The Undercover Billionaire

by Jackie Ashenden

  He’d overcome this too. And he had an idea about how.

  Moving from the stateroom back into the galley, he went over to the table where the laptop sat and pushed the power button. A blue glow instantly illuminated the cabin as the laptop came on.

  There were a number of files already open and as he cycled through them, he smiled as the one in particular he wanted came up. One of Olivia’s emails, with the encrypted files attached. She’d obviously downloaded them in the hope of being able to decrypt them.

  His smile turned feral as he hit forward on the email and typed in Van’s email address. Then in the subject line he put: Decrypt these ASAP.

  He wasn’t certain if Van would be able to, but if anyone could, it was him.

  Pressing send, Wolf closed the laptop and stood for a moment in the gradually lightening darkness of the galley.

  There was only one way to play this and that was to go big or go home.

  No more sneaking around. No more watching and coming in the dead of night to steal the asshole’s daughter away. No more hiding.

  He would take this directly to de Santis’s door.

  Getting the prick to let him in might be a problem—then again it wasn’t as if he didn’t have any leverage. No, he had plenty. Enough that he was pretty sure that if he knocked on de Santis’s mansion, the guy would not only open it wide, he’d invite him inside.

  Which was exactly what Wolf wanted. Once he was in, that would be that. De Santis was his.

  What about getting away without anyone knowing it was you?

  Yeah, well, that was going to be the tricky part, wasn’t it? Grabbing Olivia and getting away would be difficult, escaping a murder charge even more so.

  Maybe you’d have to stay and take the rap. Maybe it would be worth it just to have everything end.

  It wouldn’t be fair. Not to his brothers, who’d have to deal with the fallout of one of the Tates being arrested for murder, especially when they already had more than enough on their plates. And not to Olivia either.

  You’re looking for reasons not to do it now?

  No, he wasn’t. It was necessary. There would be no end to this until Cesare de Santis had joined Noah Tate, dead and in the grave. Too many people had been hurt, and too many lives had been ruined to allow it to continue.

  Olivia would never come with him after this, but maybe that was something he’d have to live with.

  “Nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice, Wolf. Nothing worth fighting for is taken without blood.”

  Yeah, that’s what that fucking old prick had kept telling him, and shit, Wolf knew all about sacrifices now, didn’t he? He’d sacrificed his own needs and wants on the back of Noah Tate’s dream of vengeance. He’d shed blood turning himself into the weapon his father had wanted him to be in the hope of being the son Noah had needed. But it had all been lies.

  Noah hadn’t needed a son after all.

  Of course. This is all about you being angry at Dad, nothing else.

  Wolf snarled into the dark.

  Yeah, he was angry at Noah. He was fucking furious. But his father was dead and there was no satisfaction to be had from him. There was only de Santis left to take some justice from, and if that made him a selfish bastard, then too bad.

  Didn’t he deserve to take something from all of this? Didn’t he deserve some goddamn reward? It wasn’t the reward he’d always wanted, but it would be so fucking satisfying all the same.

  And Olivia? What about her?

  His heart clenched tight in his chest.

  Sacrifices. It was all about sacrifices.

  Olivia would be just one more.

  Decision made, Wolf turned and strode out of the galley. He made his way off the Lady and out of the boat basin. The sun was coming up, the city waking, and the ice on the streets was sparkling in the sunrise.

  It was going to be a perfect winter’s day.

  He found a cab and got it to take him direct to de Santis’s front door. He’d debated waiting a few hours before charging right in so he could think up a better strategy, but he was sick of thinking. Sick of arguing with himself. Sick of the tight feeling in chest. He wanted this to be over and done with once and for all. Anyway, he already knew he wasn’t a strategist. He acted and then dealt with the consequences accordingly—that’s just how he rolled and always had.

  There was no security on the door of the mansion, but Wolf didn’t make the mistake of thinking the place unguarded. In fact, de Santis was probably waiting for him.

