by Lena Skye
“I want you to understand—I’m not doing this for bad reasons,” Danielle said.
“If you’re here to talk about a crime that’s been committed, I can’t imagine there being a bad reason for it,” the DA said with a slight, encouraging smile.
“My brother is a member of the Bey family,” Danielle told the man. “His name is Sam.” The prosecutor’s smile fell slightly, and his eyes widened.
“You know this for a fact, and you’re coming to me? What about, specifically?” Danielle glanced at Victor, and Victor gave her hand another squeeze.
“I’m working for Mr. Andersson here,” Danielle said. “I coordinate his charitable efforts, and my brother has used that to help him commit a crime, against my will.”
“This sounds very complex,” the DA said, sitting back slightly. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning, and explain it all to me, and we can talk about how this will move forward.”
Danielle did as she was asked, and Victor chimed in on the details he needed to verify; she told about getting the job with Victor—but not about the situation that prompted him to give her a job—and about what it included apart from their sex life together. She got to the part of the story where she recorded the conversation with her brother, and Victor saw the attorney stiffen; recorded conversations were an iffy place in the law.
“She recorded a conversation taking place in a public area,” Victor explained quickly. “Fully legal to do it that way.” The prosecutor nodded slowly.
“And in this conversation, he admitted to getting you involved in essentially a money laundering scheme against your will, and without your knowledge?” Danielle nodded.
“He says—you can hear it in the recording—that he did it basically to punish me for not telling him about my new job, and my relationship with Victor.” She glanced at him.
“And why would that be cause for punishment? I just want to have all the facts in hand so that I know that we can press this case,” the DA explained. Victor leaned forward slightly and decided to take over for a bit.
“I have had some business dealings—legitimate ones—with Nikolai Sokolov,” he explained. “Nothing to do with money laundering or any of that family’s other...non-wholesome pursuits.”
“There is, of course, a file on Sokolov family holdings,” the district attorney said, nodding.
“The Bey family offered me investment and funding early on in building my business,” Victor continued. “And now he was wanting for Danielle to present business opportunities to me for investment—evidently he was less than honest with her about the nature of them. She refused.” The DA nodded again and sat back a little further in his seat.
“This seems like it’s a fairly complicated situation,” he said after a moment. “But you do have him on record not just saying that he tricked you into making those donations, but also that—unbeknownst to you at the time you worked on Mr. Andersson’s behalf to make them—they were and are money laundering schemes, beneath their charitable exterior?” Danielle nodded.
“Beyond what he told me, I don’t know,” she admitted. “We’ve implemented a few new measures to make sure that I’m not caught out this way again, but I decided recently that it isn’t worth the risk anymore. I think...as much as I love my brother...that he needs to face consequences for this.”
“I’m sure you were aware that holding onto this information would—normally—be considered obstruction,” the prosecutor said, looking at each of them in turn.
“We were aware,” Victor said. “Though, I think you’d find it hard to get a jury to convict at least Danielle on that score.” The DA smiled wryly.
“Protecting a brother is generally a fairly easy defense,” the attorney agreed. “And on your side, of course, you have enough money that it would be difficult to get any kind of petty criminal charge like that to stick to you.” Victor smiled at the man.
“I am assuming that by coming forward voluntarily you’re willing to give us immunity on that charge,” Danielle said. “I would think you wouldn’t mention it that way if you were actually going to try it.”
“No, I’m not going to charge either of you with anything,” the district attorney said. “If it were to become obvious that we have a tendency to charge folks who come forward with crimes someone else has committed—even months or years later—then we would have a hard time convincing people to come forward.
Above and beyond the fact of it being a hard sell to a jury, we don’t want to teach members of the community that they’ll be punished for bringing crimes to light.” Victor suppressed the urge to laugh at the man’s righteous stance; but it was accurate. It would be hard for them to find narks if the justice system in Philadelphia went around prosecuting them.
“What do you need from us?” Victor had already begun to feel bored with the meeting itself, since it was clear that the district attorney was weighing his options.
“I’d like to listen to the recording you made and see how well I think it would stand up,” the prosecutor said. “Once that’s done...of course, your brother is working with an organized crime ‘family.’”
“Right,” Danielle said, nodding.
“We’ll have to see if we can use him for anything,” the district attorney said, matter-of-factly. “But there’s a strong possibility of at least some charges. We’ll see.”
“You’ll keep me updated on what you decide to do?” The district attorney held Danielle’s gaze.
“Do you think your brother presents a danger to you, potentially?” Danielle smiled wryly.
“I would like to tell you that I trust my brother with my life,” Danielle replied. “But I have pretty compelling evidence at this point that he is not all that invested in my safety.”
“This must be hard for you,” the prosecutor observed.
“It is,” Danielle said.
“She and I have discussed this a great deal,” Victor added.
“If you want us to keep someone around your residence—undercover, of course, just someone to be available more quickly than standard police response—we could do that for you,” the DA said.
“Mostly I just want to know what’s going to happen—have at least a little advance warning,” Danielle said.
