking the pointed ends carelessly. “You’re cocky, for someone dying. Not exactly a position to be making offers, sire. Poison’s ticking away. Sign the will, and all this can end pretty quickly.” 

Richard slumped back, the pen falling and clattering against the tile as he hit the wall. He looked up at the ceiling - a single, powerful bulb hung, surrounded by tile which bore same pattern as the wall tiles he leaned against: pale pink, with a pure, ivory colored rose its centre. A blaring reminder of what he’d lose if he wasn’t able to escape. They were all over the room - even the doorknob hand a rose engraved into it. Only the ground under him was bumpy concrete, which smoothened out and stretched into a darkened corner, where this self-proclaimed Robin Hood sat, with their mask and gloves. 

He could understand their sentiment. Ivory Rose, his multi-million-dollar public investment company, that made him a millionaire at 35. Not his idea, but started as a passion project by his late wife, Rose. She’d come from a broken, rags-to-riches background and knew all too well the importance of trust, time, funds and loans for the impoverished. So she began the company, naming it a portmanteau of their names: a testament to their love and the symbolism of white roses: purity of new beginnings and of trust, which she planned to provide.

His heart thudded as he remembered her plea that night, heavy in her pregnancy, when she’d been admitted to hospital. She had become too ill to work, so he had taken over as CEO. 

She was drowsy under painkillers, but even then, her mind was clear on what she wanted to say. “Please, Richard, my love. Don’t change the way the company works while I’m not there. Okay? I know you want to work with higher stakes, richer men. But this is not the vision I have. The public need it more. Please.” Her voice was soft, blond brows wrinkled, blue eyes imploring. Richard had sighed and held her hand. “My rose. I understand. But we could do so much more with bigger investors than the public. By having higher shares of other companies, those who need it will be able to have much higher loans, with less of a risk to them! Then more benefit, more trust, a bigger, better legacy!” His eyes shone with the thought, and Rose weakly shook her head, her tired heart sinking, beating for two. That was his fatal flaw – his need for a stunning, sparkling legacy, for approval in the eyes of those higher up in the world, even though they never got there without blood on their hands. She'd tried hard to curb this ruthless ambition, but she didn't know what would happen now that she wasn't working with him.

She reached out to touch his face. He looked back at her, eyes like diamonds. “Please. For me, and for her?” She touched her swollen stomach, fit to burst. “If I don’t make it, please, do it for her. Her legacy, if anyone’s is important to you.” Richard pushed her hair back from her sweaty face. “You’ll make it through fine, Rose. Don’t speak such things.” 

But she didn’t make it. Maybe she knew, Richard thought later, as he stared, too numb to cry, at the blood spread in a wide circle on the sheets the next morning, while nurses sniffled and scurried. One drew a sheet over her head, while another, an older woman with crinkly eyes and heavyset shoulders, walked up to him and placed his daughter in his arms. Tiny and wrinkled, barely making a sound, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. Bright blue and ivory blond hair. Spitting image of Rose.  

The nurse passed a feeding bottle to him and helped him place it in her rosebud mouth. She looked down at her fondly, then back to Richard’s impassive face. “Raise her well. Give her a legacy her mother would be proud of.” 

This nurse probably only cared because the hospital was built from their funds, Richard thought. But. Legacy. That word again, what he desired so badly. Rose wanted him to keep the company values. But he knew better. He just knew he could do better with a white-gloved hand to boost him – boost them up in the financial world. Create a future and security for their daughter in the ever-changing world. Sorry, Rose, he thought. But I will honour you. I won’t lose sight of the goal, for greatness for me and you.  

He named her Ivory Rose.  

And he did, oh he did, have good intentions at first. But as big meetings turned into handshakes, caring for a daughter on his own didn’t make it easy. As stocks began to rise and investors increased, he hired a full-time nanny for Ivory. Ivy, as it was often shortened to. There was no longer time to be a single dad. It was all for her, he told himself.  

For her path to be furnished with the ease her mother’s family didn’t have. Even as he closed off the customer openings, as the pool of money for struggling families turned into a stake of extra wealth for the white gloves. As it became an avenue for middling companies to extend their green claws upward, wishing to cover them up with white gloves of their own. Even as Ivy grew into a woman, as he spoke her less and less, if only to berate her romantic choices, which could ruin his image. The shady dealings, the loans he took, the risks he made, the people he cheated, robbed, got taken care of, to reach the white glove. It was all for her. For Rose. 

