“No, the call didn’t go well,” Hamilton said. “The senator is a problem. I need you to speak with him. Convince him to vote yes.”
Caleb shook his head. “You and I, we had a deal. And the deal is all I’m interested in.” Caleb arched a brow and glanced at Francesca, hoping to make it clear he was not here to compete for Hamilton’s business or his daughter. They’d negotiated this contract all week, and it was all the cover Caleb required to search for the ledger. “I delivered personal access to the senator. No intermediary. It was his private line, and he was asked to give you a fair hearing. What you’re suggesting is…something different.”
Levine glared at Caleb. “If Mr. Hamilton says—”
“Stop.” Hamilton showed his palm to Levine, studying Caleb, who didn’t give a shit. He continued to lean against the wall, holding his untouched drink. “There must be some way we could come to an agreement.”
“Another deal? When you haven’t paid up on our first?” Caleb ignored Hamilton’s noises of annoyance, saw Francesca was shocked yet amused by the interaction, and felt emboldened enough to risk forcing the man’s hand. He pushed off the wall. “This is me leaving.” Levine’s back straightened, as if prepared to stop him. Caleb took three steps to the door, gambling someone would stop him, or he was fucked.
“Stop, Smith, stop. Levine, get up,” Hamilton said. “Give Smith your chair.” Caleb controlled his relief lest it show on his face. He and Hamilton were reading each other, circling, looking for cracks in composure.
Francesca stood, indicating her chair. “Take mine, Caleb. I’ve left our guests alone for too long, father.” Francesca’s nervousness was ratcheted up beyond her usual errant schoolgirl jumpiness. He didn’t blame her. One too many pissing contests were being conducted in this room.
“Sit down, Francesca,” Hamilton said. She sat with a thump. Levine stood, moving back to Hamilton’s right, just behind him, as Caleb sat. Hamilton opened a humidor on the edge of the desk. Caleb declined the offered Cuban cigar. Then Hamilton turned his gaze to his daughter while absently snipping the end of his cigar. “I need your help, Francesca. With the business.”
Caleb found himself tensing. Hamilton’s “business” was a national consortium of shell companies that functioned as extortion rings. The moment he revealed this to his daughter was the moment she’d be complicit in his crimes, unless she turned Hamilton in, which was unlikely. Or made a deal with the authorities, also unlikely. So reading her in was relegating her to a life behind bars. The fucker. Why would her father break with a twenty-five-year-old tradition of keeping Francesca innocent of his crimes?
“Okay.” Francesca scooched forward in her chair, folding her hands on her lap.
“This business has taken much of my life to build,” Hamilton said. “And with your disinterest in it”—he grimaced—“except spending the money it generates, I find myself in need of a successor, as you know. Since it won’t be you, I need you to become an asset to the business rather than a drain. In short, Francesca, it’s time for you to marry.”
Caleb relaxed into his chair. Hamilton was talking marriage, not business. Francesca wouldn’t be happy, but at least her father wasn’t setting her up to take an imminent fall.
“I’ll wait outside.” Caleb made a move to stand, but Francesca grabbed his arm, her nails sinking deep. A glance at Hamilton told Caleb he’d noticed her reaction and wasn’t happy. So Caleb settled back in his chair, his stomach sinking, resolved to hide in plain sight. Hamilton was already pissed at him for not strong-arming a senator—though it was an offense that could bring twenty years at Leavenworth—so now the last thing Caleb needed was to piss him off again.
“Excuse me?” she whispered.
“Which part didn’t you understand?” her father said. “The money? Or the part about you doing your part?”
She released Caleb’s arm and folded her hands on her lap. “I am not a drain on your company, Father, my trust comes from Mom’s inheritance. And I went to Stanford on full academic scholarships, lived off my tutoring and then teacher’s assistant salary, and I will be earning my PhD by working as an adjunct professor this fall at Harvard. If you’d allotted a moment from your schedule these last six years, you’d have noticed I haven’t even taken a dime from my trust fund since I graduated from high school. In fact, I’ve been waiting for you to notice. I’ve donated it all to charity, helping inner-city children get off the streets.”
