by Poppy Dunne
She scoffs. “I am Ukrainian. I know these things.”
I leave her at the bar table and walk up the stairs, the carpet soft as butter beneath my feet. Being back here always sets my teeth on edge. They say you should feel comfortable in your childhood home, but this place was never a home for me. Not since my mom died, and barely before that. It was more of a holding pen, a place for Scott to stash me until he sent me off to boarding school and Harvard. Sounds like a poor little rich boy story, I know. But the McCarthys are a living example of how privilege doesn’t buy you happiness. This apartment feels more like a mausoleum to me than a house.
If all goes well, this’ll be the last time I ever return to this place.
Snow’s falling outside the windows as I pass what was my childhood bedroom—I think it’s a room for Brad’s excess workout equipment now. All the shit he owned and never used: Bradley in a nutshell.
I know where I’ll find Scott. He’s not downstairs mingling with the others. He doesn’t like to do that until the champagne toast, and then only briefly. He’ll spend fifteen minutes cruising through a sea of people, shaking hands and making backroom deals with a nod of his head, then return up the stairs to the seclusion of his study. Scott doesn’t like human beings. It’s probably how he can be such an unremitting dick to them.
Softly, I open the door and find him seated behind his desk. A single lamp provides the only pool of illumination in the room. Scott’s got his reading glasses on while he leafs through a sheaf of papers. Probably business; this isn’t the type of man who reads for pleasure. Come to think of it, he doesn’t get much pleasure out of anything. Being a billionaire, you’d think he could purchase some hobbies.
Scott peers up over his glasses. He doesn’t seem shocked to find me standing there. “Good to see you, Rafe.”
Somehow, he sounds genuine.
“I was surprised to get your invitation.” Shrugging, I go to stand by the window and stare out at the snow and the blurring New York lights. “You had a real Oscar-worthy speech the day I left about never seeing my gorgeous ass again.” Gorgeous being my word, not Scott’s. Ass being mine, too, come to think of it.
“The holidays are a family time.” I hear Scott get up behind me. “I want you here every holiday, Rafe. I want you to see all the things you’ll never have again.” I can practically hear the smile as he says, “Did you see Tessa downstairs?”
Yeah, with your spawn’s rapey hands all over her. I clench my jaw. Gotta lock those feelings out, or I’ll never get through this.
“That’s kind of an obvious move for you.” I lean against the wall, fold my arms. Scott nods, deferential in the face of my logic.
“I’ll grant you that. Something about you has always brought out a certain pettiness in me.” He rubs his chin, all thoughtful. That’s a startling admission.
“Wasn’t aware you registered human emotions. Did the folks at Skytech upgrade you, or?”
Scott merely smiles. “Undercutting everything with a stupid joke. As I’ve said before, Rafe, at least you’re consistent.” He looks at me, and it feels like it’s the first time in my life he’s ever really looked. I realize what it is; something about me confuses him. “But you’ve never struck me as a glutton for punishment. Why’d you come up here?” His eyes narrow. “To beg for your position back? To ask for Tessa’s transfer elsewhere in the department?”
There’ve been so many jabs and feints between Scott and me over the years, that I finally pull out the one weapon I’ve never used: the truth.
“Why?” I ask. He says nothing. Apparently I need to feed him more information, or the motherboard where his heart ought to be will short circuit. “Why do you do what you do?”
“Ah.” He nods. “This is about the Benzaline?”
“You don’t have to sell the medicine at that steep a price hike to turn a profit. You don’t have to bribe fucking doctors to turn patients into addicts. You really don’t have to poison people with synthetic opioids. Even if the company went bust tomorrow, you’d have enough money for your children’s children’s children to never even question how much is in their trust fund.” Though children would involve Brad ejaculating into someone, and that idea’s enough to put me off breathing. “So why, Scott? I’ve never understood why you hurt people when you don’t gain by it. Apart from being amoral, it’s pointless.”
It’s like I’ve been carrying sixty extra pounds of weight on my back for my entire life, and it just dropped away. Scott considers what I’ve asked him, putting a finger to his lips. Slowly, he responds.
