by Rosemary Rey
“I definitely think you should. You see . . .” He looked up and over to the wall and continued, “Your boyfriend, Matt, is Dr. Mathias Keene, right?”
“Yes. He’s an orthopedic surgeon.”
“He is, but he’s also affiliated with Pentagon.” I shook my head. And thought about what he was saying.
“What do you mean?”
“Dr. Keene is part owner of Pentagon Group, along with four other people. Each of them own twenty percent of Pentagon.”
I shrugged knowing he was talking about Lark, Zipper, Kent and Brady. “Okay? I don’t think it’s any of my business what his affiliation is with Pentagon.”
“Pentagon owns a bunch of smaller corporations and businesses. It’s a multi-billion dollar company making decisions in Boston and many cities around the country and they’re also working on places in Europe.”
I wanted him to get to the point, but I didn’t want to be rude. He obviously felt I needed to know. “Eric, Matt and I are in a committed relationship, but I’m not interested in his business ventures. Thank you for the information . . .” He interrupted me.
“Did you work for the Liberty Inn?”
“Yes.”
“And did you work for Parisi Company?”
“I did. What’s going on?” I was starting to worry.
“I have information that I compiled, which I want you to read. It’s a lot of documents, emails and texts that I retrieved when I was working on a system failure. I didn’t want to print anything out. I saved everything on this flash drive.” He handed me the drive.
“Why are you giving me this? I don’t understand.” I pleaded. My heart skipped a beat in slight terror.
“I think you should know who your boyfriend really is and the power he’s been holding over you. Listen, I’m giving you more information than I should. I just want you to be aware of what’s on the drive, and make a decision for yourself. I’ve gotta go. Here’s my card. Call me if you need me.” He slid a card on the table, opened the door and exited the office. I took the drive and inserted it into the USB port.
I opened the first of many files, pictures, and read through several text conversations between Matt and Brady, Matt and Zipper, Matt and Kent, or Matt and Lark. Mostly it was between Matt, Brady and Zipper. The conversations were about Liberty Inn and their need to purchase to proceed with the ‘Second Big Dig’.
Reading through the rest of the text and documents, I learned that Pentagon purchased Parisi, which was Brady’s acquisition. There was a text stream between one of Matt’s buddies and my ex-sister-in-law, Aida. It was an explicit and intimate history of their personal relationship; a relationship that I wasn’t completely aware of.
When I finished reading and analyzing the files on the flash drive, I spent two hours over my shift following up with online research about Pentagon and the men behind the conglomerate. I cursed myself for not researching Matt, which would’ve led me to his association with Pentagon. A simple online search connected all the dots. I found interviews, hard stories, soft stories, about each member of Pentagon and their life-long friendship and business dealings. After exhausting my own research, the big picture of our relationship was revealed to me, and it turned out that our love affair was all a lie, a well manipulated lie, for which the root was money. Money destroyed my past and threatened my future with Matt. I needed to get to him. He needed to finally tell me the truth.
***
With the key he gave me, I unlocked the door to Matt’s apartment and entered, scanning the open space for his presence. I heard bare feet walking on the hardwood floors from my left. He’d been in his office. He looked at me surprised, “Hey. I thought you were going home. What are you doing here? Are you okay?” Surprise in his voice.
“Tell me about Pentagon.” He didn’t flinch. There was no expression in his face. He took a moment to respond.
“What?”
“Tell me about Pentagon.” I asked evenly.
“What’s this about?” He opened his arms by his sides, showing me the palms in his hands.
“Matt. I’m going to ask you one last time. Please, tell me about Pentagon and your connection to that group.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to say.”
“I expect you to tell me the truth; the fact that you’re a majority shareholder, along with your buddies, Brady, Zipper, Lark, and Kent.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” He kept his voice even, and his eyes trained on me.
“So you’re not going to tell me? I’m giving you an opportunity to tell me everything about Pentagon. Do you want me tell the story?”