Hamilton didn’t hide his surprise or his derision.
Caleb would have happily shot himself in the head if it meant escaping this conversation.
Hamilton continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You’re devoting your every waking hour to delinquents when you should be making yourself useful to me, to the business. Francesca, you’re not getting younger.” She gasped, taking his every word like punches and she a heavy bag. Hamilton worked the end of his cigar in his mouth. When he got it lit, he blew the smoke over his shoulder and left Tate in a cloud.
She was trembling and upset, and Caleb didn’t blame her. Past wounds were being litigated in mixed company. To her credit, she seemed to be keeping her composure. Caleb was proud of her, even as he wondered what Hamilton’s end game was. Insults rarely moved a woman to be obedient, and he had to assume this was Hamilton leading up to the big ask…her arranged marriage. So why the abuse?
“I’m not a profit margin.” She picked at her thumb’s nail polish, biting her lip.
“Always about you, isn’t it?” Hamilton said. Francesca flinched, studying her father’s face. Was she thinking about him dying, that she needed to be kind no matter his abuse? Caleb hated bullies.
“Hamilton,” he said, “this is all fascinating, but if you’re not signing my contract, I know five CEOs at the party who will, with better terms than I made with your lawyers.”
“Patience, Smith.” Hamilton turned back to Francesca. “Francesca, I require you to stop your volunteering at the shelter.”
“Father—” She struggled to find words. “They’re troubled children.”
“Shelter?” Caleb thought of the many shelters in downtown Boston, and none were in safe areas.
“Essex Street.” Francesca narrowed her eyes as she confronted her father, apparently finally willing to fight back. But Essex Street was located in what was formerly known as the Combat Zone, where unsavory types rubbed shoulders with johns and addicts, so now Caleb wanted to fight.
“Essex Street. Are you crazy?” Caleb scowled.
“I help troubled children, some of them homeless. When they come to the shelter, I help them work through their feelings.” She wouldn’t hold his gaze. “You couldn’t understand, Caleb.”
Oh, Caleb understood. He’d been one of those kids. Social services latched onto him at ten, recovering in the hospital after his mother’s pimp sliced his throat, ear to ear. The pimp was also his mother’s pusher, so when the guy skipped town, she had to score drugs elsewhere and died from a tainted batch. That left Caleb mute, homeless, and still recovering in the hospital. He was barely off pain meds when he was assigned a home with a foster “father” who decided to visit one night. Caleb left him unconscious on the floor as he escaped by a bedroom window. It took him a week to find a crew, and together they survived. Most of them, anyway, until their last grift.
“I understand.” He funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars a year into city shelters because he understood all too well. That didn’t mean the shelter was safe, no matter how many bodyguards her father employed. “I understand you have no business in that world.”
“Listen to him, Francesca,” Hamilton said.
Her expression was guarded and defensive. “They need our compassion, a path to a normal life. I counsel—”
Caleb grimaced. “Feed them, educate them, give them somewhere safe to stay, but stay out of their heads.” Poverty took a lot from a person, and privacy was the first thing to go. “You need a donation? I’ll write a check, but stay the fuck away from Essex Street.” Caleb caugh
t Levine’s eye, saw his attentiveness. Shit. Caleb had already said too much.
Francesca was taken aback by his vehemence, as apparently was everyone else in the room…so he pretended to sip his drink and pretended to swallow, feeling his neck’s scar tissue rub against his dress shirt collar, and his bow tie strangle as unwanted memories oozed from his locked-down places.
Hamilton steepled his fingertips. “What I’m trying to say here, Francesca, is things have to change. You’ll have to change.”
She nodded. “This is about your illness, right? Tell me what I can do.”
Her father sighed. “Thank you. I knew you’d come around. You are my heir, but this company needs someone trained to run it, or all I’ve built, everything that keeps you safe, Francesca, will crumble after I’m gone.”
“I understand.” She sat back in her chair, averting her gaze. “Money makes people do crazy things…like kidnapping mogul’s daughters for millions of dollars.” Caleb felt a twinge of grief to see Francesca’s pain.
