by Lexi Blake
Family, though, did have its uses.
“Let’s hear it. I want to know everything.” He sank into his chair and nabbed a copy of the report. “Ellie Stratton isn’t what I expected. I’ve read all the reports on her, but none of them prepared me for the fact that she’s nothing like her father.”
Drew took the chair next to him. “She looks nothing like her father and she appears much friendlier, but we have no idea what she’s involved in. Don’t judge the book by its very curvy cover.”
“Wait,” Bran said with a frown. “She’s hot? She doesn’t look hot in the pictures. That’s not fair. I get the Wicked Witch of the West and he gets some hot chick? I want a do-over.”
Drew’s eyes narrowed. “There are no do-overs.”
“I don’t think it’s fair. I think we thumb-war. Best two out of three gets the hot chick.” Bran held up his hand, thumb out like when they were kids.
Sometimes Riley’s brother was an idiot. “Dude, I took StratCast because I’m the one who managed to get the law degree. You want to spend seven years studying business law?”
Bran made a vomiting sound. “I just don’t know why I have to sleep with the dragon.”
“No one expects you to sleep with Patricia Cain,” Drew said patiently. “She’s thirty-five years older than you and I haven’t said a thing about you being the one to go in. I haven’t made that decision yet.”
Bran ran a hand over his torso. “All the cougars want a piece of this. She won’t be able to help herself.”
There was a snort from the end of the table, and Riley realized Bill Hatchard was here. Hatch. He’d been their father’s best friend. An alcoholic asshole whom Drew had forced to become someone after he’d aged out of foster care. Drew had found Hatch, used him to get his siblings under his care. In return, he’d rewarded Hatch with millions from 4L Software.
Hatch reached out and slapped the back of Bran’s head. “One of these days you’ll read some of the reports I send you. You’ll be lucky if I don’t forbid you to be anywhere near that assignment. I’d do it myself if she didn’t know what I look like.”
Hatch had to stay out of sight. He knew every single one of their targets because he’d been in business with them. When they’d murdered Benedict and Iris Lawless, Hatch had found the bottom of a bottle and not left it for years. It was still a struggle to keep the man sober, but he was brilliant when it came to business.
“Can we get back to the problem at hand?” Drew asked, turning back to Riley. “Why do you think she’s nothing like her father?”
He slid his brother a long glance. “A number of reasons, but one stands out. She was truly shocked that Castalano would pull that move on her. And she was shocked that someone was bugging her office. I would bet the thought would never occur to her. Did you plant one of ours?”
Drew nodded as he flipped through the file. “Of course. And I gave her a device that will detect anyone else’s. She’ll never find the one I planted. I’ll give you several for you to plant at her house if you make it back there this evening.”
“Oh, I’ll make it into the inner sanctum.” He didn’t intend to be left at her doorstep, and then he would plant the devices they needed.
In her bedroom. He was the snake in the grass who would plant listening devices that would capture her every word. Including his conversations with her, and he intended those to become intimate.
For the first time since they’d decided on this plan, his stomach flipped at the thought.
He had to remember that she was a means to an end. She’d lived a damn near perfect life at the expense of his family. She’d had the best private schools, the finest care, and all because her father had murdered his.
She’d lived the life he should have. More importantly, that Drew and Bran and Mia should have lived. He needed to always remember that. Ellie Stratton had lived a perfect life on the backs of his siblings’ pain, his parents’ death.
It didn’t matter what had happened to him. That was nothing. He shoved the pain down. What mattered were his brothers, his sister. They counted.
They meant more than some passing attraction to a woman he should hate.
Why had her smile been so fucking sweet?
“I’ll get it done. We’ll get what we need. Is there any way she could figure out you’re the one buying up StratCast stock?” It was a worry in the back of his mind. “We told her about her sister’s five percent. She might start investigating.”
Drew’s eyes rolled as though the question was far too silly for him to answer. “I didn’t buy it at all.”
