The Choice (Arranged Book 3)

by Stella Gray

  After getting dressed, frying an egg for breakfast, and trying to convince myself to go to work, I gave up and dialed my private car. Desperate for a distraction, I told my driver to take me to my father’s penthouse. The only other person I wanted to see right now was Max.

  If there was one thing that could take my mind off of things, help me step away from the emptiness and heartache, push me to at least go through the motions of being okay, it was my son. Just seeing Max’s face made me light up. The kid could talk about dinosaurs like nobody’s business, and he was at just the right age to be full of questions about absolutely everything. Maybe I could take him to a movie or the aquarium downtown. Hell, we could even order in a pizza and sit around playing videogames if that’s what he wanted. I’d let him decide.

  I hated that I had to go to my father’s place to see Max, and I wasn’t looking forward to being in such close quarters with Anja again, but I’d grit my teeth and bear it for my kid’s sake.

  Arriving at the penthouse, a member of the house staff let me in.

  “Good morning, Mr. Zoric,” he said.

  “Is Max here?” I asked. “I was hoping to take the kid out for the day.”

  He frowned. “The boy and his mother aren’t in at the moment.”

  My stomach dropped. “Do you have any idea what time they’ll be back?”

  “No. I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. “I can make a call if you like—”

  “That’s okay,” I interrupted. “I’ll call myself. Don’t worry about it. Thanks anyway.”

  I turned to leave, but heard my father calling out from his study. I should have left, just pretended I didn’t hear him, but against my better judgement I went down the hall.

  “Max and Anja aren’t here,” he told me as I leaned against the doorway.

  “I gathered,” I said. “Where are they?”

  “Downtown,” he said, not elaborating.

  He was seated in a tufted leather chair in the dark room, looking like a Bond villain in a sharp, well-cut charcoal suit with a glass of something reddish orange and thick—probably a bloody Mary, from the looks of it—in his hand.

  It was just after ten in the morning. Hard not to believe he’d been lying in wait for me to come and visit Max and Anja.

  “A little early for a drink,” I commented. “Not going into work today?”

  “I could ask you the same,” he said with a smug grin, taking a long sip from his glass.

  Annoyingly, my father didn’t become addled or distracted when he drank. Just more focused. More cruel.

  “What are they doing downtown?” I prodded. “And when will they be back?”

  Maybe my best bet was to just call Anja and arrange to meet them wherever they were.

  He shrugged. “No idea. I sent them out with my AmEx, to get some things for the little one’s room. I told Anja to buy whatever he wants. Money is no object where Max is concerned.”

  I got a chill hearing my father call Max “the little one.” It was too intimate. Too personal. It also reminded me that he’d been aware of Max all these years and had purposely kept him from me. That hurt far worse than the knowledge that he had essentially paid off Anja to stay in hiding the whole time.

  “How long are they planning to stay with you?” I asked, growing uneasy.

  After taking a leisurely slug of the bloody Mary, my father said, “As long as they want.”

  Fuck. The fact that he was trying to make Max’s room here more comfortable—likely in an effort to entice the kid and Anja to stick around more permanently—was sending up a million red flags in my mind. I hated that my son was under my father’s roof at all, even temporarily. It was a miracle I hadn’t ended up as twisted as he was after growing up under his influence, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk letting Max go through the same hell that I had.

  I couldn’t let Max get tangled in his web, or allow him to be influenced by my father.

  But what could I do? I would have been happy to remodel the spare room at my condo for the kid, but I didn’t want to live with Anja. Plus, Max still had no clue I was his dad. As far as he knew, I was just a friend of his mom’s. Offering to take Max in would have to wait.

  I just didn’t understand why my father was suddenly so devoted to Anja and my son. The man could easily have put them up in a hotel nearby, so why had he arranged to keep them here at his place? He’d known about Max for eight years and then out of nowhere he decides he needs to get involved in the boy’s life? It made no sense. There was no reason for Anja and Max to still be here unless my father wanted something from them. Wanted to use them.

  That my father was playing happy grandfather with Max was deeply suspicious.

  It also made my anger boil up inside of me. I had been so angry at Anja for keeping Max a secret from me, but it was as much my father’s fault as hers. Because of his secrets and manipulations, I’d never gotten a chance to know my son until now.

  “He’s a good kid,” my father mused, looking thoughtfully at his drink. “Smart, resilient, personable. No doubt he’ll be Zoric royalty someday. A nice addition to the family.”

  His words were enough to put me over the edge.

  “A nice addition?” I snapped. “This isn’t like adding a fucking room onto a house! He’s my son. And the reason I never had a chance to be a part of his life until now is because you took Anja away from me in the first place.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from pacing the room, the rage rolling off of me. My father just watched me and laughed.

  “Do you still believe that’s what happened?” he said. “It was her decision! I never coerced her. In fact, I tried to talk her out of it.”

  “Bullshit,” I cut in.

