The Legacy Collection Box Set

by Ruth Cardello

  As he continued his conversation in a lower tone, Marie pried a crying Judy from Abby’s arms. “Rosella and I will take the babies to the other room.” When Abby moved to follow, Marie said, “Judy doesn’t know what’s going on. She’ll be happy with a bottle and a nap. Stay with your husband. He needs you right now.”

  Abby nodded and went to Dominic’s side, linking her hand with his. Her unspoken support for whatever he was planning was clear.

  And the move touched Marc. They were a team. Strong. Solid.

  That was love.

  Alethea was the only woman he could picture having that with. More than just chemistry—she had the potential to be a real partner. He respected her intelligence, admired her spirit. Sexy as hell and passionate about the same things he was—she was his future. He’d never been as sure of anything as he was of that.

  When Dominic hung up the phone and rejoined the group, Nicole looked around frantically and said, “Stephan’s gone.”

  Jake rushed out of the room and then quickly returned. “He left his phone, but his car is gone.”

  Nicole went to the window. “He’s going after Sliver himself.”

  Jake shook his head. “That’s not wise. We don’t know what Sliver is capable of. We don’t even know where he is.”

  Marc added his thoughts from across the room. “Stephan has leads of his own. He might be following one of those. I’ll see if Jeremy has found anything. I’m in radio contact with my men. If you want to send me a message, contact me that way. The line’s encryption algorithm is changed daily so it should be secure.”

  Dominic said, “I’m coming with you.”

  “No,” Marc answered firmly. “This is what you pay me to do.”

  “If you think I am going to sit here while . . .” His voice cracked with emotion. Abby tucked herself under Dominic’s arm and hugged him.

  Marc nodded toward Abby. “You need to be here in case Sliver tries anything else. I’ll find Stephan and get this guy. You keep your family safe.”

  Jake pulled Lil closer. Marc completely understood. Risking their necks in foreign countries while completing dubious government deals had always been a thrill. Waiting for the next move of a sociopath who threatened the ones they loved—there was nothing exciting about that. That kind of threat was a game changer.

  Nothing else mattered.

  Not the financial empire they’d built.

  Not their power or influence.

  This was war.

  Marc was headed toward the door when Lil called out his name. He stopped and turned. She said, “If I know Al, and I do, she’s going after him, too. She may be angry with me, but she would never walk away while any of us were in trouble.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I tried to text her right after she left, but she’s not answering me. If your paths cross in this, tell her that I love her. And tell her to be careful.”

  With a nod, Marc turned and walked out. Behind the steering wheel of his Lexus, he confronted his greatest fear. I might not be in time. He had to get a step ahead of her before she faced Sliver alone. This time I’m bringing everyone out alive.

  How would Alethea find Sliver?

  Jeremy.

  Back at Andrade Global, Stephan met with the team he’d assembled when he’d first learned that his server had been hacked. Only the most loyal to him had been informed of the threat, and even then they were not told the whole story. They were told a hacker was trying to sabotage Dominic’s company and he was using his prior access to Andrade Global to do it.

  “Do we have any new leads?” Stephan demanded loudly.

  One of his men stepped forward with a folder. “We found a loft apartment in the Meat Packing District that Jack Mineoff bought under his real name. He still pays utilities there.”

  Stephan took the folder and looked over the photos and descriptions inside. Sliver is smarter than this. It’s almost as if he wants us to find him. “I don’t like it,” he said. “It feels too easy.”

  His head of security shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t consider that you’d become close enough to Dominic to be able to discover his real name.”

  “Maybe,” Stephan said. “I still don’t like it. We need to check out if he still lives in that loft. Two of you will come with me. The rest of you, I want you here digging up anything and everything you can on this guy. If he went to the dentist in the past few years, I want to know about it. Everything.” Walking over to his desk, he said, “Meet me in the outer office in five minutes. I need to make a call before we go. Wear your tactical vests. This guy is dangerous.”

