Wicked Bad Boys

by Bella Love-Wins

  Before he looks up to see me standing on the back deck, I notice his face is awash with worry. He’s pensive about something, and he should be, but he’s looking at the bushes as though they’re an answer to his problems. I have no patience for this. I whistle to get his attention and he meets me at the deck.

  “So what’s the deal, Dad?”

  “Let’s go inside. I had the tech guys do a bug sweep in my office this morning, just to be safe. We can talk there.”

  I’m following him to the office, and on the way, I see Mandy. For a woman who’s got stage three pancreatic cancer, she looks great. She’s dressed to the nines, has her hair flowing down her back, and looks like she’s going out on the town. The woman is living on borrowed time. She was given a year to live eighteen months ago. In fact, she looks better than she looked when she was diagnosed. It has me wondering what she’s taking as I walk up to greet her.

  “Hi Mandy,” I say, giving her a kiss on her forehead.

  “Jonathan honey, I haven’t seen you in weeks, darling. You’re looking so sharp in that suit! How are you doing, love?”

  “Good. How about you? You’re looking better and better every time I see you. I think you need to tell me what organic, probiotic, antioxidant shakes or whatever it is you’re taking, because I swear you look five years younger.”

  “Oh that’s the Botox, son,” she answers with a chuckle. “Or maybe it’s because I picked up painting. It’s so calming. Speaking of which, I’m on my way to my lesson. Will you stay for dinner? I’ll be back soon, and I would love to catch up, dear.”

  “I’m not sure I can stay too long, but I’ll try. How’s Claire?”

  “I’m fine.” Speak of the devil, she comes down the stairs and makes a bee line to me. “Jonathan!”

  “Hi Claire.” I give her a warm hug. She’s the closest thing I have to a normal family member.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to see Dad.”

  “How come you didn’t call so we could do dinner or something? You know I can never get enough time with my step-brother.”

  “Seriously, Claire. You know I live less than half an hour away, right? I’ve told you already, you can come by anytime you want. You still have my key, don’t you?”

  She gives me another bear hug and buries her head in my chest before looking up at me. “Me, in downtown Manhattan? It’s a jungle out there. I can barely stand it when I come in once a week for my hair appointment with Raoul. Nice suit, by the way.”

  “Thanks. Come on, it’s not that bad. Anyway, how are things with you? How’s Parker?”

  “Oh, didn’t you hear? My loving husband took an investment banking VP job in Dubai six weeks ago. You know, the one that Savoy has a majority share in? I haven’t heard from him in two weeks, but I got an email that he’s flying in today. He should be here any minute, actually. He wasn’t the… ”

  Before she finishes, Mandy speaks up. “Jonathan darling, I’ve got to run. I’ll have Juanita make your favorite if you stay for dinner. It’s so good to see you, son. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She hugs me, and kisses dad and Claire on the cheek before she leaves. She’s carefree and walking on a cloud. I’ve known the woman for eight years, lived under her roof for five of those, and I can tell something’s up with her. I’m not here to meddle in my dad’s and step-mother’s affairs, so I wrap up with Claire—promising to pop by her room after I’m done with Dad—and I follow him to his office to hear what he has in mind.

  “Lay it on me, Dad. What is it? What do you want me to do for you now?”

  “Have a seat, son. Care for something to drink?”

  “Vodka. Make it a double. No ice.”

  “I’ll have one with you. No son of mine is drinking double vodkas alone.”

  He walks around to his bar and pours us each a glass. He’s stalling. The man never hesitates, so I’m figuring that after he throws back the vodka, he’ll loosen up and give it to me straight. I sit back, relish what’s in my glass, and wait for the axe to fall.

  Chapter 4 - Rebecca

  We’re driving in Kara’s limousine. The antagonistic phone calls from other law firms and her top clients do not stop. She puts every call on speakerphone so I can hear. She even signals to me when she wants me to take notes on my tablet. I know I’m learning from this woman. I feel it in my bones. Every second around her is like a year at law school. She’s authoritative and brilliant—and above all, she commands respect.