  “Don’t pin this on me.” He slammed his glass down. “You think it wasn’t obvious to me that the child would do better being raised by both parents? That’s what I told her! But Anja wanted out. So I helped her do that, in exchange for being able to keep tabs on my grandson. She was more than happy to take the money and run, trust me. It’s what she wanted all along.”

  I didn’t believe him, didn’t know what to believe anymore, but it was hard to ignore the pain that came along with his words. After all, I seemed to be a man who women had consistently chosen to run away from.

  “You almost sound like you buy into your own lies,” I told him bitterly. “I guess that happens when you never tell the truth.”

  “The truth is always relative.” He got up to pour himself another drink. “But you need to let go of the past, Stefan. It doesn’t matter what happened all those years ago! What matters is that Anja is here now, with Max.” He smiled, lifting his glass in a toast. “Can’t we just take a moment and agree this is tremendous?”

  “My son is seven years old,” I said, grinding out the words. “And the first time I saw his face, or even knew of his existence, was six days ago.”

  “I told Anja not to buy any new furniture,” my father said breezily, putting the cap back on the bottle of vodka and heading back to his chair. “Since I’m sure you’re going to set up something at your house for both of them soon enough.”

  That stopped me in my tracks.

  “Both of them? I’m not bringing Anja into our home.” I still thought of the condo as Tori’s, too, even though she’d been gone for days now.

  “You will,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time, now that you have a son to raise.”

  I felt my fury rise even higher. There was no way I’d be inviting Anja to live in the home I shared with my wife, even if my wife had left me for someone else.

  “Anja and I are not getting back together,” I told my father, my words firm. “Regardless of what you—or she—might be thinking otherwise.”

  He just shrugged. “You’ll come around,” he said. “As soon as you’re over that bitch wife of yours.”

  I was standing over him before I even realized I’d crossed the room. “Don’t ever talk about her that way again,” I said, my voice
steely, my rage barely contained.

  My father gave me a look that was both patronizing and pitying.

  “How can you stand there and defend her?” he asked, putting his feet up. “She left you. Walked right out the door without a second thought. The sooner you move on, the better.”

  It was all too familiar. The ache in my chest, the sour feeling in my gut, my father’s nonchalance, the fury I was battling in his presence. This was exactly like the last time he had chased a woman away from me, and all at once I felt like I was seventeen again. Helpless and trapped. Even though I knew that Tori had left me for Gavin, and had probably been thinking about it for a while, I couldn’t help blaming my father. If he hadn’t brought Anja back, Tori wouldn’t have needed to seek comfort in Gavin’s arms. She’d have had no reason to doubt my commitment to her and to our marriage. My wife would still be with me.

  As I stormed out of the penthouse and took the long elevator ride back down to the lobby, I seethed over the way this whole thing had been playing out. Every step of the way, my father had been pulling all the strings. Holding all the cards. Regardless of his deflection and his lies, it was obvious that he’d planned his every move. After all, it was the Zoric way.

  But two could play this game.

  It was time to do something about my father, once and for all.

  Stefan

  Chapter 14

  Now that Max was in the picture, and considering everything my father was doing to control—and ultimately destroy—my life, I was more intent than ever on turning KZ Modeling into a legitimate business and getting my father out of the way. I would destroy the seedy underbelly he’d created to fund the agency’s operations and then expand the branches of the company that were successful in their own right, giving them room to grow organically.

  After all, KZM had made a name for itself by representing the fashion industry’s most sought-after faces, models with both striking features and strong presence. We’d sign even more.

  Our top-notch talent scouts knew the business inside and out, so I’d hire more of those as well. Give everyone incentives for signing fresh faces or for renewing contracts with models that were already doing great work for the agency.

  I’d also pick up the pace on my end, even if that meant taking even more calls and meetings in order to forge new relationships with designers, fragrance companies, my contacts in the cosmetics industry—whatever was needed to secure KZM’s future. And I’d make sure the clients we already had were happy, too. Maybe I’d have my assistant send them all champagne baskets or artisanal chocolate. Whatever it took, I’d woo them and keep them wooed.

  The confrontation with my father at his penthouse had been exactly what I needed. Exactly the motivation necessary to force me to get my ass back in gear.

  And if Tori came back—no, when she came back—she’d be proud that I had followed through with my plans to dismantle the trafficking ring, expose my father’s corruption, and bring all the responsible parties to justice. She’d see that I’d accomplished something important. Righted some of my father’s wrongs. Done something genuinely good to change the world.

  My father was going down.

  In the meantime, it was hard not to stress about the fact that my father was plotting to keep Max and Anja in his home like his own personal human pets, obviously in order to control them. Everything he did, from providing them with money and a place to stay, to feeding them three meals a day and allowing them to go on these lavish spending sprees, was a way to make them completely dependent on him. To manipulate them. And to manipulate me, through them. We’d all be under his thumb. Nothing my father did came without strings.

  So it was critical that I acted as quickly and discreetly as possible—before he was in a position to use Max against me. I knew he wouldn’t think twice about treating my son like a bargaining chip, and if Max was threatened, my hands would be tied. I couldn’t let that happen.