  The men nodded and left, closing the door behind them. He punched in an international number on his office landline and waited.

  “Pronto!”

  “Dad.”

  His father instantly switched over to English. “Are you all right? You sound upset. Has something happened?”

  “Not yet, but I have something I need to ask you.”

  There was a short pause and then Victor said, “Anything. You know that.”

  He knew his father meant it, and if there was time he might have taken him up on his offer, but what he had to do couldn’t wait for the time it would take his family to gather. “If anything ever happens to me, I need to know that you and the family will take care of Nicole.”

  He didn’t try to hide the seriousness of the situation. Victor was the strongest man Stephan had ever met—a good man who deserved better than this from his only son.

  “What’s going on, Stephan?”

  “I can’t tell you, Dad. Just promise me that you’ll be there for her. I don’t want her to ever feel alone or afraid again.”

  “Are you in some sort of trouble?” Victor asked urgently. “Tell me what you need. We have friends who can help. Influential friends. Have you spoken to Dominic?”

  “He’s the one who needs the help this time, Dad, and it’s because of what I did last year. I caused this problem and I’m going to eradicate it. I appreciate your offer, but I’ll never be free from the past unless I face it myself. Don’t worry, I have my own resources. I’m not alone.”

  “I can be back in New York by tonight.”

  “It’ll be over by then, Dad. I’ll call you this afternoon and hopefully have good news for you.”

  “And if you don’t call?”

  Stephan knew that if he met up with Sliver one of them wasn’t coming back alive, and there would be consequences for the one who lived. “Just know that I love you.”

  Stephan hung up the receiver. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk, took out a loaded gun, and tucked it into the belt of his suit pants. He walked to the changing room where he kept extra suits and took out a Christmas gift from Lil’s paranoid friend Alethea. A bullet-resistant suit jacket. After the fiasco at Abby’s baby shower, Alethea had reached out to all of them in one way or another. He remembered laughing when he’d received it and wondering what sort of person would actually wear it.

  He wasn’t laughing anymore.

  Alethea called Jeremy’s office phone. It rang four times, then went to voice mail. Alethea called back. Pick up. Pick up, Jeremy.

  “Hello?”

  “Jeremy, it’s Alethea. Don’t hang up. Dominic asked me to call you for an update.”

  “Really? Do you think I don’t know when you’re lying?”

  With a loud sigh, Alethea said, “Fine. I’ve just had a blowout fight with all of them. None of them will probably ever talk to me again, but that doesn’t change what I need to do. I’m going to take this guy Sliver down, and you’re going to help me.”

  Jeremy was not that easily convinced. “Jake told me to report whatever I found directly to him and only him.”

  Come on, Jeremy. I know you. I know you want to do this. “Jake handled it last time and look what happened. He didn’t finish it. He has a family now and it’s made him overly cautious. Something Sliver took advantage of.”

  “I want to say, yes, but I told Jeisa . . .”

  “One mo
re time, Jeremy. Just one more time. I’ll never ask you for anything again. This isn’t about me, it’s about saving people who are also very important to you. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how angry people get, what matters is that you do what has to be done. We can beat this guy, Jeremy. You know we can.”

  After a slight pause, Jeremy said, “I don’t have anything more than Sliver’s real name.”

  “Then hack into Stephan’s server. He’s had his men working on this. Maybe they have a lead.”

  “He has sewn his server up—it’s airtight now.”

  Really, Jeremy? You forget how well I know you. “You went in with full access. Don’t tell me you didn’t create a back door just in case he ended up being involved after all. I won’t believe it. No one changes that much.”

  With a guttural sound of frustration, Jeremy admitted, “Don’t tell anyone. I wasn’t planning to, but I couldn’t trust him completely. Not with all that is at stake.”

  That’s the man I know. “Your secret is safe with me. Now, what did they discover?”

