Beneath This Ink

by Meghan March

  “And you’ll kiss this foundation goodbye if you get the cops involved.” Archer laughed maniacally. “You’re not as smart as I thought you were, Vanessa.”

  Con dug the barrel into his temple. “Don’t talk to her. You’ll just piss me off.”

  “Figures that trash like you would be reaching for something so far above yourself. You’ll never be good enough for her.”

  “Shut up,” Con bit out, and a measure of his calm slid away.

  “Leahy, drop the gun,” Lucas said from behind me. “It’s over. I called Hennessy. He’s coming to take Archer in.”

  I was surprised by Lucas’s statement, but Con didn’t seem to care. “Then I guess I better hurry this up.”

  The blood froze in my veins, and my knees gave way as Con’s finger squeezed the trigger.

  I screamed as I dropped to the floor.

  But there was no explosion of gunpowder and lead from the barrel. Just a single, metallic click.

  Con tossed the gun to the ground next to Archer, where a puddle of acrid smelling liquid was soaking into the carpet.

  Urine.

  Con didn’t even look at me as he stalked out of the room.

  I should’ve killed him. Should’ve left the chambers loaded. But I knew I couldn’t do it.

  I sat in an Adirondack chair under the pavilion at the lake house, listening to the waves lap against the dock.

  Any time now I expected Hennessy to show up with handcuffs. I didn’t come here to hide. I came here to mourn.

  Regardless of what happened to me, I believed that Joy and Andre would now get their justice. Rich pricks like Archer Bennett might get away with murder on a regular basis, but from what Lucas Titan had told me, Joy and Andre weren’t the only ones he’d put a hit out on. There was no way he’d continue to walk the streets a free man once his crimes became known.

  Titan had also said he would let Vanessa choose how they told the police what they’d found, but at the end of the day, he’d make sure it happened.

  So as much as I wanted to hate that son of a bitch, Titan—the one I presumed was Vanessa’s Chief Fuckwit—I had to respect him.

  What I did hate, though, besides knowing that Joy and Andre had lost their lives for fucking money, was knowing that Vanessa was losing her chance at her dream. There was no way the Bennett Foundation would survive this. And that wasn’t fair to her.

  The dock creaked with the weight of a person. I leaned back in my chair and swigged my whiskey. I wouldn’t resist. I would cooperate.

  But the person who sat down beside me wasn’t Hennessy. It was Lord. My brother. The one I never told anyone about because he didn’t want people to know unless they figured it out themselves. He was a weird motherfucker, but considering the shit he’d been through after we’d been separated as kids, I didn’t push him on it. That was his story to tell. Once I’d finally opened up to Joy and Andre about Lord, they’d started trying to track him down. He’d been a runaway, so finding him wasn’t easy. Andre’s private eye didn’t get a lock on him until just before I graduated from high school. Lord had popped up in the system because he’d enlisted in the Army. So I did the same.

  “I was expecting the cops,” I said.

  “I figured. You got me instead. Thought you’d want to know that your girl’s at the hospital.”

  My hold on the whiskey bottle slipped, and I grabbed it just before it hit the wood. “What the fuck? Is she okay?” I demanded, fighting the urge to bolt out of my seat and go to her.

  “The old man collapsed after you walked out the door. I called an ER nurse I’ve been fucking, and she filled me in. EMTs worked on him all the way to the hospital, but he didn’t make it. Probably a heart attack.”

  My tensed muscles didn’t relax at his explanation. Fuck.

  “So I killed him anyway.” My grip on the glass tightened, and I made myself lift my arm and take another drink. “Now I’m even more surprised the cops aren’t out here to take me in.”

  Lord lowered himself into the chair beside me and sat something on the table between us.

  The gun.

  My eyes cut from the revolver to Lord. “What the hell?”

  “Your girl gave it to me. Told me to take it. She covered for you. Said they were all working late and she found him collapsed on the floor.”

  “What about Hennessy? Titan said he’d called him. Said he was on his way.”

  “A bluff.”

  “Fuck.” I dropped my glass onto the table next to the gun and swigged the whiskey straight from the bottle, welcoming the burn as it slid down my throat. “Taking it to his grave, then.”

  “I doubt it. Your girl doesn’t seem like the type to let something like this lie.”

  “I think after tonight, it’s safe to say she might take issue with being called my girl.” I hated to say the words, but they were undoubtedly true.

  “You might be surprised.”

  “After I killed her great uncle? I doubt it.” I stared at the horizon, lifting the bottle to my lips once more.

  “So you’re just going to walk away from her? Let that Titan prick have her?”

  The thought gutted me.

  For once in my life I should be the better man. Let her go. Or at least not chase her down when she walked away.

  Lord snagged the bottle from my hand, interrupting my thoughts, and took a long pull.

  We passed the rest of the night like that, only moving to get another fifth. We drank in silence, both lost in our own thoughts, until the sun rose over the lake.

  I would be pulling a funeral dress out of the closet yet again. My emotions were all over the map. I was still trying to reconcile the facts that Lucas had uncovered with the Archer I had known until yesterday.