He folded his arms in front of his massive chest. His mouth and neck tensed waiting for my response. I was surprised that he was so defiant about telling me the truth. I took a deep breath. “It has come to my attention that Pentagon is a company that may have indirectly and directly affected the course of my life. Do you need me to explain further or can you agree that so far I’m right?” He looked down and took a few steps forward, but stopped when I retreated backwards. I clenched my fists to the side of my body bracing myself for the words that I was going to sling at him.
“Let me start from the very beginning of this depressing and deceptive tale.” I folded my arms around my body, holding me up for the battle I’m willing to wage against him.
“Pentagon is a company that was created by five best friends who went to boarding school together. These friends started a very small investment group while in boarding school. Impressive, five young men could begin such a venture while they’re in high school—a very prestigious high school, so you expect nothing less from gifted, privileged and entitled young men.” He didn’t even baulk.
“Over the years this small venture grew bigger and bigger, even when these five friends went their separate ways throughout the country, attending medical school, business school and law school. Despite frequent overseas travels and forming families, they maintained an impenetrable relationship where they planned to own the world. They continued to invest and proceeded with corporate takeovers, along with little side operations like restaurants, entertainment clubs, and hotels throughout Boston, New York and Las Vegas; hoping to expand to Miami too. Remarkable, but I suspect that throughout the years, it wasn’t easy to just expand to become the conglomerate that Pentagon has become without using people.” He winced. Finally, I broke through the shield he hid behind.
“Perla . . .” He proceeded to walk toward me. I put my hands up to stop him from coming close and shutting down my revelations. He put his hands on his hips, no doubt trying to restrain himself from touching me.
“And now for how I think Pentagon indirectly impacted me.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Over two years ago, when I was Director of Finance at Parisi, I noticed discrepancies in accounting at my husband’s, now ex-husband’s thanks to Pentagon, construction company. I wrote memos to the heads of the companies, whom were my sister-in-law Aida and my ex-husband Ben. Ben was surprised about the discrepancies. He was shocked and over the months after my revelation, he agonized over my discovery. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop talking about it, wanting to figure out what went wrong. I suggested he hire an accounting firm to do an internal audit, but he declined because there was no reserved money to do so.” I sighed, and inhaled fresh air, hoping it’ll give me some energy to continue.
“There were lots of discussions in my home about how we should proceed next. There were lots of sleepless nights. We didn’t talk about anything but the business. Sunday dinners at the Parisi household were excruciating. There were accusations thrown between brother and sister. My father-in-law who created the business had to referee between the two children he adored. My marriage, which I once thought was fine, wasn’t anymore. My husband withdrew from me. First it was his affections, which weren’t much before, so the loss of touch and talking was painfully missed. He moved out of our bedroom, and barely looked at me.” I paus
ed, reliving the events.
“Ben blamed me for upsetting the blissful ignorance that the company was drowning under debt and eventually wouldn’t be able to pay their employees, retirement funds or taxes. They’d planned to do an IPO to open the corporation, but all these revelations that I discovered and warned them about stopped that from happening. Do you want to know what happened next, Matt?” He shook his head ‘no’, but I ignored him.
“Living with Ben became unbearable. He accused me of stealing from the company, charging that I had too much access to the accounting of the business.” I turned away from him, trying not to shed the tears that were now starting to form. I swallowed down the bitter saliva that collected at the back of my throat. I decided to turn back around to face him so I could gauge his expression.
“He and his sister created evidence against me to show that I had been syphoning money from the company into a bank account. They had all sorts of ‘proof’ that I’d been embezzling money for a year. They showed me evidence of a bank account with exactly $102,687.83. Funny, how I can distinctly remember the amount. For over a year, I had nightmares over that number.” His eyes widened. I was starting to believe that he didn’t know that information.
