“You can’t be serious,” Jason muttered. He shook his head and then he pointed at Tex. “You cannot possibly be trying to tell me that you didn’t know about this.”
Orion held up his hand to ask Jason to stop. At least he wasn’t being rude. Then Orion pulled out the coup de grace. “Our mother claims that not only did you sign this, you suggested to her that she go ahead and go through with this land development deal because our father was being unreasonable and would not just agree to sell the land or develop it outright.”
“What?” Tex was sputtering. He was actually sputtering! The man sounded as though he had swallowed a chicken. His eyes grew large and the western suit he was wearing seemed to wilt right off his body. “She wouldn’t have said that! She told me… I thought… It was…” Finally Tex looked at Skye and curled his lip in a silent snarl. “She should not be here! There are things to discuss that she can’t hear!”
Jason had no problem responding to this accusation. “That isn’t true at all. In fact, there is absolutely nothing happening in this family, past or present, that Skye doesn’t know about. And that includes the deepest, darkest secrets of the Kings.”
That seemed to give Tex pause for just a moment. He swung his head to look back at Orion. “Everything? She knows everything?”
Orion heaved a ridiculous sigh. “Are you speaking about our family’s shifting abilities?”
“Yes!” Tex was back to sputtering and pointing wordlessly at Skye. “You’re telling me that this bitch of a reporter knows your family can shift from man to wolf and back again no matter what the moon looks like?”
Jason leaped up from his seat. Edward barely managed to catch Jason’s arm as he was lunging for Tex’s throat. Jason strained against his brother’s hold. He snarled at Tex and would have happily ripped the man’s throat out for his disrespect. “Don’t you ever call her a bitch! Do you understand me? The next time that word leaves your lips I will rip off your balls and shove them down your throat. Do you understand me?”
From the corner of his eye Jason spotted Skye’s surprised expression. It lasted only a moment before she schooled her features back to blandness. She appeared to turn her focus back to Tex’s reactions. The man was quite obviously not entirely sure about how he was supposed to be handling what was happening right now in the room. Tex’s eyes were beginning to bulge as he seemed to struggle with a desire to simultaneously keep his mouth shut and also probably to start yelling at the King brothers.
Skye did not glance over at Jason and he was glad. If she had showed an ounce of emotion he might have lost his mind and decided to go ahead with the throat ripping. At the moment Jason was so angry with Tex that he almost could not keep a lid on it. He imagined himself bursting into his wolf form right there in the conference and quite literally ripping Tex Johnson a new one.
Finally Tex’s brain seemed to settle on something he felt needed to be said. The man drew himself up, straightened the lapels of his western suit jacket, and rolled his neck around until they all heard it pop. “Your father would not have approved.”
Devon was the one to respond this time. He was still seated when Orion, Jason, Edward, and Tex were all standing up. Devon was nothing if not civilized. But right now even Jason could see that his second eldest brother was pissed as hell. “How is it that you believe that you knew our father better than we did?”
“Your father was my best friend for more than thirty years.” Tex seemed to be bragging. What an odd thing to brag about really. And almost insulting to a man’s sons. “I knew him before he was married to your mother. I knew him before any of you were born.”
“But you weren’t like him,” Zane pointed out.
Orion picked up that thread and pulled it until it unraveled. “Did that bother you, I wonder? Did you worry that he was a better man because Mac wasn’t entirely a man? And then you discovered that he had married a woman that you were in love with all along, but that he hadn’t told her the truth? Did that bother you? Did it bug you to think of him siring children off that woman even though those boys were all going to be better men than you were too—because they were like their father?”
Tex’s face wasn’t getting red. It was much the opposite. The blood slowly drained from his cheeks and chin. His beard stubble began to stand out in stark contrast to his usually tanned complexion. His eyes were hard and almost flinty. And his fingers were now clenched around the lapels of his suit jacket. He wasn’t just mad. He was furious.
“You loved our mother,” Jason told Tex quietly. “I think we all knew that at some point. I think even my father did. But then you knew that Mac was aware of the crush you had on his wife.”
“Dad made jokes,” Edward remembered. “He would poke at you guys and tell you to dance, but you never married anyone else, Tex. You never tried to move on. And I hate to think it, but I’m pretty sure that our dear mother never wanted you to.”
Tex stirred from his silent contemplation of anger. “Don’t you bastards ever say a word against your mother.”
“Even though she loved you so much that she threw you under the bus and told us all that you were the one to suggest that the land be developed against my father’s wishes?” Jason wondered if he realized just how far their mother’s betrayal had gone.
The older man scratched his head. “I don’t know anything about that,” Tex said gruffly. Then he pushed the contract away. “And I don’t know anything about that either.”
Edward decided that it was time to move to the next items on the agenda. “What about the money missing from the business accounts?”
This time it was Orion to frown. He shook his head at Edward. “That’s some bullshit. You need to look at the books again. I’m telling you. Jason is the one getting everyone stirred up about that.”
“And who fed you that line?” Jason asked, trying to stay calm. “Let me guess. It was Mother. She’s the one who told you that I wanted more money and I was pissed about the way you were splitting the inheritance. So you all believe her and now you think I’m the one fiddling with the money.”