  Jeremy typed furiously for a moment, then said, “They went old school and offline. Looks like one of his guys found something in the city records about a purchase of a loft in the Meat Packing District made under his real name a year ago. I should have thought of that. That’s so simple I can’t believe I missed it.”

  “Why would a man who doesn’t want to be found buy property under his own name?”

  “Either he’s stupid or . . .”

  “Or he wants us to find it.”

  “Like a trap?”

  “Maybe. When was that file last opened?”

  “About half an hour ago.”

  “That gives Stephan enough time to hear about it and head over there.”

  “Al, Sliver will be ready for him. If that’s his lair, it’s going to be well protected.”

  Alethea cornered her car decisively. “Send me every bit of information you can about the building his apartment is in. I want the layout, recent and old. Everything.”

  “On it.”

  Marc stormed into Jeremy’s office a short time later. “Have you heard from Alethea?”

  Jeremy didn’t say anything, but he wouldn’t meet Marc’s eyes.

  Marc walked over, laid both of his hands flat on Jeremy’s desk, and leaned down so he was eye to eye with Jeremy. “I need to know what you told her.”

  Jeremy stood and met Marc’s aggressive stance with his own. “To stop her? You can’t, you know. I’ve never seen her as dead set on something as she is on this. You’d be better off staying out of the cross fire.”

  With a growl, Marc grabbed Jeremy by his shirt collar and hauled him halfway across the desk. “She is not going in alone.” He let Jeremy go just as roughly.

  Jeremy adjusted his shirt and stood tall. He’d need a good reason to betray his friend.

  Marc played his last card. “I love her. We’re a team, even if she can’t see that yet. I will not let her get herself killed today.”

  With a slowly expelled breath, Jeremy said, “We found an apartment Sliver bought under his real name about a year ago. Stephan is headed there. Alethea is trying to get there before him, but he had a head start.”

  “How do you know where Stephan went?”

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “Just tell me. It may matter.”

  “I still have remote access to Stephan’s server.”

  Marc frowned, but decided not to pursue that revelation at this time. “And?”

  “And the address was in the last report his men pulled. It makes sense that he’s headed there.”

  “I’ll need that address and any other information you have. Now.”

  Jeremy hit a button to print out a shot of his screen. With some sarcasm he said, “I don’t mind helping you people, but would a please or a thank you now and then kill you?”

  Marc took the papers from Jeremy and shook his head as he focused on more serious matters. “What I don’t get is if this guy, Sliver, is so smart, why wouldn’t he start his own company instead of targeting Dominic’s?”

  Jeremy sat back down in his chair. “Intelligence doesn’t ensure success, and revenge can become an addiction. Sliver wants to be important, but he chose a negative way to go about it. He tears things down instead of building anything of his own. It’s a lifestyle that has become an obsession.”

  “Creating a man who is capable of anything,” Marc said, as he built a mental profile of his target.

  “Exactly.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Stephan and his men did a second sweep of the loft apartment. It was devoid of furniture. A huge empty space filled with a disappointing amount of nothing. If he doesn’t live here, why buy the place?

  Had it been easy for us to find for the simple reason that it wasn’t important?

  Like the coding errors, is this place just another distraction?

  He sent two of his men out. One to the roof. One to the street.

  I’m here, Sliver. Just where you’d hoped someone would be. But why?

  One of his men returned. “Nothing on the roof. Are we done here?”

  Stephan nodded reluctantly. “I guess we are. Let’s head back. Give the security guy downstairs another tip on our way out. We may need to come back. There has to be a reason Sliver bought this place and I intend to find out what that is.”

  The guard stepped through the door first. Before Stephan had time to react, it slammed shut behind the guard, trapping Stephan inside the apartment. A thick metal sheet slid across the door, locked into place, and beeped.

  A man’s voice spoke through an intercom from above. “Tell your men to leave the building. You didn’t just hear an alarm arming. That was a remote-activated bomb—aka my insurance that you’ll do as I tell you.”