“Isn’t it obvious? It’s because I can. No,” he amends, shaking his head. “It’s because I want to know if I can. This is what sets great men apart from everyone else, Rafe. It’s never about the having; it’s about the getting. It’s about the new horizon.” Call me a crazy asshole, but he seems delighted to be talking about this. His glass-blue eyes light up. I guess he doesn’t get to philosophize with Brad too much. At least, he’d need hand puppets to keep my brother’s attention. “When I see a law prohibiting me from doing something, I find I can’t help creeping up to the edge of that boundary.”
“Sometimes laws are there for a reason beyond ‘rain on Scott McCarthy’s shitty parade,’” I reply.
“Greatness, Rafe. That’s the only difference between you and me.” He sniffs, then gives a begrudging nod. “You’re smarter than your brother. I know that,” he says quietly. “Honestly, I was proud of the way you were plotting against me. If you’d been mine, I probably could have loved you.”
“You don’t even love Brad, do you?” The silence is all the answer I need. Wow. Father of the year, folks. “What kills me is you actually think you’re a great man.” I sweep my hand through the air, painting a grandiose picture. “Alexander the Great wept because he had no more worlds to conquer. Scott the Great saw that he had no more people to exploit, so he got indigestion.” That’s me, putting my economics major with a minor in classics to good use. “You’re truly deluded, you know that?”
Scott snorts. “I’ve only allowed myself one delusion in my life, Rafe. I thought I was in love with your mother.” He returns to sit at his desk, picking up his papers like nothing happened in the last five minutes. But I can detect that hitch in his voice, so minor no one but me would notice it. To this day, he still feels the sting of her affair. Clearing his throat, he says, “But she was just a cheap, bleach-blonde stewardess. Women like that aren’t capable of love.”
I don’t remember a ton about my mother, especially before she got sick, but I do remember her reading to Brad and me every night. I remember her coming into my room before she went out to give me an extra hug. I remember her chasing Brad and me around Central Park, free and easy when Scott wasn’t around. That doesn’t strike me as a woman incapable of love.
“Maybe she tried, Scott. But some men aren’t worthy of being loved.” I go stand in front of his desk, and take a good look at him. Before, I used to see a tyrant, a bully, a man who needed to shave his damn handlebar mustache because it’s the squarest thing on earth. Still see all those things, but there’s more. Scott McCarthy is a shell of a human being. He was probably born dead.
If he were in any way worthy of the sentiment, I’d pity him.
“Is there anything else you wanted, son?” Scott loads as much venom into that word as he can.
“I wanted to see you tonight,” I reply slowly, “to test myself. To know if I could feel any remorse for what’s about to happen to you.” Shrugging, I grin. “But I don’t. I don’t feel bad in the slightest.”
Slowly, Scott puts down his papers. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Tessa, I hope you’re working your magic as we speak.
“What I’m talking about is happening right now.”
Twenty-One
Tessa
“Can I get a recording of you saying ‘Happy Holidays,’ sir?” I hold my phone up to Brad’s face, and he blinks like a drunken deer wobbling into onco
ming traffic. The kind of deer that spent too many hours at the deer watering hole drinking his sorrows away and complaining about his fawns.
“Sure, hippie Hollandaise.” That’s what it sounds like to me, anyway. A few women cast massive side-eyes at Brad. One even curls her lip in disgust. So far, he’s spilled alcohol on a couple of people, gotten spittle on some CEO’s suit, and has taken a brief nap behind the tree. And this is all thirty-five minutes into the party. Brad drinking is like the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse; he’d be downright terrifying if he wasn’t so plastered he forgot to show up for the end of the world.
Brad rests his hand on my shoulder, and I have to repress the urge to vomit. “I think I need some water.”
“How about we get you someplace quiet for a minute?” Taking his elbow, I guide him through the Park Avenue elite and head for Scott’s personal library. It’s a small room that’s down a long hallway on the first floor, and entirely unoccupied. Rafe suggested it as the perfect place, and he was right. The room’s small, rich with the smell of paper and old leather. I slide the paneled doors open, shuffle Brad in, and close us off to prying eyes. Then, carefully, I place my iPhone on the desk, angling it against a paperweight shaped like some ancient Roman emperor. “Feeling better now, sir?”
Brad belches. I’ve never seen such elegance.