  The thing is, those aren’t the only adjectives people at the office use to describe her. While most of Kara’s closest staff and associates respect and adore her, there are the odd few staff members who revile her. Some of them are longstanding, trusted associates. To them, she is a conniving, underhanded, ruthless control freak who is pulling the strings behind the scenes for some of the most powerful organized crime bosses. They would never directly accuse her, but there have been subtle hints, placing Kara at the butt of distasteful office jokes.

  I sometimes feel these associates are testing me when they say some of these things about Kara. They may be checking to see where my loyalties are. I may be new around her office, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I know how the mind games work in these places. Barnaby warned me a long time ago, and now, in just three months of working here, I’ve already seen seven junior associates and legal analysts fired on the spot, and escorted out of the office within twenty minutes of being canned. There is always more to the story, but rumors are they were set up by their own colleagues.

  This is why I never react when they come to me with rumors. I’m like the three monkeys—I see, hear and speak nothing. All I do when they approach me is nod. When they’re done, I duck my head down and do the best possible work that’s been assigned to me. There is nothing they’ve ever told me that has made it back to Kara or another employee of Henry, Miles and Rothman—not through me, anyway. Conversely, there’s nothing that Kara has ever said to me that’s made its way back to a soul. This may be the reason Kara is taking me to meet the Sloans.

  I get this trait of keeping secrets from both my reticent parents. My mother is a psychiatrist to many notable Washington, D.C. politicians, and my father is a federal crypto-analyst. Growing up, our house was a vault. I think they had become so secretive, they didn’t know what was okay to share and what was off limits anymore. Asking either of them the weather was like waterboarding a loyal federal agent if he had dealings on Russian soil.

  They were also deeply committed and entrenched in their careers. If I asked my mother to help me with homework, she would psychoanalyze the mental underpinnings of the question. Asking my father was no better—he could turn my history or literature assignments into cyphers. I eventually became just as secretive with them. As a teenager during my early dating years, I was too embarrassed to bring anyone home. I even hid my graduation date from them. I had a fear that together, they would mentally and mathematically torture Bryce to the point of no return.

  It ended up being a good thing they didn’t know about Bryce. He turned out to be the biggest, most two-timing, high society jock-jerk in my entire high school. He had four of us girls thinking we were his date for the dance. He told us all to meet him at the dance, something we compared notes about, after realizing we were all his unsuspecting victims. Bryce turned up an hour late, with Asha Morena, Miss Vogue Teen, draped over his arm. The four of us were crushed.

  We had the last laugh in the end. We got together while he was twirling Asha around on the dance floor. At first, the other three girls were sad and regretful. I was the one who got angry and righteous. I convinced them he had to pay. They agreed when they saw the pair sitting beside the table with the bowls of punch that were definitely laced with whiskey and vodka. Asha practically sat on his dick in that chair—that’s when these ladies found the courage.

  We tracked down his lucky Swiss army knife. It was his most favorite thing in the world. We found it in the glove compartment of his precio
us Jaguar convertible, and each of us took a turn slashing the tires. When he saw the damage we did, the look on his face was priceless, and well worth our earlier pain.

  He suspected it was us, but none of us stuck around to confess. I keep in touch with his other three victims to this day. One of them, Sarah, moved to New York City, and as luck would have it, she lives in a brand new condo a block away from me now. We’re comrades in arms, the four of us, made stronger by our common grief, and corresponding steps to prevail. Still, I’m the most secretive of us four. No one knew I kept his lucky Swiss army knife.

  A call comes in on Kara’s phone. It’s the first time since we made off for Long Island that she keeps the speakerphone off. Just as she did back in her office, she has a conciliatory tone with the person on the other end of the line. She’s a different woman with whoever it is. Her shoulders haunch over, she frowns and whispers, and her eyes seem suspicious, looking left and right like paranoid set in.