“If only you did understand.” Hamilton sighed, staring at his cigar. “I am my company, and when my illness is known, it will come under attack from…my competitors.” Hamilton was not wrong, and Caleb worked for one of them. The FBI—though they weren’t technically competitors—were judgment day. “There is a mole in our ranks.”
“A mole?” Francesca blinked, glancing at Caleb, then back at her father. Caleb was careful to remain unmoved, to disassociate himself from Hamilton’s revelation. It was the only way he could control his expression and not give away his anxiety.
“A corporate spy,” her father said. “Don’t worry. We know who it is.” The cagey man didn’t attempt to hide his satisfaction.
Meanwhile, Caleb’s heart skipped a beat and he found it hard to swallow. He didn’t need to turn around to accurately count the weapons in the room. He could guesstimate. And his guesstimate told him he was fucked. With Hamilton’s talk of spies, Caleb had to assume he was about to be outed as a Fed.
Hamilton puffed on his cigar. “My point is that the wolves are circling. We need to prepare.” He raised his brows, looking beyond Caleb, over his head to the security team beyond.
Caleb found himself listening for a sidearm being slipped from its holster. His heart rate was off the charts. His gut told him something was about to happen, but he feared jumping to conclusions, ruining his cover, so he shut it down, forcing himself to remain seated and concentrate on maintaining his composure.
“I’ll help if I can,” Francesca said. “I want to help you, Father.”
Escaping the mansion would be messy if guns were drawn, especially with a party going on in the ballroom. He had two ankle-holstered Smith & Wessons, and a small knife secreted in his belt. Not much, but…he glanced at Ken’s and Barbie’s shoulder holsters. He could always “borrow” theirs, if push came to shove.
“You need to marry,” Hamilton said, “and soon. And not just anybody.”
Francesca glanced at Caleb, unable to hide her embarrassment, and Caleb recoiled in confusion. Why bring up the spy if Hamilton was only going to circle back to the arranged marriage conflict?
“I knew you’d find a way to humiliate me in front of Caleb, but I’d hoped I was wrong.” She closed her eyes, grimacing, and when she opened them again, she revealed how furious she was. Hamilton-worthy fury. Seemed like Francesca had something in common with dear old dad after all.
Hamilton appeared unmoved by her reaction. “My company is under attack, Francesca. Your marriage can’t wait.”
She folded her arms and sank deeper into her chair. “I’m not discussing this.” She glanced at Caleb, and then at Barbie and Ken. “Caleb’s contract will secure your business. That’s what Caleb does, right, security?”
Caleb arched a brow. “He hasn’t signed the contract.”
Hamilton ignored Caleb and kept his eyes on Francesca. “There are bad people in the world.”
Francesca scowled. “You think I don’t know? I remember. I remember what they did to me. Father, I’ve had bodyguards my whole life because of what bad people want from me.”
“The company is all that protects you. Do you understand? If the business is compromised, leadership weakened by rumors of my illness…we’ll be ripe for a takeover. All I’ve worked for…it will be gone. I can’t hide it forever, and I refuse to leave you vulnerable when I go.”
Francesca’s face crumbled and she looked ready to cry. “Father.” She shook her head, leaning away from Hamilton, as if distance could make the problem go away. “You and Caleb can fix this. It’s what you do.”
Hamilton sighed. “Delay it, maybe, but you’ll never be safe until this company has a successor. We’re under attack. You have to see that you need to marry someone capable of stepping into my shoes. Only then will you be safe.” And boom. Hamilton’s methodical summation of his arguments.
Caleb’s relief threatened to overwhelm him. Hamilton’s talk of spies had been a preemptive strike against Francesca’s resistance to the arranged marriage, not a tip-off that Caleb was made. And his throwaway line about his coming death? Damn, Hamilton was good…for a sociopath. It was pure poetry, which Francesca ate with a spoon, even as she resisted reality.
“No. You can’t ask that of me. It’s not right.” Yet her expression told a different story. Even Caleb could see she felt cornered by her father’s arguments. Yup. The last nail had been hammered into her coffin.