  There had to be a reason he’d been left alive after all.

  Getting out of the cab, he didn’t hesitate, heading right up the steps to the imposing, double front doors and pressing the buzzer. He stared up into the camera above the door and grinned at it. Yeah, it’s me, asshole. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

  He didn’t know what it was that de Santis wanted, whether it was simply to one-up him after he’d grabbed Olivia not once but twice, or whether he had a punishment in store for him, but whatever it was, Wolf didn’t care.

  As long as it got him inside, he was okay with it.

  The door clicked and swung open, one of the de Santis security team in the doorway. It wasn’t one of the guys he’d taken out earlier, sadly.

  “Good morning, Mr. Tate,” the asshole said expressionlessly. “Mr. de Santis is expecting you.”

  “What, already?” Wolf grinned. “But I haven’t even had time to freshen up.”

  The look on the man’s face didn’t change. Instead he merely turned, obviously waiting for Wolf to follow him.

  Wolf obliged, letting the asshole lead him into the house and gesture toward a door on the right that was off the main entrance hall.

  Not that Wolf didn’t know what that room was. He’d been here many times before and knew it was the formal sitting room, where de Santis entertained people he didn’t particularly like.

  Giving the security dick another grin, Wolf went to the door, opened it, and strode right in.

  The room was white and stark, uncomfortable couches and chairs covered in white linen, the only color from some abstracts on the wall painted in dark, threatening hues.

  Cesare was standing beside the white marble fireplace, leaning one arm on the mantelpiece, smiling as Wolf entered. Yet his blue eyes were colder than the winter’s sky outside.

  On an armchair near the fire sat Olivia.

  She’d obviously showered and changed, her long glossy brown hair no longer in a sleepy tangle down her back, but lying smooth over her shoulders. She’d ditched his shirt in favor of a plain white blouse and a neat, dark blue pencil skirt that fitted over her gently rounded thighs like a dream.

  He preferred her wearing his shirt with nothing on underneath, but he approved of the pencil skirt. He wanted to see more of it, even.

  Olivia’s face was expressionless, her hands clasped together in her lap. She looked distant and very contained, though her gaze wasn’t in any way as cold as her father’s. No, there was a heat to it, the flames leaping high as their eyes met.

  She said nothing, but then she didn’t need to. Those flames in her blue eyes told him all he needed to know.

  Yeah, she’s glad to see you now, but how long will that last? Until you kill her father?

  Wolf ignored that thought, looking at de Santis and spreading his arms out. “You’re not even gonna get some asshole to pat me down?”

  “Of course not. That wouldn’t be very polite of me, would it, Wolf? Especially after you’ve been part of our household for so many years.” The smile that had turned his mouth faded. “Then again, kidnapping my daughter wasn’t very polite of you.”

  “The first time it was definitely a kidnapping,” Wolf amended. “Second time, though, she came with me.” He flicked a glance at her. “Didn’t you, baby?”

  She was staring at him, and he was suddenly aware of the tension in her body, as if holding herself braced for an attack.

  Made sense. Since he was here and she kn
ew what he intended. But … had she told her father about it?

  “Yes, Wolf,” Cesare murmured, as if he’d read his mind. “She did tell me. Who do you think let us know where to find you and your charming yacht?”

  A jolt of something sharp went through him.

  She’d promised him she wouldn’t contact her father until she’d found the evidence she needed that he hadn’t killed Noah. The need for that evidence had faded after what had happened with the discovery of his mother’s death certificate, but she’d still made him that promise.

  He gazed at her, knowing that Cesare had likely only said it to get a reaction and yet being unable to help himself all the same.

  Olivia didn’t flinch. “I warned him that you were coming for him,” she said quietly. “I didn’t tell him where we were.”

  She might not have, but the end result was still the same. Well, she’d always been up front about the fact that she was going to stop him.

  Not that it mattered.