  Not to mention trying to process what Con had—and hadn’t—done. And the aftermath.

  If I’d wanted to run away and hide from the world before, I desperately wanted to do it today.

  But I couldn’t. I had to sit in my office, white knuckling the arms of my chair while the board of directors held an emergency meeting. In that meeting, Lucas would lay out all of the information he’d discovered. We’d discussed it, and I’d agreed. It would be up to the board to decide what to do with the foundation. Even though it was my heritage, I was just an employee without a say. Hell, I didn’t even get to attend—not unless the new chairman invited me. Which he hadn’t.

  So instead, I sat and wondered what Con was doing. If he’d washed his hands of me. If I should be washing my hands of him.

  I was having a difficult time holding what he’d done against him.

  The need for vengeance had been driving him for so long, I wasn’t sure he knew how to operate without it. And the fact that his vengeance intersected with my relative’s nefarious activities… that was something I couldn’t see him ever getting over.

  I honestly didn’t know what to do.

  One thing I was certain of: I needed to hear what the board decided before I’d be able to face him. I needed to be able to tell him that steps would be taken to make things right. Or if not right—because things could never really be right again—at least… better. Somehow.

  I stacked all of my project folders and notes about the new headquarters and nonprofit incubator in a box. It would never happen now. I thought of the deed in one of those folders. How Con had given it to me because he didn’t want to wonder if that was the reason I was with him. How pissed he’d been when he’d thought I’d taken it and walked away.

  What should I do with it now? Tear it up? Give it back? I was supposed to go to the parish clerk to have the deed recorded and made part of the legal chain of title for the property, but I’d kept forgetting to take it there.

  Maybe that was fate.

  Because now it seemed abhorrently wrong that Con had donated it when he’d already lost so much because of the foundation.

  Regardless of what the board decided today, I would give it back. It would at least give me a flimsy excuse to go see h
im.

  And God, did I ever want to see him.

  The wildcard was whether he could look at me and not think about what had happened to his parents.

  At least Con no longer had to carry the guilt of thinking he was responsible for their deaths. It was a tarnished silver lining.

  A knock sounded on my office door.

  I tensed, glancing at the clock on my wall. It had only been an hour and a half since the meeting started. How could they be done already?

  “Come in,” I called.

  Elle poked her head in, and I relaxed in my seat.

  “Hey, babe. How are you holding up?”

  I waved her in, and she shut the door behind her before sliding into one of my guest chairs.

  “Okay, I guess. Don’t have much of a choice. Are rumors flying yet?” Lucas had given me the go ahead to tell Elle, surmising accurately that I’d be unable to keep it from her.

  She shook her head. “No. None that I’ve heard anyway. Everyone is just shocked by Archer’s death and very sad. That bastard.” She looked up at me. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t say that around you.”

  “It’s fine. It’s nothing worse than what I’ve already called him in my own head. And you didn’t even hear him. There was absolutely no remorse. He was so confident that he’d done the right thing. He was… sick. But that doesn’t excuse his actions. I mean, I want to believe that he’d just gotten old and senile, but he’d been doing this for at least a decade, Elle. That’s insane.” I met her eyes as she slouched in her seat.

  “I know. And now we’re all going to be out of a job. Which sucks, because I like being underemployed. Now I’m going to have to go back to being a trust fund kid while I look for another job I’m overqualified for.”

  I was shocked her words could pull a halfhearted smile from me.

  “So,” she continued. “Enough about Archer. What are you going to do about your man?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I’m waiting for the board’s decision. I need all the facts before I can go to him.”

  She narrowed her gaze on me. “You sure you’re not just procrastinating?”

  I’d considered that already. “I’m sure.” I leaned over and pulled a folder from the box at my feet. “And I’m going to give him back this.” I flipped it open to reveal the deed.

  Elle chewed on her bottom lip before saying, “Yeah. I can see why you’d want to do that. It’s not like we need it now. So then what?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Are you going to try to get him back? Or are you going to let him walk away?”

  “You make it sound like I have a real choice.”

  “You always have a choice, Vanessa.” The words were so similar to some Con had once spoken to me.

  We sat in silence while I considered them. “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted.

  Elle opened her mouth to say something more, but another knock stopped her.

  “Come in,” I called.

  This time it was Lucas.

  “Vanessa. Ms. Snyder.”

  “What did they decide?” I asked without preamble.

  Elle rose. “I’ll leave you two alone then.” To me, she added, “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “I will.” Elle closed the door as she left my office.

  I couldn’t stand the anticipation. “So? What’s the verdict?”

  Lucas didn’t sit. He just crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “We’ve decided to turn the entire matter over to the Attorney General.”

  It was what I expected. It was the right way to handle it. Anything less would be highly unethical and illegal. After all, the charity division of the Attorney General’s Office was the ultimate authority the foundation was accountable to as a nonprofit in the State of Louisiana. I considered what that meant. Likely a very public exposure of the scandal and a complete dismantling of the entire organization. All of the funds would probably be doled out to other charities in the state, and maybe some even given back to the families of the victims. Which would also make sense.