Of course not. Drew would never get his hands dirty when someone else could do it.
“I bought it,” Hatch offered. “And before you freak out, know that I bought it under a couple of shell companies that 4L owns.” Hatch was in his customary half suit. That was what Riley called it. Hatch would wear the slacks and dress shirt. He donned ridiculously expensive Louis Vuitton loafers, but he wouldn’t be caught dead in a tie or jacket. “Everything’s going exactly as we planned. Her sister ran out of money. We were there to supply her with some.”
What he wasn’t saying was they’d been the ones to make sure Shari Stratton got into trouble. Hatch had sent some of his associates to a nightclub Shari frequented. They’d gotten close to her and ensured Shari spent way too much and owed some nasty people money. She’d quickly found herself looking for something to sell, and one of her new friends suggested the stock.
They left nothing to chance.
“We’ll spread it out,” Drew explained. “I want to avoid FTC regulations until the last possible moment. Ellie Stratton needs to have nowhere to go. She can’t see that this deal is not going to go through. That’s why we’re here. We’re going to make sure Castalano doesn’t get the money for his half of the company before we can take over and ensure he never sees a dime. I want her to have no safety net when I walk in.”
Case turned Drew’s way. He was the only one in the room who hadn’t been planning this revenge for years. “And what do you plan on doing with it if you do take over?”
Riley had been afraid Case would be difficult. He was the all-American, upright soldier who seemed to do things simply because he thought they were the right things to do. He needed to put this in terms Case could understand.
“Whatever we need to. Look, we’re not planning to bankrupt Ellie Stratton or throw all her workers out on the street, but you should understand that this is war,” he began. “We didn’t start it. Castalano, Stratton, and Patricia Cain started it twenty years ago when they murdered our parents over money. So money and business are the field of battle. Have you ever taken out a bridge so the enemy can’t follow you?”
“Of course,” Case replied.
“StratCast is a resource they can use. We’re going to take away all their resources, and they’ll find themselves with no way to avoid justice.” Bran sat back in his chair. “We move in, gather the evidence we need, and salt the earth as we retreat.”
“If we merely found the evidence against them, they would use their wealth to circumvent the system,” Drew continued. “They did once before. I don’t intend to allow it to happen again. I need to separate Castalano from StratCast. That doesn’t mean I’m going to punish everyone who works there. If I can help them, I will. Tell me something, Taggart. Do you understand the concept of revenge? Has anyone done something so unforgivable to you or your family that you would stop at nothing to make him pay?”
Taggart’s eyes went stone cold. “Her. Yes, I will make her pay.”
Mia’s fingers tangled with his, bringing him back from wherever dark place he’d gone. “This isn’t about revenge. Not really. It’s about justice. We’re going to bring our parents’ killers to justice. Unfortunately, Drew’s right. If we leave them enough money, they’ll buy their way out. I think we should find a way around hurting Ellie Stra
tton. She seems so nice. She’s really kind and funny. Y’all would like her.”
Every eye in the room swung to Mia.
Bran leaned forward. “What did you do, Mia?”
His sister sighed and flipped that sandy blond hair of hers over one shoulder. “What I’m trained to do. I got to know my subject.”
Mia was an investigative reporter. She liked to get up close and personal with the people she wrote about. As in all things with Mia, that could get dangerous at times. In this case, it was dangerous for all of them. Mia could be a loose cannon. Riley had been in the same group home as Drew. They’d leaned on each other and gotten Bran out as soon as they could. They’d all grown up, fed by the need for revenge.
Mia was different. Mia believed in justice. She could bring everything down around their heads if she wanted to.
Case’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Mia. “I thought you said you were having coffee with a friend.”
She shrugged and gave her husband big doe eyes. Yeah, he could have told Case she’d been pulling those since she was about two years old. “Baby, I did have coffee with her and she did become a friend. She’s really nice. She’s not at all like you would expect some killer’s daughter to be. She’s having trouble with her ho-bag sister.”