“Dammit, Francesca!” Hamilton threw his glass against the wall, shattering it. Caleb thought her father was overplaying his hand, but what did he know? He hadn’t spent a life devaluing a daughter until she failed to see her worth, and Hamilton was obviously a pro.
The smell of scotch infused the air as the desk phone rang. He scowled at his daughter, then took a moment to gather his composure before lifting the receiver. He listened, silently, and then hung up without comment.
“I’m sorry to be rude, but I have something I need to attend to.” He eyed Caleb and Francesca and then stood, appearing more frail than Caleb had ever seen him.
“I’ll stay here.” Levine glared at Caleb.
“No.” Hamilton waved all the security guards to the door. “Francesca is quite capable of entertaining Mr. Smith while I attend to business. I might need you.”
Levine looked as if he was about to argue, but then Hamilton locked gazes with his second-in-command before walking to the door. Whatever Levine saw on his boss’s face had him hurrying to the door.
“Hamilton.” Caleb remained seated. “When you come back, you’ll have signed the contract, or I’m walking.” Because if Hamilton wouldn’t sign, there was a chance he knew Caleb was the spy, the operation was most likely blown, and using the party guests was his best bet to escape the mansion.
Hamilton gave no indication he cared one way or the other. Then he and his entourage filed out of the room, leaving Caleb nervous and feeling out of sorts, unsure of where he stood, but as of yet unwilling to bail on an operation with so much at stake. This was the closest anyone had ever gotten to connecting the infamous Jonathan Hamilton to the global network of extortion rings, and dammit, Caleb wanted this collar. He wanted Hamilton’s empire to burn to the ground…for fallen friends, and those who survived despite Hamilton’s best efforts.
When the door shut with a click, Caleb surveyed the room, wondering if Francesca’s father would store the valuable ledger in his office. He instantly dismissed the idea, because, shit, life wasn’t that easy.
Francesca’s hand rested on his forearm; her eyes were unfocused, staring in the direction of the desk. She was understandably upset, while Caleb was confused. Why had her father made such a concerted effort to leave them together? Levine even resisted it, but Hamilton insisted. Red flag. But of what?
“He’s wrong. He has to be,” she said. Caleb covered her hand with his and thought back to what Hamilton had said…the threat to his business, the mole, Francesca at risk when he died, her need to marry. He wondered which part
seemed wrong to her. It was all true. “His company has been nothing but a pain in my ass my whole life. I should make his company tank, and maybe then I could have a normal life.”
He enjoyed her burst of rebellion, but saw it for what it was, venting, because people like them didn’t get “normal.” They were cut from a different cloth. That she hadn’t seen that yet said more about her privilege than any lack of intelligence. If she married Levine, that privilege wouldn’t last long.
“Your father is trying to protect you. I sympathize. If you were mine”—he shrugged—“I’d do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
“That’s different.” She frowned, though he could tell she’d liked the if you were mine dropped into the conversation. “He’s treating me like I’m an asset. I’m his daughter, and I want to marry for love.” She glanced at him and then just as quickly glanced away. He felt bad for her and wanted to tell her not to be embarrassed. “He can’t make me marry some random guy,” she said.
Caleb held his tongue. It was as if Francesca hadn’t heard the same conversation he and the rest of the room heard. Filtered through her innocence, no doubt.
Fact was, this marriage was happening, because her father was convinced her life would be in danger when he died and his company picked apart by competitors. So the only mystery was who Hamilton would force her to marry and when.
Caleb wasn’t so concerned, because he knew Jonathan Hamilton would be behind bars soon, and Francesca married off or not, the company would implode when that happened. Caleb would make sure of it. And Francesca? Maybe then she could get that normal life she’d always wanted.
It was a nice thought.
Still, he wanted to kill the son of a bitch she’d eventually marry…whoever that son of a bitch turned out to be.
Chapter Four
Francesca was seriously worried about her father. This marriage idea seemed extreme even for him, and she could tell he’d been thinking long and hard about it, yet, if his worries were focused on keeping his business safe, surely Caleb’s contract could deal with that, and she could hire more bodyguards. What was the big deal?
Seduced by Sin (Unlikely Hero) Page 4