“You’re good, y’know that?” He slips off his jacket, leaving it in a crumpled heap on the floor. Loosening his tie, his watery gaze levels on my breasts. I cross my arms. “So professional.”
“Thank you.” It’s time to test the waters. I know Brad isn’t given the most responsibility at the company, but his name was CCed on Scott’s emails. I’ll never get Scott into as vulnerable a position as this. “Can I ask you something? Sir?”
“Hmmm?” Brad stumbles over to me and puts his hand on my waist. He runs said slimy hand along my thigh, causing me to push him oh-so gently away with my foot. He’s so drunk he doesn’t care. Instead, he giggles as his hand cups my calf before letting go. A full shudder runs through my body.
“Why did you bribe those doctors?” I ask. Brad blows a raspberry in reply.
“You still on that? Christ, I didn’t even do it. It was all Dad’s idea.” He staggers back, blinking. Good. He’s nice and drunk now. In vino veritas, something Rafe would say; in wine, truth. Or, in this case, bourbon.
“Why did you need to get people addicted to Benzaline?” I tsk. “Especially with a nationwide opioid epidemic. That’s cruel.”
“What, are you, like, a lawyer now?” Brad giggles. “Look, it’s simple. Sweetheart. You want customers comin’ back for more? Well, you gotta make them want more to begin with. ‘S common sense.” He licks his lips as he looks me over again. I am going to need the longest, hottest shower in the world when this is over. Maybe some bleach as well. “Fortunately, uh, I mean unfortunately, some doctors have, like, principles about getting people hooked on shit. Pay ‘em a little money, though? They got no worries then, nope.”
“So just to be clear, you and Scott knew that you were adding an unnecessary, addictive opioid to Benzaline, and then you bribed doctors to accept it so people could become addicted to an already overpriced medication?” If he weren’t so drunk right now, I’d be afraid he could see what I was doing. Then again, even sober, Brad McCarthy is not the smartest man in the room. Not even when he’s the only man in the room.
Brad groans. “Yes, you dumb bitch. You need all this shit spelled out for you?” He smirks. “Bet Rafe didn’t fuck you for your conversation.”
I’m reaching for my phone when he pounces, like a horny housecat in a bad suit. His body presses against mine. Thankfully, my legs are closed so he can’t wedge himself between them, but I think he wants to. He tries grabbing my breast, and this time I don’t let him.
“Let me go. Stop!” I say it partly for the benefit of my phone, and partly because I’m going to throw up if this ass weasel keeps touching me. Grunting, Brad tries to get his arms around me, to bring his face close to mine.
“Rafe thinks he can have everything. Thinks I can’t get any, huh? How ‘bout this? New terms of, uh, the deal. You get on your knees right now and blow me, or you’re out of a job. Think you can handle that?”
Oh, Brad. You fine, stupid idiot. You’ve given me more tonight than I could have possibly hoped for.
“I can handle this,” I tell him coolly as I bring my knee up in a forceful strike to his balls. The action movie lover inside of me is cheering this on. I got to quip before striking a man in the balls; I’m on fire.
Brad’s mouth forms a perfect little O, and his bloodshot eyes widen. As he collapses onto his side, I snatch my phone and check the recording.
Got it. All of it.
He groans below me. “You stupid c—”
“I hope you were about to say ‘charismatic woman,’ Brad.” I back towards the door, waving my phone. “Because otherwise I might be tempted to broadcast this all over YouTube.”
Brad rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Broadcast?”
I hit play. Brad’s voice sounds tinnier than usual on my phone’s mic. We get a nice listen as he admits to bribery and altering drugs, not to mention the nice little whiff of sexual harassment and assault he worked in all on his own. Brad may be drunk and stupid, but even he’s not drunk and stupid enough to miss what I just got.
A confession, and a felony, all in one go.
“Y-you can’t do anything with that.” He lurches to his feet, panic lacing his voice. “You can’t, like, record me without permission.”
“But I did get your permission. Remember? I asked if I had permission to record you saying Happy—”
“Oh, fuck.” He lashes out and kicks the desk, stubbing his toe in the process.
