House of Cards (Tech Billionaires)

by Ainsley St Claire

  I can’t help but smile. “Did your team recognize anyone?”

  “No. But we have a contact at the FBI in organized crime. We sent them the photos and should hear back shortly. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “I’m so glad they haven’t figured out where Maggie is,” I say. “As you know, we have a poker tournament starting today with our tech billionaires. Maggie will join Cecelia and two other friends for a spa day.”

  “Maggie, did you enjoy your evening with the Lancasters?” Jim asks.

  “I did. I can’t thank you enough for setting that up.”

  “Cecelia went through a tough time when things went south with her daughter,” Jim says. “The FBI was lost, so the Lancasters brought me in, along with two other guys Nate had worked with during his stint in the Marine Corps. We couldn’t determine how to manage Cecelia’s risk in public, so she was stuck at home. Granted, she wasn’t hiding, but we’ve used some of what we learned there to make sure your stay feels less like you’re a captive.”

  “I appreciate that,” Maggie tells him. “But I don’t want to put myself at risk just to get a massage or breathe of fresh air.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way, and I appreciate you being cautious,” Jim says. “We’ll find a light at the end of this tunnel. We just don’t know how long the tunnel is yet.”

  “Thank you for the update,” she tells him. “I’m glad you have Stevie and Christopher.”

  “Of course. I’ll stop by sometime this weekend since I’m coming in this afternoon for the poker tournament.”

  “You know where to find me,” she says.

  “And I will,” he assures her.

  Once I end the call, I lean over to kiss her forehead. “What’s your plan today?”

  She stands and picks up our dirty dishes, “I’m going to work out in your gym, and then I’ll finish my book. I meet the girls after lunch. Next time you see me, I’ll have pretty fingers and toes and be as relaxed as jelly.”

  I lean in close and murmur, “You taste as sweet as jelly.”

  She looks down and blushes.

  I hate to leave her, but it’s possible the Kryetar are in Las Vegas and watching, so nothing should be out of the ordinary. I feel confident that they can’t detect us moving around the hallways, so Maggie will be able to enjoy her afternoon.

  I gather my things to leave and give Maggie one last squeeze goodbye. I won’t be back until the game closes tonight, and I let her know I expect to be very late.

  I pick up Caden out in the hallway and snap into business mode.

  When we reach Gillian’s office, she informs me that everyone has arrived for the tournament and checked into their suites, which give them a view of the fountain and the light show that displays every half hour. It’s quite spectacular.

  “Do they know where we’re playing today?” I ask. “The room is different this time—it’s waterfront.”

  “Of course,” she says, “as do their escorts. Each one is being met at their room at a quarter to three and brought in through catering. This addresses our issue from last time when several players were recognized and it created problems.”

  She hands me a timetable. “This is probably the sixth iteration of the plan, so it should be accurate. We’re scheduled until midnight, and we can go into expansion for up to four hours. We have a dozen gamblers, two tables going for dealers, food arriving, a cocktail waitress for each table, and a bartender in the room.”

  I peruse the schedule. “This looks amazing. Let’s hope everything goes to plan.” It’s amazing how much work it takes to make something appear so effortless.

  “Don’t put any bad karma out there,” she warns.

  Travis gets into my line of sight and motions for me.

  “Excuse me,” I say to Gillian. “I’ll be back before the game starts.”

  She nods, and I walk over to Travis. “What’s up?”

  “Do you think you can step out about five?”

  “Probably,” I tell him. “What did you find?”

  “We need to meet with Queen Diva.”

  “Is she requesting the meeting, or are we?”

  “We are.” Travis turns his tablet toward me. “Check this out.”

  It’s a split-screen video. On the left side is the hall that runs outside Queen’s dressing room, on the right is a dark room. Both timestamps are running identically. Suddenly a small light appears in the room.

  “Where did that come from?” I ask.

  “Just wait,” Travis warns.

  The light flips on, and it’s Queen Diva’s assistant. She’s opening drawers and searching for something.

  “What’s she looking for?”

  “Just wait,” Travis warns me again.

  We watch her pull a bustier out of the drawer, shimmy out of her clothes and lay provocatively on the couch. On the left screen, we see Frankie wander down the hall and enter the room. They fall into a romantic embrace.

  My heart stops. This is going to create more drama than I care to admit. “Fuuuuuck,” I mutter. “It’s exactly as we thought, except how the hell did she get in the room without walking down the hallway?”

  Travis points to a large vent in the wall. Its cover is askew.

  “Did this happen today?” I begin thinking about how to manage Queen’s fans tonight when she cancels her show. I may very well be bailing her out of jail after she beats Frankie to a pulp.

  “This afternoon. Once we saw him go in, we checked the feed in her dressing room.”

  I watch the video of the assistant coming in a few times. “I’m not sure I want to be there when you tell her.”

  “I’m not going to tell her her husband is having an affair,” Travis says, his eyes wide. “You own the joint. As far as I’m concerned, this is your job. She’s been riding my ass about this.”

  “Shit! This is not a conversation I’m looking forward to. She’s expecting us at five?”

  “Actually, five fifteen. I thought we’d check out the vent first.”