  Not seeing any need to drag this out more than he had to, Wolf reached around and grabbed the Sig from the small of his back. Cesare made no move to stop him, merely watching with apparent interest as Wolf pointed the gun at him.

  Olivia stiffened.

  “I don’t care what she did,” Wolf said, staring into the heavy, still-handsome face of Cesare de Santis, his father’s enemy for over thirty years. “You’re still going to die.”

  Cesare’s gaze dipped to the gun then back up again. “Interesting. So this is my repayment after ten years of support?”

  Wolf gave a short laugh. “Support? Like a janitorial position at DS Corp type of support? Thanks but no thanks.”

  “Honest work, though,” Cesare said. “And it would have led places. Better than where you are now, wouldn’t you say?”

  “But I’m happy with where I am now.” It wasn’t a lie. The Navy was his life, though after this, maybe not. Maybe he’d be looking at a jail term instead. “The military’s been a better family to me than the rest of you bastards.”

  “A family,” Cesare murmured, those cold blue eyes seeing right into him. “Yes, that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? To be part of a family.”

  The words hit Wolf square in the chest, unexpected and painful, digging in deep.

  He couldn’t remember—had he said those things to Cesare? He must have, on one of those evenings in Cesare’s study, when the old man had listened to him list his made-up litany of grievances about Noah. He’d been given a tumbler of whiskey because at seventeen he’d been a man, and Cesare had sat there and listened to Wolf talk. He hadn’t interrupted, hadn’t told him his opinions weren’t asked for and weren’t required. He hadn’t told him that he was thinking too much, talking too much. He hadn’t told him to shut up and do what he was told.

  No, he’d simply sat and listened. Then when he was done, Cesare had asked him what he wanted more than anything in the whole world, and Wolf, drunk for the first time in his life, his inhibitions lowered, had given him that answer before he could think better of it.

  Because you’re stupid.

  “I can give you that family, Wolf,” Cesare went on, his voice low. “I can give you what you wanted. No, I’m not your father and I know I can’t take his place, but I can be like a father to you. And I have Olivia. I know you want her. She could be yours, you could have a family with her. I’d be proud to call you my son.”

  Something hot and desperate coiled in Wolf’s chest. A longing, an ache. “I don’t want to be part of your family,” he said through clenched teeth, denying the feeling. “I’m a Tate.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want that?” Cesare tilted his head, and was it Wolf’s imagination that those blue eyes softened a little? “A father to love you, to stand at your side? A father to support you, to be proud of you?”

  “Dad.” Olivia’s voice was low, warning.

  “What? You think after all these years I don’t have feelings for the boy?”

  “He knew, Wolf,” Olivia said, ignoring her father. “He knew all along that you were only trying to get close to him for Noah’s sake.”

  It should have surprised him, maybe shocked him. But it didn’t. Of course Cesare had known all this time. The fucker was smart and Wolf, as a seventeen-year-old, hadn’t been. He’d been a lonely boy looking for a father figure.

  They used you. Both of them used you. Because you were too stupid to know any better.

  His fingers tightened on the gun. “You think that changes anything? It doesn’t.”

  Olivia got up suddenly.

  “Olivia,” Cesare murmured, a warning note in his voice.

  Pull the trigger now.

  Yet he didn’t. And then Olivia was standing in front of her father, facing Wolf. Blocking his line of fire completely.

  You fuck-up. You can’t even kill a man properly.

  The terrible frustrated anger that had been simmering away inside him knotted and tangled in his chest. But all he could see were her blue eyes staring at him, seeing inside him. Seeing everything he was.

  Cesare was saying something, but Olivia was talking and that was all he could hear.

  “Don’t listen to him, Wolf. You know he’s only trying to manipulate you. But you don’t need to kill him either. There are other ways to end this. There are always other ways.”

  Somehow he’d moved, though he wasn’t conscious of doing so, taking a few swift steps so he was right in front of Olivia, towering over her as she stood between him and her father. Towering over Cesare too, though the guy didn’t move, didn’t look away either.