“You’re going to kill me one day, Mia,” Case said under his breath. His arm slid around the back of her chair, pulling her closer to him. “I swear, it’s the only time I haven’t had eyes on her the entire time I’ve been in the city. I had a conference call with my brothers. She did that thing where she waits until the last minute, just before I have to take the call, and ducks out on me.”
Bran stared at their sister. “Ho-bag? Is that a technical term?”
Mia nodded. “It is when your sister is the reason your marriage broke up. She’s dating Ellie’s ex-husband. Bet you didn’t know that.”
They hadn’t gone into the sister’s life in much detail. He’d had McKay-Taggart focus on Ellie. They hadn’t put anyone on the sister or the ex. Maybe that had been a mistake. “No, we didn’t. We only knew she’d blown through the money her father had left her. We ran financials on her and found out what clubs she liked, but I hadn’t heard about an affair with her brother-in-law.”
“The dossier on the ex-husband mentioned that we believed he’d been unfaithful, but he was discreet,” Case said. “You didn’t want us to get too close or we could have figured that out.”
“The good news is Mia doesn’t charge by the hour.” Drew sat back. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. You could befriend Ellie, maybe give us valuable intelligence. I’m going to assume you know her routine by now.”
“McKay-Taggart sent an agent up here for a couple of weeks,” Case offered. “We did a complete study of Ellie Stratton’s habits and schedule. It’s all in the report. During the two weeks we followed her, she spent most of her time at work. When she wasn’t there, she was usually alone at her apartment. She went to a movie with a friend. Lily Gallo. Also her assistant at work. She had a single date that didn’t seem to go well. And she had lunch with Castalano’s son.”
“What didn’t go well on the date?” He was definitely interested in not making the same mistake.
“She got a phone call and left in a hurry,” Case explained. “I suspect she had a friend call to save her from a bad date. Other than the dangers of Internet dating, she lives a very quiet life. She doesn’t have a gun registered with the state. No record of any kind. Even though her divorce was acrimonious, there were no domestic calls while it was going on. I would say the risk of her being dangerous is minimal.”
Mia nodded. “And he gets shot a lot, so you should listen to him.”
“I do not get shot a lot. It was twice, three . . . fine, I get shot a lot,” Case conceded. “I’ll try harder to dodge the bullets next time, but most of the recent bullets I’ve taken have been aimed at you, princess. Don’t you forget it.”
His sister’s lips curled into a secretive smile. “I know. I owe you. Big-time. You keep on collecting, big guy.”
Drew shook his head. “No sex talk. It makes me sick. Do all the couples shit on your own time. To me, you’re still six and in pigtails.”
“She looks hot in pigtails,” Case said, then turned a nice shade of red. “Sorry. We’ll keep that to ourselves. Back to the point at hand. Her husband cleaned her out in the divorce. No prenup and she was the breadwinner. She’s got absolutely nothing of real value with the exception of her StratCast stock. Even her apartment is mortgaged. She took her inheritance and put it all into the company.”
“Who gets the stock if she dies before the sale of the company?” Drew asked.
Bran chuckled, though it wasn’t a particularly pleasant sound. “Her business partner. Castalano gets everything. He has to pay any heirs she has fair market value for it, and he has the option to choose to waive the clause. It was built into their partnership all those years ago. Kind of wish Dad had that clause. At least we would have gotten some cash.”
That was Bran. He could smile all he wanted, but the bitterness always came out in the end.
“Why did he allow the stock to go to her after Stratton died?” Drew asked.
“He didn’t have the money to pay her fair market value,” Mia replied. “He looks good on paper, but he’s got cash flow problems. Lots of them and lots of debt. I had a forensic accountant pull all his personal financials. They’re working to do the same with Patricia Cain. One thing is interesting.”
“I find it all interesting,” Drew murmured.