  I think for a moment. “Do we need to show her the video past who broke into the room and how?”

  He stares at me a moment and shrugs. “I guess not…”

  “We’re reporting on the theft, and she pulled the lingerie out of her drawer,” I say, thinking aloud. “We can stop after she puts it on? I mean, we see her ass, but it makes our case. We can stop it there.”

  “What will you do if Queen Diva wants to see what happens next?” Travis asks.

  I look back at the paused video of Frankie feasting on Queen’s assistant. This could get really ugly. “I guess I’ll show it to her.”

  “Do you think she’ll cancel tonight’s show?”

  I nod. “This will be a big blow. This is not the time of year I need this to happen.”

  “Is there ever a good time?” Travis wonders.

  I shake my head. “No, you’re right.” I take a deep breath. “Please come get me at five. See if you can find the dresses on any online auction sites or fan sites.”

  “We’re on it.”

  This is all sorts of fucked up. Maybe I should throw my hat in the ring at the poker tournament and lose the Shangri-la to someone who wants to deal with this shit. I glance at my watch, and it’s almost go time. The players should be beginning to assemble.

  I spot Walker Clifton on my way back to the private room we’ve set up for the game. “Hello, Walker. So glad you could make it.”

  “Thanks for including me. I’m hoping tonight is my lucky night.”

  “I hope that for you, too.”

  I turn and Jackson Graham walks in. He nods his greeting to me.

  “Welcome.”

  “Hey, Jonathan. I brought my girlfriend. Is it okay if she sticks around and watches?”

  Nate walks up just in time to hear Jack’s question. “She can stay,” he says. “We’ll try not to embarrass you too badly.”

  “She’s my lucky charm.”

  “You’ll need more than luck. I hope you
enjoyed the Cristal I sent over,” Nate needles.

  “We both did, as I licked it off her nipples.”

  The conversation is going downhill fast. I see Mia Couture arriving, so it’s a good excuse to leave them to their ribbing.

  “Welcome, Mia.”

  She lights up and gives me a hug. “Great to see you.”

  She immediately settles in and watches the room and the players as they arrive. I’m sure the reason she does well is not just because she manages the odds, but because she can assess people and their tells.

  “You look ready to play,” I note.

  “I flew in from Aspen,” she says, looking in Nate’s direction. “The snow was incredible.”

  Nate heard her jab. She won the chalet from him. “I got in some major trouble on that one.”

  “You tell Cecilia she’s welcome anytime.” Mia points at him. “You, on the other hand, are not.”

  Mason Sullivan slaps him on the back and warns, “Don’t go there.”

  A moment later, Gillian appears with a velvet bag. “It looks like everyone has arrived,” she announces. “The buy-in this afternoon is five million. We’ll play down to five players and then pick up again tomorrow. You can increase your spend if others at the table agree, but only after nine this evening.”

  “Mia, I plan on winning my Aspen chalet back,” Nate warns.

  Snickers filter through the room. “Good luck,” she says. “I’ve become rather fond of it, so I don’t think I’ll be betting that this weekend.”

  The laughter grows louder.

  “Mr. Best, can you please help me pull names from the bag for our seating arrangements?” Gillian asks.

  “Of course.” I make my way to the front of the room.

  Gillian holds the bag up, and I pull each name out one at a time. Everyone takes their designated seat.

  “As Jack London said, ‘Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well’,” I tell them. “Good luck, ladies and gentlemen.”

  The games begin, and the players seem more cautious as they start this time. I watch for a while, but nothing earth-shattering has happened before Travis pokes his head in to grab me for our meeting.

  My stomach tightens as we walk down the hall, past the main auditorium dressing rooms, and towards Queen Diva’s dressing room. When we arrive, we inspect the vent, and its cover pops off with a solid tug.

  “We would have seen her come in next door, so the question is, how many rooms is she sneaking through?”

  “You know, Maggie asked me if we had checked the vents. I thought she was crazy. Now I know better.”

  Travis pushes through to the next room, and I can hear him push through and check several more.

  Queen Diva arrives and smiles. “What brings you down here?”

  “We’ve made some progress,” I tell her. “Someone was in your dressing room this afternoon.”

  “Did you catch them?”

  Travis walks in, holds up six fingers, and hands me the tablet.

  “Let’s watch this,” I suggest.

  I push play, and Queen peers over my shoulder to watch the split-screen video.

  When the light comes into the room, she asks, “Where is that light coming from?”

  I pause the video. “I believe it’s a flashlight, and she’s entering through the vent. We think she came through six rooms, Travis?”

  He nods. “Yes. The perp enters at the end of the hall in your business office and works her way through the vents of six rooms.” I walk over and remove the vent cover, and Travis squeezes out of the room.

  “Who is it?” Queen demands.

  I push play again and know the moment Queen Diva recognizes her assistant, Renee.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” She stands with her hands on her hips and her eyes locked on the screen. Once we watch her assistant wiggle into the bustier, I stop the show.

  “Do you want this splashed all over the news? That’s what will happen if you press charges,” I warn.

  She squints at me and breathes in short, staccato bursts through her nose. “Who does she meet in my dressing room?”