  It was time to reach out to Gavin’s brother, Frank Chase, directly.

  Knowing my father might have someone watching me, and that any attempts to contact the feds meant I was at risk of exposing both myself and the agency’s involvement, I had my driver drop me off at Union Station, where I tucked myself into one of the few remaining payphone booths left in the city of Chicago. Then I made my call.

  After giving Frank the fake name we’d agreed I should use over the phone, I said, “Tell me what your agency has to have in hand so you can take this man down. Because I’m ready to move, and it has to be soon.”

  He’d sounded surprised to hear from me, but he only hesitated briefly before saying, “What’s changed? Something we should know about?”

  “There are some new players involved,” I said. “People close to me, people who could get hurt. One of them is a child, and this man…he knows the kid is a weak spot for me. I don’t want to have to walk away, get uncooperative, you understand?”

  “I understand,” Frank said.

  “So what do you need?” I prodded. “Let’s move on this.”

  “To be honest, we’re in a good place,” he said, his voice detached and business-like. “We’ve almost got everything set up to be able to make our arrests.”

  It was a surprise, but I was glad to hear it. My father’s brutal reign was almost over.

  “Okay, so how soon are we talking?” I asked.

  “These things take time,” Frank said. “Everything has to be by the books, the evidence has to be rock solid, we can’t risk a mistrial over a technicality, yadda yadda.”

  “You’re telling me I’m supposed to just sit here and wait?” The fucking feds. It was infuriating. I didn’t have time for this shit.

  “Everything’s under control. You gotta be patient,” he said calmly.

  “I’ve been nothing but patient,” I shot back. “I put my ass on the line for you guys and every day that goes by is another day for him to plan a way out of this. I’m ready for things to start happening.”

  “Soon,” Frank promised, unperturbed by my outburst. “Is that all?”

  Tori’s name was on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to ask him about her, ask if she was safe—because he had to know that my wife was shacking up with his little brother by now. But I said nothing. I wasn’t supposed to know where she was, and I wanted to give her the space she needed, even if that space was in Gavin’s apartment. I’d honor what Tori wanted. For now.

  “That’s all,” I said, and hung up.

  When I got home, I found that my misery was about to have company. Because Gavin Chase was waiting for me in the lobby.

  It took all my strength not to punch him in his face.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I said, causing the uniformed woman at the security desk to raise an eyebrow and lift the phone. “We’re good,” I told her. “No need to call the cops.”

  Turning back to Gavin, I folded my arms and waited for his answer.

  As much as I hated him, he didn’t seem the type to gloat. And looking closer, I realized his expression wasn’t one of smug victory. In fact, he looked worried. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he seemed uncharacteristically…slumped. A lot like me, come to think of it.

  “Where’s Tori?” he demanded, obviously on edge. “You got her locked up in your apartment?”

  “What, you can’t keep track of her either?” I shot back, bitterness seeping in. “Not my problem, now that she ran off to be with you.”

  His face went slack. “What?”

  “Yeah, I know all about it,” I said. “The last time anyone saw her, she was with you. So it was pretty fucking obvious she ran straight into your arms the second she walked out on me.”

  “Wait, what are you talking about?” Gavin said, narrowing his eyes. “She didn’t run off to be with me. She’s been gone all week. I haven’t seen her since Monday.”

  I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “Are you lying to me right now? I’ve been calling you for days and you never picked up.
Never returned a single one of my messages. What the hell are you trying to pull?”

  Gavin’s eyes were wide. He took a step back, shaking his head.

  “I blocked your number,” he said, pulling out his phone. “My brother thought it would be better if we didn’t have any direct contact. Look.”

  He showed me the screen that listed all his blocked contacts. My number was right on the top of the list. No wonder he hadn’t gotten any of my frantic phone calls or messages.

  My stomach dropped, my pulse kicking into overdrive.

  “So you really haven’t seen Tori?” I asked.

  “I swear to god I haven’t,” he said.

  I sank down onto the lobby bench, Gavin standing warily over me. For a moment, I had no words. With sudden, gut-wrenching clarity, I realized that I should have looked harder for her. That I never should have stopped looking. I had let Tori down. I couldn’t believe I’d given up on her so easily.

  “Maybe she went home,” Gavin suggested.

  “I tried her Springfield number,” I said, already pulling my phone out.

  I scrolled through my contacts and tried calling Senator’s Lindsey’s house line again. Predictably, there was no answer. I knew Mitch was in DC for work, but I hadn’t tried him directly. Once I was sure that Tori had left me for Gavin, I’d given up on trying to reach her friends and family.

  This time I dialed his cell. He picked up after the third ring, sounding distracted and annoyed.

  “Stefan,” he said flatly. “What is it?”

  “Is Tori at your house in Springfield?” I asked.

  Gavin leaned forward, and I tilted the phone in his direction so he could hear the senator’s reply.

  “She’s your wife,” Mitch said with an obnoxious laugh. “I thought it was your job to keep a leash on her now.”