“I think that’s fair,” the DA said. He looked at the file he’d set up in front of him for a moment. “If we decide to move forward with charges—and if we decide to grab your brother—then we’ll let you know.”
“Thank you,” Victor said. “We appreciate it.”
They stayed for a few minutes more, making small talk, and Victor thought—hoped—that Danielle had some sense of closure about the situation by the time the prosecutor told them that he needed to speak with someone else about an ongoing criminal investigation. Danielle stood first, and Victor once more followed her, this time out of the office, taking her hand in his as soon as they’d cleared the door.
“How do you feel?” Danielle shrugged as they walked through the building, towards the entrance, where Alan would be waiting with the car.
“I feel like I’ve handed my brother over to the cops,” Danielle said with a wry smile.
“Do you feel like you betrayed him?” Danielle considered that for a moment.
“I feel like if I did betray him, he betrayed me first,” she said. “I don’t owe him nothing.” Victor gave her hand a quick squeeze.
“As long as you’re okay with it, I’m backing you,” he told her. “Do you want to get dinner before we head back to the apartment?” Danielle grinned.
“You’ve been telling me about Butcher and Singer for a while now—why don’t you see if they’ll save us a table?” Victor grinned.
“Happy to,” he said. “And as soon as we get in the door I’m ordering you whatever cocktail you want.”
“You just want me to get tipsy so I’ll have sex with you in the car on the way home,” Danielle teased him. Victor chuckled and shook his head.
“No—that we save for a nigh
t when it isn’t Alan driving us,” he said. They’d begun talking about fantasies they had, and he was more than a little interested in indulging some of Danielle’s ideas—and some of his, considering how excited she’d been at hearing them.
Now that they were openly dating, there was no reason to be shy about anything, although Victor knew some of the ideas they’d talked about together would need a little forethought to pull off without public indecency charges.
“Whoever we get as an Uber driver is going to be pissed,” Danielle suggested. Victor snickered.
“I’ll make sure to give him a fifty-dollar tip in advance,” he told her.
“Make it a hundred. And a prepaid card to a detailing service.” Victor laughed out loud as they left the building together, hand-in-hand, and thought that if nothing else, going to the DA had put the question out of their keeping. Whatever happened next was a question for the law to answer; they would just keep on doing what they were doing.
*
“Of all the places to meet up he had to pick one of the most stereotypical ones in the city,” Danielle muttered to herself. She was standing near the Liberty Bell, somewhere she hadn’t gone since she’d been in high school; but it was where Sam had wanted to meet her. I’m probably at least a little bit crazy to meet with him like this.
The district attorney had told her a few weeks before that he had decided to move forward with Sam’s case. The recording had compelling evidence, and he thought that with a warrant and some luck, that they could have a cast-iron case on Sam’s involvement in a money laundering scheme, which would mean a good bit of jail time. Of course, Sam would know without a doubt that it was Danielle who had turned him in, who had given the DA the evidence, and the prosecutor had told her that she would do good to avoid her brother—not meet with him in private, anything like that. Danielle hadn’t really needed the warning.
But within a few weeks, the situation had changed. She’d been informed by the DA—quietly, privately—that they were going to use Sam to take down as much of the Bey family organization as possible. It wouldn’t be possible to take everyone out; the DA knew that. But with Sam’s knowledge of the organization’s doings, it would at least put a dent in their activity for a year or more.
Victor was waiting a little bit away; he’d agreed to come with her, to stand by in case something got dicey. Danielle had been fairly confident that things would go okay with Sam, or she wouldn’t have agreed to meet with him; but she was glad that he was there. She felt nervous in spite of generally thinking that Sam wouldn’t have begged her to meet with him—under the circumstances—with bad thoughts in his mind about what he was going to do. He didn’t have bad intentions; at least she didn’t think he did. He was cooperating with the DA, wasn’t he?
“Sis.” Danielle shook herself out of her thoughts as she heard her brother’s voice and turned her head to see him a few yards away from her.
“Hey, Sam,” Danielle said. She glanced around and caught sight of Victor, which comforted her; she would introduce her brother to the man she loved when they got past the first awkwardness of her finding out what he wanted to tell her. “This is a hell of a place to have a meeting.” Sam smiled wryly, looking for all the world—in that moment—like their father.
“I have to be careful where I go, these days,” he said quietly, moving closer to her. A group of tourists were clustered around the Liberty Bell itself, listening to a guide talking about it. After a half-dozen trips to look at historic Philadelphia landmarks in school, Danielle had the whole story more or less memorized.
“What’s going on? Why do you want to talk to me now?” Danielle crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to react to the sensitivity in her breasts, the soreness that came along with the pressure of her arms.
“There are some things you’re going to need to know,” Sam said. “First of all, I don’t blame you for turning me in. I wanted to make that clear.” Danielle raised an eyebrow, not quite believing him.
“You thought I’d betrayed you just for recording the conversation,” she pointed out skeptically.
“I’ve had some time to think about it,” Sam said, his voice dry. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position to begin with. I could have really fucked up your life if things had been even a little bit different.”