“I denied everything. Everything. I looked Mr. Parisi in the eyes and begged him to believe me that I would never steal a nickel. Do you know that the only thing I’ve stolen in my entire life, Matt, was a box of chalk when I was four? My mother gave me such a spanking that I’d never thought to take anything else, ever. Ever.” I spat. I composed myself before continuing on with my tale.
“Ben agreed to ‘overlook’ my ‘stealing’ that ludicrous amount, if I resigned from the company, sign away my small shares of stock, my retirement savings, and give him an uncontested divorce. I was not to get a dime from him; no house, no money, no jewelry. I even had to give back my engagement ring and wedding ring. I gave that back gladly because it was Mr. Parisi’s mother’s set. I would never keep a family heirloom because I’m not a vindictive bitch or a thief.” A tear streamed down my cheek.
“The ultimate blow was when Ben, upon Aida’s strong urging, required me to sign an agreement that I would pay back this phantom money. I had no money. There was no account in my possession. I couldn’t pay it back. But it was either pay back the money or they would call the police and I had no evidence to prove otherwise. Which option do you think I chose, Matt?”
“What?” He appeared horrified by this revelation.
“It wasn’t clear?” I shouted, “They made me sign an agreement that I’m to pay back over one hundred thousand dollars. It takes an upper middle income person almost thirty years to pay back one hundred thousand dollars in a low interest loan. All those jobs that you thought were ‘too much’ for me to work are a necessity. I have to work for the rest of my life, for at least thirty years of my life, to pay back money that I’ve never touched. I’m a slave to my ex-husband.” I swallowed and felt my hands shake even with them being tucked under my arms.
“And here is where Pentagon plays into this fucked up story. I didn’t know back then, before my discovery and their accusations against me, that Aida was dating. You see, she was dating a very charismatic business man that she refused to introduce to the family. She claimed she wasn’t sure if he was the one, but that she was happy. We all saw a major change in her. For all the years I’ve known her she wasn’t very attractive. She was heavyset, bookish and very much a tom boy, but because of this man, she changed. She became a fitness nut, cutting out of work to exercise at the gym. She’d changed her diet. She’d lost weight and became prettier. She’d changed the way she dressed and became more feminine. One day she’d dyed her mousy brown hair to blonde. She wore makeup. I’d never had a really strong relationship with her, but as those changes took effect, she distanced herself from me. And she became colder. I couldn’t put my finger on it then and I’m not one hundred percent sure still today, but I suspected she was jealous, until today. Today, I realized that Aida distanced herself from me because she’d planned on making me the fall guy for the company’s disintegration.” I coughed the lump from my throat, summoning up some lubrication to continue my verbal assault.
“Your sister told me at dinner that Parisi had been sold. Today, I found out that Parisi was sold to Penta. I wouldn’t have connected the dots between your Pentagon Group and the Penta Company that bought Parisi Construction Corp. I’d forgotten Corporations 101, large companies will have ownership of these smaller subsidiary companies. Smaller is a loose term because they can still be pretty big, and Penta Co. is certainly big, isn’t it Matt?” I didn’t wait for a response.
“Who knew that the boys brought together by a prestigious boarding school whom eventually created Pentagon Group would go on to own so many diverse, ‘small’ companies, such as Penta Co, Penco, Gro Pen Co., PGC, and all the other ones that I don’t need to identify to you because you know them all, don’t you?” I stared at him. He knew I didn’t need confirmation. I went on to talk about the direct way Pentagon destroyed me.
“I was further shocked to learn that Aida’s boyfriend, the wealthy businessman that I didn’t get to meet was in fact one of your five friends. Did you know that he dated my sister in law?” He nodded. “Now that I’ve met your friend, I wonder, ‘What the fuck did he see in Aida?’ Aida would never, even with all those changes, be in the league of Brigit. I suspect that Brady is now dating Brigit because he no longer needed Aida, or was he seeing both of them simultaneously? I guess it doesn’t matter because once he got what he wanted, stock options or insider information, to take over Parisi, Aida was expendable. Did you know that Aida killed herself?” His eyes widened. He didn’t know.