“Yes!” Devon grunted and made a face as he glanced at Tex. “And this isn’t the time to discuss it.”
“You do realize,” Edward said drily. “That this began right after Dad’s death. Right?”
Blank stares all around the room. Jason did notice that Zane had not commented. Perhaps the middle brother was feeling a bit torn down the middle when it came to their mother and her machinations.
Edward continued in a very slow and precise manner. “Nobody had any idea about your decision to cut myself and Jason out of the business until well after that time. So why would Jason or I have been willing to stiff our employees and make a total mess of the business when at that time we honestly believed that we were going to be equal shareholders?”
Tex started laughing. The low sound was sarcastic as hell and nasty to boot. He gestured to all of them. “Look at you. You’re all a bunch of pups chewing on the same piece of rawhide and none of you can see who is holding the toy just out of reach. Fine. You be stupid. You be arrogant little bastards just like your father. At the end of the day this business is mine. It isn’t yours. It isn’t your mother’s. It is mine. I built it from the ground up with your father and I will have it now that he’s gone. So you can sit here and think what you want. I didn’t take the money. You didn’t take the money. Gee. I wonder who might have done it?”
Tex left the conference room with a bang of the door that left them all feeling more than a little confused. Jason watched him swagger off down the hallway. Even though the blinds were closed it was still obvious he felt pretty damned good about himself at the moment. So what was the secret?
Edward frowned. “Is he saying that our mother did it? That seems like an obvious sort of play on her part, I suppose. Except why would she want to ruin a business that she’s intending to steal from her children?”
“Maybe you’re looking at this the wrong way,” Skye suggested slo
wly. “Ask yourself who has the most to gain if this company falls on its ass. Who will benefit most by picking up the pieces?”
Jason and his brothers stared at each other. It was almost like they were all suspects in the minds of their brothers. At this point nobody could really answer that question. Who had the most to gain? Nobody. Everybody. But most definitely somebody.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The evening was a strange letdown after the dramatic meeting in the conference room at King Security Solutions, Inc. The biggest letdown of all was that Skye was now sitting in her tiny one bedroom apartment on the fringe of the downtown area contemplating the fact that she was basically jobless.
The apartment wasn’t much. It was a cheap space that Skye rented on a month-to-month basis because she had been living here in this building and in this tiny unit since she was seventeen years old. Seventeen was when she had gotten her first full time job while still going to high school. She had moved out of the group home after applying to the state of Texas for emancipation. Nobody had cared. The state was probably glad to be rid of the responsibility. They had provided her health insurance and a small monthly stipend. Skye had been struggling to stay afloat ever since.
Struggling. Ha.
Skye stood up and moved toward the window. The view wasn’t great. There was a courtyard between the buildings where the kids sometimes played. Skye’s fourth-floor window and tiny rectangular patio looked out onto that courtyard. Sometimes on nights that weren’t sweltering with the Dallas humidity and heat, Skye would go out and sit in her cheap deck chair and have a glass of tea.
Tonight was not one of those nights. Even from inside the apartment with the air conditioner on full blast Skye could see the condensation forming on the windows from the horrible damp air. This fall was one of the worst that Skye could recall from a weather standpoint. It was hot all the time and the sun was so intense that it felt like walking outside was akin to stepping into a frying pan.
But it wasn’t as bad as the children’s home.
Right now Skye had air conditioning. She had food in the fridge that she could eat whenever she wanted. She had drinks that she had picked out at the store. She had warm water for a shower or cold if she wanted it. There was money in her savings account and even if she had to take a job as a barista at the coffee shop to make ends meet she could manage. She had been wise with her money and smarter with her credit. Skye had learned lessons throughout her years as an orphan and a ward of the state that would never leave her. Not really. And Skye would not have wanted to lose that edge anyway.
There was a knock at her door. Skye turned and stared at the narrow white painted doorway with its tiny peephole and classic brass chain lock above the deadbolt. Who would be calling at seven o’clock at night? A neighbor maybe. Skye wasn’t the type of person to shun human contact from her neighbors, but she generally preferred to keep to herself. She had noticed over the years that this was easier if you did not have children that required you to mix and mingle with the other parents in the building. Skye hated children.
She waited. Perhaps they would go away. Selling something maybe? Wrapping paper? Candy? Popcorn? Cookies? Skye did not want any of that crap, especially now that she was unemployed. But the knock came again and forced Skye to leave her memories there at the window and move toward the door in order to answer.
“Can I help you?” Skye put on hand on the door and did not lean toward the peephole. She had watched too many crime shows to look through the peephole just yet. “I’m not interested in purchasing anything this evening.”
“I’m not selling anything,” came the reply from the other side of the door. The voice belonged to a woman. The words were clipped and hurried. “I’m from the Dallas Examiner and I was wondering if I could get some comments from you regarding the column in the Dallas Star.”