  Whoever she’s speaking with either has a formidable hold over her, or is her kryptonite. She looks pale and weak, and the person has seemingly brought her to her knees. I don’t know what to make of it, but it’s not my job to understand my boss. I turn to look out the window, and act like I’m not present to her transformation.

  In my mind, though, I’m taking precise and meticulous notes. To me, this is the most powerful female lawyer in the entire world. Someone or something has turned a dominant lioness into a weak and frightened one-day-old kitten, and I can’t help but feel a little sorry for her. I start to wonder whether something like this could happen to me fifteen years from now.

  In the blink of an eye, she hangs up, finds her composure, and she’s back to her usual self. It’s like I imagined the entire thing. Now I have to wonder whether it was real or completely contrived—possibly for me to see. Why would she play a part like that just for me to witness? I’m so curious now about who was on the other end of the phone call. Still, I go along with her, nodding as she resumes her briefing on the Sloan men, as though the last seven minutes never happened.

  “Rebecca,” she says, “tell me everything you know about Sloan Sports and Entertainment, and Fairchild Industries.”

  I’m grateful for two things right now—that I have a good memory, and for the unlimited data plan I splurged on for my tablet. I spent much of the car ride to court looking up both families. Barnaby would always say, “success and preparation are only achieved in the seconds of time not wasted.”

  There’s no bullshitting this woman. I already know it’s better to tell her I don’t know much, than try to come off as knowledgeable and only confuse the facts. With Kara, it would be a catastrophic error in judgment, which the trail of ex-Henry, Miles and Rothman junior associates learned the hard way. I exhale and launch into the most concise summary of what I learned. She cuts me off before I get to my second sentence.

  “We’re about twenty minutes away, so let me fill you in,” she says. “That way, we don’t waste time.”

  I am happy to humbly sit back, listen and take notes.

  “Sloan Sports and Entertainment started off as Sloan Sports. Back then, it was a mixed martial arts promoter and organizer for US MMA fights, led solely by Solomon Sloan. Solomon was a retired boxer back then. He was as astute in the ring as he was in the boardroom. He saved every penny of his boxing winnings and put it into setting up Sloan Sports eleven years ago.

  “Now make sure you’re paying attention, because it’s all relevant. I’ll explain why later, but you may figure it out yourself after you meet them. This company was destined for greatness. Four months after his start-up kicked off, Solomon had arranged his first Las Vegas fight night show. He got the Pelican Hotel to host it, dubbed it ‘The International Eliminator Sports Tourney’ and set it up with a one-round elimination format. He even made up his own world title in each weight class.

  “He went back to his rich boxing associates and arranged funding for the winner of each sixteen-person weight class grouping to receive a fifty-thousand dollar prize. He sought out all the sports media contacts that chased him around when he was a big name, and got the top TV and radio outlets to cover the show. Also, get this. After he arranged everything, he went to his old pal Sam Spring, yes, owner of Spring Las Vegas casinos and hotels. He made a brand new deal worth five times as much to run the event there, and ditches the Pelican Hotel. The man is sharp, well-connected and a cutthroat entrepreneur.

  A year later he puts out an IPO and goes public as Sloan Sports and Entertainment. He adds a real estate holding arm, and makes a mint buying up Vegas and Atlantic City locations to host his own events. Solomon is no slum landlord, either. He’s making up for their modest years living in a tiny Reno apartment with his first wife, Jonathan’s mother. She died of cancer when Jonathan was six. Another long story I’ll save for another time.

  “When they go public, media giant Belltower National acquires a minority stake of the company. That same year, all his live events begin to air in prime time spots of the major sports TV channels, all of which are owned by Belltower. By now, he’s gone from a net worth of fifty thousand dollars, if you include his old Winnebago, to over twenty-five million. Almost overnight.

  “He moves to New York City, franchises it worldwide, makes another few hundred million from the sales, the stock goes through the roof, and Belltower sees it for what it is—a license to print money. They give it even more air time, with prime spot for fighting events, reality shows, fighter highlights, biographies, the works. Anything they put on air about Sloan Sports is like manna from heaven for TV viewers.