“She killed herself many months ago after the takeover. She jumped off a bridge in New Hampshire. A note in her car confirmed her suicide. She apologized for everything she’d ever done wrong, but she never specifically said for what or outline who specifically should receive that apology. I suspect that she did it because Brady dumped her once he got his creepy, greedy hands on Parisi. So while Pentagon indirectly fucked me over by using Aida, I’m still alive. I’m still mentally and physically strong and will live on, but Aida wasn’t strong enough. She couldn’t deal with the reality of being fucked around with for the acquisition of her family’s business.”
“And now, I come to how I was fucked around with for the acquisition of a business. Should I continue?” He walked away and sat at the counter. For a moment I flashed back to our first sexual encounter on that counter. How he made me come after so much time being alone. I steeled myself to continue the tale that he refused to confirm.
“Little did I know that when I walked into your medical office, I would be trapped in the web that Pentagon weaves to consume women and spit them out when they have no further use for them. I’m sure you must’ve thought how fortuitous it was that I, little old Perla Mercurio, walked into your office. Pentagon had already decided that they needed to acquire Liberty Inn for a major project in that location, a project involving multi-million dollars. And that damn Liberty Inn was the last hold-out, refusing to sell their precious family business. What did you do when I walked out of your office? Did you call Brady and tell him that you were going to be the one to seduce me into helping Pentagon procure the Inn? I bet he was relieved that he didn’t have to seduce another short, fat, brunette.”
“Don’t say that about yourself.” He demanded.
“Spare me the fucking admonishment, Matt.” He brought his hands to his eyes and rubbed his face. I could hear the bristles of his beard rustle under his palms.
“Was there a list of employees to target, so Pentagon could acquire Liberty? Was I at the top of that list? I just dropped on your lap, huh?” He remained silent, letting me tear into him.
“When Alice mentioned months ago that she was approached by a major hotelier company to buy the Inn, I was surprised because of how small Liberty was. How could I know that PGC, the big hotel corporation and Pentagon’s
most successful business was interested in Liberty? However, PGC never intended to keep the Inn as a hotel. No, the Inn was to become part of a large convention, hotel, and apartment living space project on the waterfront.” I shook my head, angry at myself for falling so hard so fast without seeing the big picture.
“What an amazing plan right on the Harbor. Pentagon has an incredible business acumen to tap into that region, so centrally located to all the major sights and scenes in Boston. Hats off to all of you for finally acquiring that one property that held up a project that rivals ‘The Big Dig’. You only had to fuck one vulnerable, simple woman who means nothing in the grand scheme of things.”
He rushed over to me and grabbed me, lifting me to his body, “You’re wrong, that was never the case. Not with you. You mean everything to me. Please let me explain.” I put my arms on his chest, pushing against his grip around my body. My body betrayed me, wanting to stay in his arms, but my head had other plans.
“Let me go, Matt.” I struggled out of his hold. He set me down gently. “Do you know what I overheard Brigit say in the bathroom at the dinner? ‘He’s just using her.’ Her statement has been burned in my memory and has unsettled me for these several weeks. I suppressed all the cruel things she said. I’d look for signs that she was wrong, drunk, and even jealous. She was right, though. I was a fool. A stupid, hopeful, needy fool who thought someone could love me for me. You were a great actor.” I cried. He put his hands through his hair, and looked at me with sad eyes.
“How did you get access to Liberty’s business information?” I demanded.
He turned around and didn’t answer. “Fine. I think I know the answer to that. The Inn never had a break in, and information acquired had to be done from the inside without any suspicion. You took my master key to the Inn, didn’t you? But no renowned, self-respecting doctor would ever do the dirty work of entering an Inn and take information for the benefit of his corporation, would he? You had help breaking in. The only thing I can’t pinpoint was when.” I looked at him, giving pause for him to answer the question. He remained silent.