“Phoebe Murdoch, the accountant at McKay-Taggart, was able to work wonders. It’s all very complex and they have various companies they work under, but one thing ties them together,” Mia explained.
Years of working as a journalist had honed Mia’s senses, so when she got that look in her eye, Riley listened. He leaned in. “Are you telling me you found proof?”
Mia took a deep breath before speaking. “I’m telling you that three days before our parents were murdered, Stratton, Castalano, and Cain all sent fifty thousand dollars to the same unmarked Swiss bank account.”
Riley felt the hair on his arms stand up. Proof. They’d searched forever for it.
Bran’s eyes widened. “That’s amazing. All we need to do is prove the bank account was owned by the hit man.”
Mia held a hand up. “Wait. There’s more.”
It was a huge leap forward. He couldn’t understand why his sister looked so grim. She’d done an amazing thing, something they’d been trying to do for years. “We figured out a long time ago that an assassin did the deed. Drew even recognized the man. Bran is right. If we can figure out a way to tie that bank account to the assassin, we’ve got them.”
Case pulled out a photo. “Yes, we’ve ID’d him as well. His name is Yuri Volchenko. He was a paid hit man who worked often with several criminal organizations. I’m sorry to report that he was killed five years ago, likely by the same people he worked for.”
Drew brushed that off with a wave of his hand. “It doesn’t matter. The money does. Riley, could you convict off what we have?”
He had to shake his head. “It’s good, but we need to tie the money to the assassin and then prove that all three of them gained financially. But again, some of this is circumstantial. With a decent lawyer . . .”
“Four.” The word dropped from Case’s mouth like a mini bomb, exploding and forcing everyone’s attention right to him.
“What do you mean four?” Drew asked.
“He means we’ve talked to people who knew Volchenko. My husband here has some interesting family connections. Volchenko’s asking price at the time was two hundred grand. And this was not a man who handed out coupons. We’ve also confirmed that two hundred thousand dollars was delivered to his bank account that day,” Mia said. “The trouble is the final fifty thousand was delivered from a bank in the
Caymans. From what I can tell, it does not belong to Stratton, Castalano, or Cain. The account was opened the day before the transaction. Closed the day after.”
Riley felt his head nearly spin. “So after all these years, you’re telling me there was a fourth person involved?”
“Yes, and we think the only way you’ll find that person is through Castalano or Patricia Cain,” Case explained. “We’ll keep digging from my end. Our tech people are already looking into Patricia Cain’s business dealings. We’ll have everything ready in a few weeks. We need to get some information in order for Phoebe to report on StratCast’s actual business accounting, but then that’s what Riley’s supposed to get us. Once we have that, she can do her job.”
“Riley should have that to you in a few weeks.” Drew’s jaw was a tight line, a sure sign big brother was unsettled by the latest bit of news. “And as for the other, we have to consider that Castalano might try to kill Ellie in order to take her stock.”
“We don’t have any indication of that.” Mia shook her head, ever the optimist.
“It’s how this guy works,” Drew insisted.
“Why try the contract thing, then?” Bran asked. “If he’s going to kill her, why attempt to take that technology with him? I would think he would keep it quiet that he wants the tech.”
Riley shrugged. “Could be he’s hedging his bets. Or he could use it as a tactic to drag things out, give him more time. He doesn’t have the money to pay the sister if Ellie dies. We know he’s killed before over a company. He would do it again.”
“If you really think she’s in danger, I say we talk to her,” Mia said. “We tell her what’s happening and we ask for her help.”
Sometimes his sister was so naive. “Yes, she’s going to help us take down the company she stands to make millions from.”
“Maybe she’s smart and she can find another way,” Mia shot back.
“Or maybe we stick to the plan because we’re closer now than we’ve ever been,” Hatch said suddenly. “Mia, I know you want the world to be all sunshine and roses and shit, but the truth of the matter is we stand to lose everything we’ve built if Ellie Stratton discovers our plan and has time to counter our moves.”