The Billionaire

by Jordan Silver

  "I think I've had enough excitement for one day maybe I'll go watch some TV in that gargantuan room you gave me." He stretched and yawned as he started out of the room. "Jace you ok?"

  "Never better Ash, I'm just tired and I have to go ponder the fact that my father is an even bigger asshole than I thought."

  He left the room and I could see her confusion at his last remark so to sidetrack her I made a split second decision. "Let's go get your gift baby you up to going outside?"

  Of course I knew it was safe, the culprits were under guard except for Starks but I wasn't too worried about him. I'm sure the other two hadn't let him in on all they'd had planned or he would've most likely been here with them. Even in their evilness there was hierarchy.

  I bundled my little wounded soldier up and after saying bye to Jason we headed out to see her gift. I had to make a phone call on the way to set things up. This wasn't quite how I'd envisioned giving her this particular gift but somehow it seems to fit after the events of the day. We were finally free, well almost. I couldn’t wait to get our lives started out from under the bullshit. I still had some shit to take care of before the night was done but that can wait. She’d had too little joy in the last few days. I wanted to give her something good, something that would help take her mind off of all this. She hadn’t asked about the safe house because again, that was her way. She knew if there was something to tell I would’ve told her. She was also steering clear of any mention of the two who were just hunting her down, which I was immensely glad of because that was a conversation I was not looking forward to.

  I held her hand as we drove through the streets not wanting to lose contact not even for a second. When I let myself think of what could've happened to her the fear threatened to choke me. After today I was going to make damn sure that nothing like this ever touched her again. I don’t see how I’m going to keep her away form the children that were even now at the place I’d secured for them. I wasn’t sure how involved I wanted her to be in that whole scenario. If it were up to me she’d never give her past another thought but that’s just wishful thinking. Even I couldn’t pull that one off.

  It made me sick to my stomach to think what might've become of her had I not come along, had she not caught my eye that day not so long ago, which was beginning to feel like years. Soon, hopefully before the little one gets here, things would've settled down and we could look forward to a life of love and peace. I’m going to spoil her ass rotten starting tomorrow and everyday after. Starting with this.

  I felt her excitement as soon as we entered the gates. The long driveway that led to the monstrosity at the end was lined with blossoming trees, their scent permeating the evening air as we drove through.

  "Gideon?" Her hand tightened on mine as I kept driving until we reached the front door.

  "Is it?" she turned to me with her eyes wide and brimming with excitement. It did my heart good to see that.

  "Yes love, it's all yours." She threw her arms around me and peppered my face with her precious kisses.

  "Can we go in? I wanna see it."

  "Sure love the key's under the mat."

  I got out and walked around to her side feeling lighter, this had been a good decision after all. Maybe a few hours spent in the house she'd picked out weeks ago, that I'd bought her only today would go a long way to erasing some of the terror she'd faced earlier.

  We walked around the big old house going from room to room. I let her wander at her heart's content standing back while she ran her fingers over the two hundred year old wood and exclaimed over the view out the windows. She was happy. After the day we'd just had I consider that a minor miracle. I put it away for now and tried to enjoy her pleasure in her gift. Leave the madness outside for at least a little while.

  My only thoughts now were of my wife and child. I could us here, could almost hear the laughter and the joy I knew she would bring into all our lives.

  "Is it really ours?" She turned from the window where she’d been gazing out over the gardens in silence.

  "Yes baby it's ours, you can change anything you don't like."

  "No Gideon I love it just as it is. I can't wait to decorate, we should get books."

  Her excitement was infectious as she walked over to me and laid her head on my chest. She still wasn't moving as easily as before because of the accident but she was getting better. She’d had to run and hide from tow madmen on crutches. The seriousness of the situation was now hitting home hard but I fought to hold it at bay as she caressed my chest.

  "You want decorating books?" I hugged my sweet girl close enjoying the feel of her in my arms, safe and whole.

  "Uh huh."

  "You don't want to hire someone to do it?"

  "No I want us to do it, can we please?" That face, so precious, how did I get so fucking lucky?

  "If that's what you want Blossom then that's what we'll do." She could ask me for the world and I'd find a way to give it to her. I know fuck all about decorating but I guess I can learn.

  "Have you had enough...Hold on." My phone went off in my pocket.

  "Thorpe."

  "You need to get back to the house." It was Gage and from the sound of his voice something was very wrong.

  "What's going on?" I wrapped an arm around her and led us to the door.

  "It's the boy?" Fuck, she couldn't take anymore.

  "Is he alive?" I squeezed her shoulder when she gasped, she had no idea who I was speaking of but she knew something was wrong.

  "Yeah but we've got a situation you better get here as soon as possible." At least he wasn't dead. Whatever it was I can handle it as long as I didn't have to tell her that her childhood friend was dead just as she'd found him again.

  "Is everything okay Gideon?"

  I kissed her hair as I led her to the car. "Yes baby everything's fine we just need to get back we'll get your books later okay."

  "Okay."