  “I’m sorry?” I try to play dumb and pray she doesn’t want the video to continue.

  “If she was only stealing the bustier, she’d grab it and tuck it away, but she was putting it on. Who is she meeting?”

  I take a deep breath. “You’re not going to like the answer to that question.”

  “Play it,” Queen Diva demands through clenched teeth.

  I push play. She watches it and remains surprisingly calm.

  When it’s over, I ask, “What do you want to do?”

  “I have a show tonight,” she says. “Please contact Detective Kincaid and ask him to make the arrest after the show. Please also warn him he’ll most likely be arresting my husband as well.”

  “We didn’t see him take anything.”

  “I guarantee she’ll implicate him. I’ll let the lawyers figure it out, because I have a show to put on. If you can ask him to be discreet, I’d appreciate it, but I’ve got to get ready for tonight’s performance. These ticket holders paid good money.”

  Her professionalism has blown me away. Of all the times for it to kick in… I nod, knowing she must be dying inside. “We’ll make the calls and be ready at the end of the show.”

  “Thank you.” We walk out, and she yells after us, “And thank you for figuring this out for me.”

  “Of course.” I turn back to give her a smile.

  I walk Travis back to the NOC. Neither of us says anything until we’re firmly behind the security of the room.

  “She took that better than I thought she would,” I finally say.

  Travis speaks to Luke at the corner monitor. “Let’s put Queen Diva’s dressing room feed up for the night. I want to know if all hell breaks loose.”

  “Yes, sir,” Luke says.

  “I’ll call Detective Kincaid,” Travis tells me. “I assume you want to be there when this goes down?”

  “Yep, this is a train wreck. It’s too bad he’s doing this to her.”

  Travis nods, and I let him know I’m headed back to check on the tournament.

  When I return to the game, the first player is out.

  “Dillon, what happened?” I ask.

  Dillon Healy is a business partner with Mason Sullivan and Christopher, Maggie’s brother.

  He shakes his head. “I had a full house of aces high but ignored all the royalty on the board. Viviana had a royal flush.”

  “No! Oh man, that’s pretty rough.”

  “Tell me about it.” He plops into a chair and downs his drink.

  Chapter 27

  Maggie

  “You have a lot of knots in your back,” Olga the masseuse says in a deep German accent.

  “Ugh,” I groan in response.

  “You need to drink more water,” she informs me as I swear she’s working on my back with an ice pick.

  When the ninety-minute torture—I mean massage—is over, I thank her kindly as she hands me a glass of water with cucumber.

  “You have too much stress. It must go away. Drink all this water and two more. No alcohol.”

  Her tone makes me want to click my heels together and salute her, but I refrain. I actually can’t. My muscles have revolted, and I’m bent like an old woman. I worry if I stand straight, every muscle will rip and I’ll be permanently crippled.

  In addition to the massage, my toes are deep red, and my nails are subtle pink. I feel pretty.

  I make my way back to the main room, and Cecelia hands me a large glass of white wine. “What did you think?” she asks.

  I cautiously glance over my shoulder. Olga is gone, thank goodness. “It was fabulous,” I say as I take a big sip of the crisp wine. “It was wonderful. And I know I monopolized most of the conversation this afternoon, but I couldn’t help it. I’ve only spoken with Jonathan and my brothers for the last week, and I’m a bit lonely.�
�

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” Emerson and Caroline assure me.

  “I’ve been there,” Cecelia sympathizes. “There are days where it’s lonely and others that you don’t want to spend time with anyone.”

  I’m grateful she understands. Jim was really smart to put us together.

  I lean back carefully into the couch and something on the television catches my attention. It’s on mute, but I recognize Patrick Moreau, my mother’s sleazy lawyer, behind a podium in the Reinhardt Corporation press room. I reach for the remote and turn the volume up. Everyone turns to listen.

  “…Reinhardt was last seen in San Francisco,” Moreau says. “She was staying with her brother, Christopher Reinhardt, and his wife, Isabella Vargas Reinhardt, and they are also currently missing. The third sibling, Steven Reinhardt, and his live-in girlfriend, Genevieve Caprice, reside during the winter in Key West, Florida, and their whereabouts are unknown at this time. We’re concerned about foul play.”

  The camera moves to poster-size pictures of my brothers and me.

  My palms begin to sweat. I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. “Holy shit,” escapes from my mouth.

  “I think we should call Jonathan,” Caroline suggests.

  “No, please don’t. The poker tournament is important, and he has stuff he’s working on with Queen Diva. I don’t want to be a further distraction.”

  “Are you sure?” Emerson asks.

  I nod. I need to call Christopher and make sure he’s safe and aware of the threat my mother has just lobbed at all of us. She knows we’re not where we should be.

  But I need to be polite to my hostess. Standing, I regain my composure. “Today was positively wonderful. Thank you so much for including me.”

  Cecelia brings me in to a warm embrace. “I know you have a lot going on. While our circumstances were different, I do understand what it’s like to be vilified by people you thought loved you. Stay strong and get some rest.” In her best German accent, she adds, “And drink your water.”