The column? For just a moment Skye was cautiously confused. “I’m sorry. Are you talking about the society column?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t write that anymore,” Skye informed the woman. She still hadn’t peeked through the hole to see if the unwelcome visitor was holding up a press pass or not. “You need to talk to Carolyn Phillips down at the Star. She could tell you who will be writing it from now on.”
“Yes. I already know that Ms. Phillips terminated your employment with the paper.” There was a pause and Skye could have sworn she heard someone click a button as though they were now recording the conversation. Unfortunately that meant whatever was coming next was likely a total shock. Skye braced herself, but it wasn’t nearly enough. “I wanted to get your comment regarding the column that Ms. Phillips wrote for the Star’s society page detailing an affair between yourself and Jason King that resulted in the slanderous articles about his mother. Did he actually pay you to publish those lies about Ms. Tisha Olivares-King? And did you take the money because growing up on the streets of Dallas after your parents left you in a dumpster made you a desperate sort of character in this drama.”
Wow. Skye swallowed back the angry words that wanted to pop out of her mouth. That was an incredible bit of maneuvering by Carolyn. No doubt it would win her some sales. But it was also going to win the ire of the King family proper and not just their drama hungry matriarch. Carolyn had no idea what sort of monster she was dealing with here and she wasn’t going to get much of a chance to find out before they bit her head off.
In the meantime, though, it was time to say something. Right? Skye could not just let this groundless and somewhat idiotic accusation go unanswered. Except answering would only being doing herself more harm than good. Perhaps shaming was the better option.
“You know,” Skye began in a very calm and reasonable voice. “As a journalist myself, I often find it good practice to check my facts before reporting them.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” the other woman said drily. “I just asked you if they were true. Didn’t I?”
“And if I say no?”
There was a long pause. Skye could not see, but she could totally see in her mind’s eye the expression of puzzlement on the face of this reporter. “Well, I suppose you say no. But I know that it’s true.”
“Really? What is your source?”
“Uh. Ms. Phillips.”
“I see. And she showed you her sources?” Skye prompted. “Because I’ve never known Carolyn Phillips to write a story that was true. It’s why she got rid of me as a journalist. She was tired of my ethics getting in her way. So if that’s the kind of writing you like, then I would definitely keep going the way that you are. Otherwise you might try something like—oh, I don’t know, social services? Or maybe the public records department? It isn’t like my records are sealed or something. Any reporter with half a brain could find out what happened to me as a kid. There were even newspaper articles I believe.”
The door shivered as someone smacked it with their hand. “A reporter with half a brain? Really? Bitch!”
“Fine,” Skye said irritably as she stepped back from the door to avoid another possible collision between a hand and the wood and then Skye’s ear. “How about any reporter who happens to be charming or polite or knows how to ask questions and be nice enough to people to get an answer? How about that? We’ll say… brain optional.”
“You know it’s pretty stupid to be rude to someone writing a story about you for the paper!” The words were shouted through the door. This reporter person was getting pissed. Interesting. Had she given a name? Skye did not recall hearing one.
But Skye did have a response to that threat. “It’s not as stupid as printing an article full of unverified facts, falsified information, and general bullshit provided to you by a woman who has already proven multiple times to be a drama-seeking liar.”
There was another cry of outrage outside the door and suddenly this whole visit made a lot more sense. Skye could not resist a peek through that peephole and sure enough. Carolyn Phillips was standing there beside another female reporter that Skye
recognized from the news staff at the Star. So this was entirely bullshit. How nice.
“Hi there, Carolyn!” Skye shouted through the door. “How is the column writing going? I see you’re struggling for stories, but honestly that doesn’t surprise me much.”
Carolyn pounded on the door. She no longer looked put together or even remotely professional, and it was not the unflattering dimensions of the peephole that made it appear that way. Her hair was mussed. Her clothes were mussed. Her face was shiny with sweat in the dim light of the hallway in front of Skye’s apartment. And the young woman who had come with Carolyn to presumably play out their little ruse and search for information was cowering beside Carolyn with a look of total horror on her young face.
“Carolyn, you need to go home.” Skye actually felt kind of sorry for the woman. “This isn’t right and you know it.”
Carolyn started waving her fist at the door. “I’m going to roast you, Skye Kincaid! You’ll see!”
“You’re the one who fired me,” Skye reminded Carolyn. “Why are you acting like I’m the one who screwed you over?”
“Because there is something huge going on in the King family and you took that story with you!” Carolyn accused.
Right. There were several big things going on in the King family. Unfortunately for a newspaper woman like Carolyn, most of those things were simply never going to make the news. Besides, Carolyn did not know what she thought she knew and Skye certainly wasn’t willing to talk about it.
“You’d better tell me what you know,” Carolyn said suddenly. “You open this door and you tell me. You tell me what I need to know to make our paper number one this week on the news list here in Dallas.”
Skye exhaled a long sigh. There was really no way to even explain to Carolyn what the problem was with her request. It was just a moot point. “I haven’t got anything to tell you, Carolyn. I’m not hiding anything. The King family isn’t hiding anything. The company is going through all kinds of the regular, run-of-the-mill probate issues. That’s it.”
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 18