  My heart was a little unsettled as we headed home. I didn't know what I was going to find there but I knew it wouldn't be good, the tone in Gage' voice told me that much. Traffic was light so we made good time and was soon heading up in the elevator. She’d been quiet the whole way here but I could tell she was scared again. Will this shit never end?

  My men were all standing around in the kitchen. At the table in the middle of them was Jason, he looked shaken and he was covered in...

  " Is...is that blood?" She hobbled to his side before I could stop her.

  "What's going on, who hurt him?" What in the fuck? I walked over to where she was standing next to him already close to tears.

  "Uh that's not quite what happened boss." Gage inclined his head towards Blossom. I took that to mean he wanted me to get her out of the room.

  "Ashley why don't you go get some towels so we can clean him up?"

  "But he's hurt, Jason where are you hurt?"

  "I'm not Ashley..." He looked to me for help.

  "Blossom baby go get the towels like I asked." She looked up at me and left the room reluctantly.

  "Start talking."

  "He did his old man." Well fuck.

  Chapter 36

  “I had to do it.” The kid started to shake and I put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. My head started to pound, I’d had enough. “It’s okay Jason. Where’s the body?” I directed my question to Gage and the others. “Already taken care of.” Fine now I just had to figure out some lie to tell my wife when she came back into the room. “You don’t ever tell her what you did you hear me Jason?” He just looked up at me trying to be brave but he was just a little boy. A little boy who’d just killed his own father. Will the evil these men set off ever end? I heard her coming back down the hallway and braced myself.

  She walked right over to him her eyes searching him for injuries. “Jason what happened? Were you in an accident?” He looked to me to take over. I was still trying to come up with something plausible. “It was a deer baby nothing to worry about.” That seemed to calm her a little bi
t and she started fussing at him to go clean up and get out of his ruined clothes.

  I was pretty much done, tonight it all ends we had the lead we needed for all the missing and I was confident that we would handle it. There was no reason for this shit to go on any farther, the guilty will pay there was no doubt. My idea of making the senator pay in the public eye was now null and void I’ll have to do that shit postmortem. His days on this earth had come to an end when he entered my fucking home and hunted my woman like she was nothing. Now I just had to find a way to leave these two here without too many questions.

  “Ashley baby come with me.” I took her out of the room and up the stairs.

  “Gideon why was Jason out hunting a deer?” Shit.

  “I don’t know baby maybe he needed to let off steam after the day he had.” She seemed to give it some thought as she took a seat on the bed.

  “I have to go out for a few hours, I want to go see about the kids we brought home I didn’t get a chance to talk to them before we had to come back here.” She opened her mouth to ask to come along again I’m sure but since I was lying my fucking head off I had to cut her off.

  “Same rules baby you’re not going anywhere near them until I’m sure it’s safe. Now tell me you’re gonna be my big girl and be safe until I get back.” She pouted but came over to hug me. “Fine Gideon but I’m having junk for dinner.”

  “Brat; Just add some vegetables to your plate and I won’t be mad.” She turned her face up for my kiss, which I gave her while hugging her close. “You promise me that you’re okay?” She nodded her head before laying it on my chest. “I’m fine now the police will take care of those horrible people so I don’t have to be scared anymore.” Not entirely right but if that’s what worked. “That’s right baby, now go get cleaned up you’ve got deer blood all over you. She didn’t seem to want to let me go so I kissed her head and tapped her ass. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  I followed her to the bathroom to run her bath before heading back to the kitchen where my men were keeping Jason company. Someone had found him some fresh clothes, which reminded me, the kid needed to go shopping. Gage was kneeling next to him whispering. I’m sure the horror of what he’d done was now catching up to him. I’ll deal with that later, time to put an end to this fuckery.

  “Jason I’m leaving you in charge of my wife I need you to stay here and make sure she’s okay; can you do that?” His chest puffed up just a bit and I saw a little of the cocky kid I’d met only a short while ago. “I can do that.”

  “Good I think there was talk of junk food in your future get to it. By the way you went hunting deer to work off some steam.” He smirked at me before getting up to leave. His shoulders were slumped again by the time he reached the door. With my head in my hand I gave myself a minute to get my shit together. “Let’s go end this.”

  I sat in the back of the limo almost dead inside, I’d turned off my emotions. Blossom had been a little less withdrawn by the time we left mostly because she had Jason to fuss over, but I’d essentially left two wounded kids to look after each other. Fuck me.

  We pulled up to yet another out of the way warehouse, this time one of my own. It was dark out as the car drew to a stop and I got out. Gage and the others got out of their ride and came to join me. “Let’s go.” There was no point in standing around rehashing shit we all knew why we were here.

  Inside the building I came up short at what I saw. The two men were sitting side by side strapped to chairs with their mouths taped shut. It wasn’t that that had stopped me in my tracks but the way they were strapped from chest to ankles in what looked like yards of chain. What the fuck?

  Without preamble I ripped the tape off of first one then the other. “Hello senator, I’m sure you know who I am.” He glared around the room like a mad dog while the doctor looked like he was scared as fuck.