Richard blinked back to the present, unblurring his vision from the whiteness of the room. “Sometimes we need to do bad things to get us to where we need to. You do realise that this is quite ironic? You’ve captured me, poisoned me, forcing me to assign my wealth to the public domain? For the purpose of good?” He laughed, pride preening itself in his tightening chest. “Some vigilante you are. It’s all hypocritical. This won’t be the end.” 

Robin Hood stood suddenly, smashing a vial of antidote on the concrete. Richard flinched. “Funny. I can agree on you there, Sire. It really does bring up the question, do the ends justify the means? I, for one, am a staunch believer of the fact that the ends do not. Which is why I hate to do this. But, the truth of the matter is, you did this to yourself. Had it coming for a long time, sire.” They stalked toward the door, knocking three times. It was the only door present, the same one he assumed he’d been dragged in.  

No one entered. Some plan this was. He smirked, despite the burgeoning fear building in him. “I don’t believe you’ve got it right. My team is airtight. Clearly, one of your men infiltrated the kitchen and poisoned my drink this morning. Thank heaven that Rose wasn’t infected.”

Their eyes, sharp green, rose at the edges. He practically felt the smirk emitting from under the mask, and it prickled at him. 

“Maybe, sire, maybe. Or maybe it wasn’t me at all? Maybe it was contaminated drugs, straight from your dealer.” Richard paled. Would Alejandro really do him one over? “You’d be surprised at the amount of people who want you dead, sire.”  

Pride had taken a seat in him and wasn’t budging, even as he began to feel his limbs stiffen from the toxins in his bloodstream. “It’s what comes with greatness, I hate to admit. Not all clouds and roses.” The handcuffs on his wrists dug deep again as he shifted in his concrete square. He was becoming desperate now. “Look, I don’t know how much time I have. What do you want? What do you gain from this? I have good intentions, I do! I made all those deals to get up there. And once I do, I’m going to pay all those people back. For my Rose. I did it out of love, for Rose!” 

The kidnapper leaned against the door leisurely. “You did. Did have good intentions.” Rich growled, sweating now, his tongue a burning block of ice in his mouth as he tried to keep up his appeal. “This won’t work out, anyway. There’s a flaw in your plan, you wasted, f***ing hypocrite. I haven’t signed it yet. Nor do I have a witness. If I die before then, this will all have been for naught. And Rose won’t betray me. She won’t execute this. You don’t even care for her. What about her? She’s innocent in this. Completely innocent. You want her to lose out to her destiny, her wealth, her legacy because of some self-righteous prick?” he spat. 

Robin stepped away from the door. Rich could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke again, like this wasn’t going to crash without his daughter’s cooperation or his signature. “You see, it’s not me you should be asking those questions. In fact ...You could ask her.” Robin knocked on the door again, turned the knob, and in stepped Rose, gagged and handcuffed. 

Richard’s stomach dropped. He lurched forward from his perch, handcuffs cutting into his wrists again. “Ivy. Oh, my Rose.” She stood at the far end of the room. She was tall, strong and willowy. Her blue eyes flashed, evident even from her distance from him. Richard’s heart crumbled as he looked at her, a young woman, a dead ringer for his first Rose. It was why he’d consciously distanced himself from her, not just because of the demands of work, but because she reminded him of who he’d lost, and the promise he had yet to fulfill.  

Robin poked Ivy in the ribs. She twitched. “I’d get to signing that will, sire. Or you won’t just lose your estate.” They ran a finger through Rose’s tresses. “What will it be? One dissolved Ivory Rose, or two?” 

Richard shut his eyes, squeezing them hard, difficult as the poison began to slow his nerves. “Fine. Fine! You cruel prick.” Maybe there was still a way to save everything. Ivy was smart, he knew that much about her. Had a degree in mathematics and graduated this year, which he only knew because of the alert that he’d missed it popped up in his phone.  

Regardless. Family came first. She had to find a way to bypass this and discover his true intentions. For his true legacy. 