  “During the course of this exponential growth, he happens to meet Mandy Fairchild-Roch. She’s a recent divorcee with a preteen daughter, and sitting on tens of billions of dollars of sweet, crisp, old money. Now Solomon is already wealthy and successful. He’s doing great on his own, but he’s a man with ambition into the stratosphere.

  “The two of them have a romance like none other. It’s like Pretty Woman meets The Brady Bunch, except he’s the hooker and Mandy is—well, you get the picture. Please don’t tell me you haven’t seen Pretty Woman or an episode of The Brady Bunch. If you ask me, you kids today need to be properly schooled by those classics.

  “Getting back to the lovebirds, they get married and to everyone on the outside, their life is like a fairy tale. To Mandy, her daughter Claire and probably even to Solomon’s son Jonathan, it’s heavenly. Solomon Sloan, though, is hiding a glaring secret from his shiny new family. The man is a womanizer. He’s a rich playboy with sex appeal and a big dick. To top it off, he has an appetite for every type of woman you can think of. Young, old, black, white, single, married—if it has a pussy, he wants it, and they want him too.

  “Mandy probably suspected him of being unfaithful years ago, but he covers his tracks because of his busy schedule. None of his playmates have ever ratted him out. How I know this? Just assume I’m God for a minute. Why is this relevant? It’s because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  “Jonathan Sloan is as smart, sharp and shrewd as his father—if not more so. On top of that, he loves women. He’s not married, though, so he owes no one any explanation. When they moved out to New York City, he had what we like to call a rebellious phase.

  “Now think about it, his dad’s a former boxer, running a mixed martial arts empire. He’s bound to have an extra dose of testosterone running through his veins, right? Well hold the phone, because he’s a kid with an attitude. He’s a skillful brawler with a short fuse. That’s how he became my youngest second-degree murder defense client.

  “He gets into an on-campus fight at seventeen while attending Harvard, no less. He TKOs a minor, and the kid falls back on the concrete sidewalk. His skull cracks open and Jonathan Sloan is charged with murder. It’s a publicity nightmare for everyone concerned—Harvard, Sloan Sports and Entertainment, Fairchild Industries, and even my law firm gets slammed in the media. There’s no good angle for Jonathan. The district attorney back the
n was ready to try him as an adult.

  “Of course, I work my magic, and Solomon talks up his contacts—the man is a master networker, moving in and out of all circles, from politics and the justice system, to business and nonprofits, to media and A-list celebrities. Suffice it to say, we find a media angle that demonizes the dead victim, and we get Jonathan off on a plea deal with probation and community service.

  “This is why we’re about to face a shit storm. If this hypothetical situation turns out to implicate Jonathan, we’ll all have hell to pay. He’s a brawler with a history of violence, a rich kid who got off easy. This time, it will take more than magic and connections to clear his name.

  Kara pauses and looks out the window.

  “We’re here,” she says as we turn onto a long driveway leading to a massive estate home. “Remember. Avert your eyes. Otherwise, you may fall for Solomon or Jonathan—or both. Consider yourself warned.”

  Chapter 5 - Jonathan

  My father pours us each another glass, taps mine and suggests we raise our glasses in a toast.

  “What for?” I ask.

  “Here’s to loyalty. Loyalty and family.”

  I repeat his toast suggestion and he says, “Together, they enable freedom. It’s the American way. Right, son?”

  I’m losing my patience now, so I come right out and ask him what he wants me to do. He is more apprehensive than I’ve seen him in a long time.

  “Let’s play some pool while we talk it over.”

  He walks over to the pool table at the opposite end of his large office.

  “What are we doing, Dad?”

  “Playing a quick game of eight-ball.”

  “No, Dad. I mean what’s going on?”

  “Just humor your old man for a minute. Go on, rack them up.”