“I’m glad you’re willing to acknowledge that,” Danielle said, her voice a little stiff. Things felt so strange between them, and Danielle couldn’t help feeling sad at the suspicion that they always would. It didn’t seem fair; she had already made terms with the fact that her brother was likely to be out of her life from the moment she’d turned him in to the DA. She didn’t need the grief renewed.
“I nearly fucked your life up,” Sam said. “Least I can do is be honest about it. I guess really it was just that I felt jealous—there you were making more money than me, and legit. So, I wanted to get back at you. It was wrong, but I can’t deny I did it.” Danielle stared at her brother, stunned by the baldness of his confession. He was that willing to admit it, to apologize—even obliquely—for what he’d done?
“So, what brought you around?” Sam’s smile looked wry again.
“Well getting arrested opens up some opportunities for thinking,” he said. “And then too, being in protective custody as a key witness…” He licked his lips. “I can’t stay here very long, but there are some things I need to talk to you about.”
“Apart from apologizing to me, what do you have to say?” Danielle frowned in confusion and concern.
“Part of my deal with this is that the DA is moving me out of Philly,” Sam said quietly. “Getting me out of town to kind of...start over, I guess. Obviously, he can’t get all the people working under Lucius Bey, but the fact that I’m cooperating means that I can’t be in the city anymore. I’m a walking target.”
“So why are you meeting me here right now?” Danielle stared at her brother in shock.
“No one’s going to risk getting caught shooting me somewhere so public,” he said, shrugging. “Too many tourists, too many witnesses they can’t intimidate—and the cops would be here too fast. Not a good risk.” He sighed.
“You’re ...I guess, going into witness protection, or something like it?” Sam shrugged.
“They’re giving me somewhere else to be, and I have the option to tell one or two people where it will be—but I have to limit it, because otherwise…”
“Loose lips sink ships,” Danielle finished for him. Sam nodded.
“ I want you to know. But you’re going to have to act like I’ve just dropped off the face of the planet, get it?” Danielle nodded her agreement.
“And this is when you finally figure out you were wrong,” she said tartly. “I appreciate the apology, but it kind of sucks in terms of timing.”
“Better before I fall off the radar than after,” Sam pointed out, and Danielle had to agree with that point.
“Well, since we’re coming clean and settling everything, I might as well introduce you to Victor,” Danielle said to her brother. She looked around and spotted her boyfriend and gestured for him to approach. “He came with me, but he hung back so we could talk alone.” Victor strode up to the two of them, and Sam looked briefly distrusting—but extended his hand to the billionaire.
“I hope you’re taking good care of my sister,” he said, taking the usual older-brother line. Victor smiled and nodded.
“I hope you’re not threatening her or anything,” Victor said. Sam grimaced.
“That’s fair,” he said. “I sent her some shitty voicemails before things all went down.”
“You did,” Danielle agreed. “But I get where it was coming from.”
“It was fear,” Sam admitted. “But I don’t really have much to be afraid of at this point.” Danielle quickly filled Victor in on the basics of what her brother had just told her.
“There’s something now that I have to tell you,” she said, turning her attention back onto her brother.
“What’s that? You and Mr. Moneybags here gonna get married?” Sam raised an eyebrow.
“Close,” Danielle replied. “I’m pregnant. It’s his.” Sam’s eyes widened and he stared at her.
“Promise me that when the baby is born, you’ll come out to see me,” he said. “I can’t come in here to visit, but I want to see you. I want to make sure you’re okay—and I definitely want to meet my nephew or niece.” Danielle smiled.
“I promise that as soon as I can bring the kid to you, I will,” she said. From there the meeting seemed to pass by all too quickly, with both of them trying to fit in as much love and information about themselves to the other as possible before Sam had to meet up with his protective officers.
He could be out of their custody for only so long without running into the risk of being taken out by one of the Bey family operatives; even more reason for him to leave the city, to possibly even leave the state eventually, where the family didn’t have tendrils and connections to take him out.
What Sam was doing would probably be the ultimate in betrayal, but he said to Danielle dryly that the family hadn’t been paying him well enough to not cooperate with the DA when the charges for money laundering might land him in prison for over a decade, considering his criminal history. Better by far to go along with the plea deal, take the probation and let himself be relocated out of harm’s way.
As Danielle walked away from her brother, going the other direction from one of the most recognizable places in Philadelphia, she gripped Victor’s hand tighter. She knew that it was right for her to have turned her brother in, and she didn’t feel guilty about it. precisely, but there was something sad to her about the fact that he had finally sought her forgiveness before taking the step that would cut her out of his life almost completely.
She would know where he was living once he moved there, but she wouldn’t be able to share that information with anyone else—not even anyone in their actual family. But, Danielle reminded herself, she had already made her choice more than a month before. She e had chosen Victor, who had proven he was interested in her safety and freedom, over the brother that had thrown her into harm’s way. It would take a long time for her to have any trust in Sam again, but she was glad that there was the possibility of it.