Rich shuffled back and reached for the pen, then bending his head to wipe the blood away so it wouldn’t drip. Once he grabbed it, he stretched his fingers painfully to drag the piece of short, thick plywood which held the will, still pristine white with the company rose embossed in the corner, patiently waiting for his signature. His hand hovered above it for a moment, then he pressed pen to paper. Richard D’Ivoire. Then, with his hand angled as much as it could with the handcuffs, he placed a dot under a number of letters. Backwards, they spelt out: Rose. Was under duress writing. Give to White Glove. The company which helped so much to catapult Ivory Rose into the millions. It would keep him in favor in even death. A perfect preservation of his name.  

He dropped the pen and slumped back. “Let my daughter go.”  

Robin nodded, keeping their grip on Ivy as they stalked forward, whipping the will off the wood and scanning it. They laughed, a short bark, as they waved the will in the air. “Oh, sire. How sweet of you to try sneak something. Would you have figured it out, Ivy dear?” 

Ivy scanned the sheet, impassive. 

“She’ll never agree to it. She’s a witness and she will stand up for me and what I want! And I want the company handed over to White Glove!” Richard yelled. 

“You’d be surprised, sire.” They leaned over and clicked off Ivy's cuffs, untying the gab and dropping it on the ground. “Why don’t you answer him yourself?” 

Ivy flexed her wrists and walked over to him. Richard thought, I’m saved! But she merely bent down to his eye level, staring at him hard. “Hello, Daddy.” Her voice was clear and plain, just like her mother’s. 

“Thank God he didn’t do anything to you.” Richard tried to reach out, but the cuffs held him back, and he wasn’t sure where he would’ve placed his hand, anyway. He hadn’t had a real conversation with his daughter in years. “You’ll tell the court the truth, right? You won’t execute this will?” 

“And why would I?” 

Richard gulped, laughing tightly as it became harder to breathe. “Oh, you’re a funny one, who knew? You have to. That will is void. And there will be millions of people disappointed if it doesn’t go down like everyone expects it.” 

“The judge won’t know the will is void. And is it, really? You’re writing it as you die. No one, except me and them over there, will know the truth.” 

“But you will.” Richard stared at his daughter, incredulous. “Are they threatening you? Listen. According to this will, you get nothing. Not a drop in the ocean. If you hand it over to White Glove, they’ll take care of you. You’ll be secured for life. A legacy fit for a queen.” 

“NO!” she roared, standing. “I will not!”  

The air in the room rose, stretched itself thin, then shattered along with his pride. 

“You’ll betray your own family for a stranger?” He coughed out. 

“You want to talk about family? Oh, no, Dad. That’s not you. Why am I family now, when for the past twenty years, I was a fly in your hair? You talk of my legacy, when all you cared about was securing yours? Ruining Mom’s vision for your own selfish needs? Scamming those unlucky people for a place at the high table.” Her eyes flashed. Richard wasn’t sure if it was still his daughter, or his wife’s ghost speaking. “You were the joker, instead. Never cared a DIME for me, Richard. You looked to me to trophy your achievements or to disparage my lovers. You want a legacy?” 

She stomped over to the table, grabbed the last syringe of antidote, and jabbed it in his arm. “You’ll have it. Ivory Rose: The company which recompensed all its cheated customers with a million dollars. Which handed out its shares to struggling countries. Which sliced a finger off the White Glove, exposing the dirty hand beneath. All when Richard D’Ivoire died from a sip of poison-oak wine, served by his darling daughter. But who’ll know that?” 

She stood next to Robin, and they held hands. Ah, Richard thought, as his nose began to bleed. A ploy, a lover’s ploy. And this was not an antidote coursing through his veins.  

Ivy’s voice began to fade as Death stretched his cloak, but he could still make it out, faintly: “You did say bad things needed to be done to get us where we need to. Goodbye, Daddy.” 

Roses swam in his vision. Ivory petals, blond hair, blue eyes, the crashed dreams they’d entrusted in him, the legacy he wanted spilling out with his blood onto the concrete. “It was for Rose,” he mumbled. 

The last thing he saw was the ski mask slipping off Robin’s face, and his daughter leaning into a passionate embrace with them. Ivory faded to black.