“I guess I forgot to stop the recording,” I say primly. Brad whirls on me, and I think it’s time to vacate the library and find Rafe. He should be here any second, if our timing’s good. I shy away when Brad stumbles towards me, the booze and the anger turning his face the red of a squashed tomato. I may never think about tomatoes the same way again.
“Give me the phone.” He lunges for me, and I dodge out of the way. I go for the door, but he throws himself in front of it. Oh, crap. He’s blocked my only exit. I bite my lip. Apparently I might need those high school self-defense skills. The party’s too loud for anyone to hear me shout for help. Brad crouches, like a smarmy panther ready for the kill. “Give me the—”
The door rolls open, and Brad flies forward and into me. He knocks me backwards, and we both hit the floor. Ow. My head isn’t too bad, but Brad’s on top of me breathing heavily. This is a nightmare.
“Get off of her.” That’s Rafe’s voice, and Rafe’s hands as he bodily lifts Brad off. I lie on the ground in a bit of a daze and watch Rafe’s shoes as he walks Brad over to the bookcase to slam him against the shelves. A few heavy, leather-bound volumes rain onto the carpet. “You will never touch her again. Got it?”
Brad whimpers as he drops to the floor. I think he pisses himself, but I’m not going to check.
Then, Rafe leans over me and lifts me to my feet. Unlike with Brad, he’s gentle as he hoists me up. “Did he hurt you?”
He sounds both tender and ready to kick some serious ass if that answer happens to be yes. I wrap myself around him, and when his arms settle around me in return I know I’m safe. Safe, and my God but he smells amazing. Rafe’s chin rests on top of my head, but his body tenses beneath me. Peering over his arm, I see what the problem is: Scott’s arrived to find his biological son sprawled on the floor, covered in a bunch of books, while his hated not-son has his arms around the woman he’s not supposed to be speaking to.
Clearly this all requires an explanation, and maybe a flow chart to track everyone’s movements.
“What the hell is going on?” Scott shoves the door shut behind him. Makes sense: this would be difficult to explain to any guests looking for the bathroom.
“You got it?” Rafe whispers.
I hand over my phone, grinning.
“Oh, I got it. I got a lot more than I wanted, but it’s all here.”
He growls, glancing backwards at Brad. I know he’d like to acquaint his brother with a few of the denser literary classics, but now’s not the time. Rafe hits play on the video, allowing that to do the explaining. Scott listens from the side of the room, his baffled expression melting into one of surprise, and then—oh yeah—panic blooms on his face. Rafe’s arm tightens around my waist. It’s everything he’s ever wanted.
Merry Christmas, you dark, handsome genius. This was so much better than getting him a tie like I do every other year.
“Bradley.” Scott crosses his arms. He scowls at Brad, who’s still picking himself up from the floor. “You were a waste of sperm.”
Ouch. If it were anyone other than Brad, I’d be tempted to feel sorry.
“And you.” Now he fixes Rafe with an icy glare. “What do you want?”
“What I’ve always wanted, Scott.” Rafe slides my phone into his pocket. “I want you and the ‘acne that grew legs’ over here to get out of the company.”
Scott gives a dry, almost coughing laugh. “And leave you running the place? People would notice. People love to talk. How does a transition that swift happen without drawing attention?”
“Transitions of power happen more often than we think or know.” Rafe grins. “What goes on behind closed boardroom doors? We only ever pick up on the scandals and the intrigues, don’t we? Dad?” That word’s a barb. Rafe’s threat is very clear: this can either be a rip-roaring front page scandal, with lots of potential jail time, or the careers of Scott and Brad McCarthy can vanish without a ripple. It all depends on how Scott wants to play it.
“I’ve still got the evidence that you employed a hacker,” Scott says. Rafe nods, his arm clasping me tighter. Scott shoots me a filthy look, and I smile back as coyly as possible.
“Hacking would be juicy for the tabloids. So would bribery, tampering with medication, and sexual assault.” Rafe whistles. “The McCarthy boys would be famous and deeply scandalous, wouldn’t you say?” He bares his teeth in a predatory grin. “And you know how Governor McCarthy hates his scandals. Actually, the press might dig deeper into the less than savory ties between you and your brother, wouldn’t they? They love digging up family drama. Considering he’s already eyeing 2020—”