  “Do you know who I am boy?”

  “Unfortunately I do, I’ve had the displeasure for the past few weeks of wading through your filth. I have the children you sold away into captivity by the way. By the end of tomorrow the whole world is going to know what you are not to worry.” He struggled against his restraints and swore a blue streak. Demented fuck. I stood back and let him tire his old ass out. Funny, up close he didn’t look like either of his personas. Not the great senator, nor the axis of evil. Instead he looked like a sixty five year old degenerate down on his luck.

  “I’m not afraid of you, you can’t touch me; what I am is bigger than you and the idiot masses.”

  “Oh really, I’ve been wondering about that. Tell me senator, if you have the power to turn Starks into an animal of the night why are you and your sidekick trussed up like two old bitches in my warehouse? What, you ran out of powers?”

  “I’m not a fucking dog, you think I did all this so I could run around in the woods smelling my own ass?”

  “Actually I have no idea what it is that you were trying to do. Why don’t you fill me in since you’ve got nothing more pressing at the moment? If you didn’t want to turn yourself into an animal exactly what is it that you were after?”

  “I wanted eternal life.” His eyes moved around the room like a feral cat ready to pounce. Maybe that’s why the guys had used so many chains to bind these two. They were both bat shit crazy.

  “Ahh, every megalomaniac’s wet dream, you wanted to play God.”

  “I am a god.”

  “Oh yeah, which one?”

  “The one.” He all but bellowed.

  “Yeah? So was Ahura Mazda but we haven’t heard fuck all from him in centuries.”

  “You dare?” Now he’s frothing at the mouth, this is like a bad as fuck B movie. I’m expecting the crazy fuck doll to come out of the woodwork any minute now.

  “So tell me oh great one; how was it so easy for my men to get the drop on you and bring you here? Doesn’t your power protect you from mere mortals? And why didn’t your powers help you find what you were looking for in my house you fuck?” He glared at my men again.

  “Uh boss, we uh…after reading that shit we found in Starks’ diary we thought it best to take certain measures.” Gage looked embarrassed by his admission.

  “Like what Gage?” This shit is fucked I’m surrounded by crazy fuck people.

  “We silvered them.”

  “You what?”

  “We tranqued them with some shit that’s supposed to combat whatever the fuck they’re on. The cuffs and chains are pure silver.” I just looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language.

  “It only worked because I’m not at my full power yet, had I been you fools could never have touched me.” Well he’s fucking nuts, plain and simple. I’ll deal with my men’s fuckery at a later date. Fucking werewolves and silver and shit what the fuck? But wait. “Why weren’t you at full power?”

  “That’s what that little bitch was for, she was supposed to be my entrée into the inner realm. Just a few more months that’s all the time I needed. Eighteen years I spent cultivating her…” He got an ugly look on his face as he sneered his next words at me. “Did she tell you I finger fucked her since she was twelve?” He laughed the demented old fuck. I walked around behind him and pulled his head back so our eyes met.

  “Let’s see just how powerful you are you fuck.” I doubt he even felt the sharp blade of my stiletto as it sliced across his throat. The doctor pissed himself and tried to run in his chair as blood sprayed every which way. I walked around in front of him so I could look him in the eye. This motherfucker was the one to touch her. He followed me with eyes of fear. His body shook like he was in a gale storm, perfect. “Good you’re scared. I hope you’re more afraid than she must’ve been each time you entered her room you perverted fuck. Did you enjoy tormenting her?”

  “I…I was just following orders, it wasn’t my idea.”

  “You think that shit absolves you of guilt? That you were just following orders? Since you like following him so much you can follow him into hell.” He tried s
cooting back in his chair to get away from my advances. I walked around behind him out of view. “Are you a righty or a lefty? Never mind it doesn’t matter.” I sawed into his wrist with the bloody knife. He screamed long and hard before passing out.

  “Wake this piece of shit up.” Stefan was only too happy to step forward and smack him in the face a couple times. Shit this shit didn’t take so long in the damn movies.

  He finally came to when Maurice passed some shit under his nose. I guess it took a second or two for the pain of his severed limb to set in but it couldn’t have helped that I held the shit up for him to see. Then the screaming started up again. I was through, all I wanted was to get back home to my woman and be done with this shit. I walked up close and held his eyes as I plunged the blade through his black heart.

  No one had made a sound as I stepped back to take in my handy work. “Okay you superstitious fucks how do we get rid of these assholes so they don’t show up in my fucking bedroom in the middle of the night?” I was only slightly joking because I didn’t know anymore. People believe in some serious shit. I guess it was easier to believe in that shit than to accept that some human beings could really be that fucking evil.

  “We’re going to burn the bodies then crush the bones into powder and take that shit out to see.” I looked at Maurice who sounded like he was having way too much fun looking forward to that shit. “How long does something like that take? Somebody is bound to notice the asshole senator missing before too long and when they do we don’t want his carcass laying around.”

  “Not to worry boss we’ve got a date with a crematorium only they don’t know it.”