  When his guard banged on the door, Stephan said loudly, “The door is rigged. Don’t touch it.”

  “Now tell him to leave. Unless you want him to die with you. An unnecessary loss.”

  “Get out of here, Steve, and evacuate everyone you can.”

  “Uh, uh, uh. I wouldn’t do that. That would bring the police. Warn anyone and I push the trigger now. How noble of you to want to save strangers along with your men. And you can save them. You can save them all. All you have to do is help me.”

  “Help you?” Stephan cased the loft with new motivation. There had to be another way out.

  “Tell your men to go. Just your men. I’m watching every move you make so I’ll know if you try to fool me. Send them out of the area and then we’ll talk.”

  “Sliver? Or, more accurately, Kurtis.”

  No answer.

  Stephan spoke to his men through the door. “I need you to pull back from the building. Both of you.”

  “Out of the area,” Sliver warned. “It’s an easy equation. I see them and you die.”

  Stephan slammed a fist into the wall beside him but said loudly, “Give this place a half-mile radius.”

  “What about—” Steve started to say, but Stephan cut him off.

  “Do it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Steve said, then asked, “Do you want me to call anyone?”

  “No,” Stephan ordered. “Wait for me to contact you. I don’t want anyone else coming here until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Yes, sir,” Steve said and left.

  Stephan paced the loft’s entryway angrily.

  “How touching. So concerned for others. A good man with a bad reputation. Another Corisi casualty.” Sliver’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  Stephan began searching the loft again for anything that would turn the tables in his favor. “I know who you are now. I know everything about you. You say Dominic stole your ideas and built his fortune with them. He didn’t, you know. That’s why you’re so angry. Your contribution was a mediocre suggestion at best.”

  “Mediocre? I’m the one who suggested the future lay in interfacing technologies. I saw the trend. I knew where t
he money would be.”

  Yes, get angry. Give me something to use. “An insight they took advantage of, but they didn’t throw you out, did they? Your mistake was thinking you could do better without them.”

  “And your mistake was switching sides at the last minute. I could have destroyed him last year in a cleaner fashion. No one had to die. You should have let me finish what we started. The bloodshed will be on your conscience. You pushed me to this.”

  Years of hating Dominic gave Stephan a sad and unique insight into Sliver’s twisted thinking. Could he use that bond to gain Sliver’s trust? “You don’t have to do this. I know. I hated Dominic. I lost sight of who I was, and everything became about beating him. It almost cost me everything. My family. My future. Everything. You can stop before this goes any further. It’s never too late to realize that revenge is a dark monster that destroys even its master.”

  “And what? We all become friends? How has that worked for you?”

  Stephan didn’t say anything. His words found a fresh wound Stephan didn’t want to acknowledge. Dominic still thought the worst of him. There was a chance he always would. He hoped to God the love he shared with Nicole was strong enough to survive that truth.

  Sliver continued. “Imagine your life without Dominic. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? All you have to do is call him and tell him that you’re here. Tell him how you tried to stop me but failed and need him. When he comes—leave. I’ll give you time to save everyone else in the building. I believe there is a sweet woman living just below who has two young children. One is sick and home with her today. What a shame if you choose not to help me and they pay the price.”

  “You’re a sick bastard.”

  “We can spin this scenario so you win. You get his sister without having to deal with him. The news will credit you for risking your life to save everyone in the building. Hell, you’ll be a hero. So, what’s it going to be? How much is your rival’s life worth to you?”

  Taking a deep breath, Stephan made one of the most difficult decisions of his life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dressed in a blonde wig, baggy jeans, and a sweatshirt, Alethea assessed the building Jeremy had directed her to. She stood at a safe enough distance that it was unlikely Sliver would use surveillance cameras where she was. Jeremy had given her the blueprints of the loft apartment building. She studied the surrounding area.