  She’d put her arms out to the sides, trying to block as much of her father as she could. And then the gun was pointing at Olivia’s chest, as if he might shoot through her to get to the prick behind her.

  His heartbeat was far too fast and the knot in his chest was pulling tighter and tighter. The barrel of the gun was pointed right between Olivia’s breasts. If he pulled the trigger now, it would take out her and de Santis.

  “Nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifices, Wolf. Nothing worth fighting for is taken without blood.”

  She didn’t even look at the gun. As if it wasn’t important in any way. As if pulling the trigger at point-blank range wouldn’t kill her. She only looked into his eyes, steady and calm. As if nothing was wrong.

  “You don’t need to do this.” Her voice was level and unafraid. “You’re not a machine, Wolf. You’re not a mindless soldier. You’re not a weapon. You’re smart, remember? You’re so goddamn smart. Think.”

  He should be concentrating on the man behind her, the man who had somehow become a symbol for everything that had fucked up in his life. His mother’s death. His father’s lies. All the years he’d spent thinking he was doing good, that he’d managed to gain de Santis’s trust. When that bastard had known all along.

  Both of them, Noah and Cesare, had known all along. They hadn’t needed him. They’d only needed a knife to stab each other with.

  “No.” His voice was gravelly, rough. A broken version of his own. “You’re wrong. I’m a fucking weapon, that’s all I am. That’s all I’ll ever be. And you know what the point of a weapon is? It’s to kill people.”

  He reached out, grabbed a hold of her and shoved her forcefully out of the way, because if nothing else he could move faster than anyone when he wanted to. Then he jammed the barrel of the gun against Cesare de Santis’s chest, forcing the older man up against the mantelpiece.

  The only sound Cesare made was a slight indrawn breath, but Wolf didn’t miss the flicker of fear in the asshole’s eyes.

  “Yeah,” he growled. “About fucking time you started taking me seriously, motherfucker.”

  “Wolf!” Olivia called his name desperately. “You’re smarter than this. You’re better than this. I know you are.”

  He ignored her, staring into a different set of blue eyes. Colder and much more guarded. Full of secrets. “You never liked me, you fucking prick. You never wanted me. You only want
ed to use me, like Noah fucking Tate.” He jammed the Sig harder into de Santis’s chest. “Just like you want to use me now. Admit it, fucker. Admit that’s what you want to do.”

  Cesare was silent. “You could have been so much more,” he said quietly after a while. “You could have been the best of them if you hadn’t been so desperate. You reeked of it, did you know that? You wanted validation so badly, wanted praise. Wanted love. It made using you so easy. No wonder you were Noah’s pet. You were the perfect tool just waiting for someone’s hand.”

  Someone was pulling at his back, tugging hard and shouting at him. But he wasn’t listening. All he could see was Cesare de Santis’s blue eyes and the truth in them.

  So easy to use. So easy to manipulate. That’s all you ever were to any of them, you dumb fuck.

  The anger blossomed inside him, going nuclear, a fucking mushroom cloud. De Santis was right. That’s all he’d been to both of them.

  That’s all he’d ever be.

  “Yeah, I am,” he said, low and guttural. “Tell Dad I said hi when you see him.”

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Olivia screamed as the gun went off, horror unfurling inside her.

  She’d been so certain that if the worse came to the worst in this stupid meeting that her father had insisted on having, despite her warnings, she’d be able to stop Wolf. That he’d listen to her. But he hadn’t and she knew why.

  Even after all this time, he was still listening to the lies his father had told him.

  And now it was too late. Too late for her father. Too late for Wolf.

  Too late for her.

  Wolf stumbled back as her father collapsed onto the floor, and suddenly the room was full of her father’s black-suited security staff. People were shouting, guns were all pointing.

  At her.

  She blinked, unable to keep up with what was happening. There was a powerful arm around her waist and a rock-hard body at her back. Something hard was sticking into her side, burning through the material of her blouse.