  “That’s the choice I would have made.”

  “Anything less would make the whole organization as guilty as Archer.” Lucas paused. “And the CFO. He admitted to being complicit in Archer’s plans and has been living above his nonprofit salary for years. Says Archer used his personal money to pay him off. He’ll face criminal charges. Herzog knew as well.”

  A chilling thought struck me. “Archer didn’t kill Herzog, did he? That was natural causes, right?”

  Lucas nodded. “Herzog was getting regular kickbacks from Archer, too. It was unlikely he’d been hit with a fit of conscience at this stage in the game. I think it’s safe to say his death was unconnected.”

  “Okay. Then I guess it’s time I handed in this.” I slid my resignation across the desk. I hadn’t had to change much more than the date from the last time I’d printed it.

  Lucas picked it up. “And what if the board wants you to stay on during the investigation?”

  “How could they? I’m family. It wouldn’t be right. There’d have to be a conflict of interest there.”

  “So you’re saying you wouldn’t, even if they asked?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. I wanted so badly to agree, to say that I would stay for every single minute they would let me, but I knew it would be that much harder to walk away when it was time to leave.

  And there was one other giant reason I couldn’t stay.

  “I can’t. I just can’t,” I replied.

  Lucas stared at the paper for a few moments before changing the subject to one I didn’t want to discuss with him. “What are you going to do about Leahy?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Come on, Vanessa. I think we’ve gotten to know each other well enough that you can talk to me about it.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, but he smoothed his irritation away. “You realize he might not want you after this.”

  The words—thoughtless words—hit me like spikes to the heart. I sat straighter. “Thank you, Mr. Titan, for that little slice of insight. I can’t believe I hadn’t considered the possibility myself.” I bit out the words, over-emphasizing them in my sarcasm.

  He tilted his head to one side. “I’m not trying to be a dick—”

  “Then you’re failing.”

  “I just…” he trailed off, took a breath and released it. “I just want you to know you’ve got options. And one of those options is to let Leahy walk away and still not be alone.”

  I stared at him intently. “What exactly are you saying, Titan?”

  “That regardless of the fact that you think I’m a dick, I’m a dick who likes you a hell of a lot. I respect you. I think we’d be good together. You want to make a difference? You want to run a foundation? I’ll fucking start one. I’ve got an extra billion to throw at it right now. Just say the word, and it’s yours.”

  Everything I’ve ever wanted. On a silver platter.

  “For the low, low bargain price of marrying a man I don’t love?”

  He huffed out a humorless chuckle. “Did I mention one of the things I like most about you is your honesty? This whole time, the only thing you’ve ever tried to hide was what was going on between you and Leahy. I’ve never had to guess where I stood with you. That’s not something I get from most people.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess I’ve never been worried about impressing you.”

  “Which is why I think we could make this work.”

  I opened my mouth to decline, but Lucas held up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t answer yet. Just think about it, Vanessa. This doesn’t have an expiration date on it. Like I said before, if you go to him and find you don’t get the reception you’re hoping for, my offer will still be waiting.”

  He stood and turned to leave. Pausing at the threshold, he looked back at me. “I know you’ll go. So please, just be careful. A lot of people care about what happens
to you.”

  I didn’t like what he was insinuating. “He’s not going to hurt me.” Of that I was absolutely certain.

  “Maybe not physically. But don’t be surprised when he lashes out.”

  I gave a curt nod, and Titan was gone.

  I stared down at my desk and the deed that lay upon it.

  Could I do this?

  I pressed rep after rep, the burn in my chest and biceps fueling my intensity. I was supposed to be at work, at Voodoo, but I couldn’t force myself to go in. I was liable to maim someone in my current state.

  My muscles shook as I pushed the bar up and in to the holder above my head. I was lucky that I wasn’t going to be pumping iron in prison.

  Hennessy had been by. He’d filled me in on everything he knew. Not a word about me being present. When he’d asked for the gun, I’d told him that it was still at Chains, in the safe. Given that Lord had taken it with him when he’d left the lake house, I assumed it was actually there.

  Speaking of Chains, I’d signed it over to Lord this morning. I didn’t need it anymore. Didn’t want anything to do with it. Tassel was going up for sale tomorrow. Voodoo was the only one I was keeping. Because it had been my first, and the only one I’d actually enjoyed. I might take a break from there too, though. I’d had Delilah cancel all of my appointments for the next couple weeks. I’d have to see about getting someone to take my spot. Delilah’s brother was a badass artist at another place in town. I’d seen his work all over her. I wondered if I could steal him away.

  I sat up on the bench and flexed my hands. I busied my brain thinking about all of this little shit so I didn’t have to think about the important things.

  Because Jesus fucking Christ—what was I supposed to think? About Archer? About Vanessa? About the fact that because of what Archer had done to my parents, her dream—fuck, her life—was probably unrecognizable today.

  There was no way the foundation would stay intact. Hennessy had been pretty sure about that. Apparently there’d been some fancy meeting of the board, and Lucas Titan hadn’t wasted any time filling in Hennessy.

  I thought about what Titan had said to me outside the gym after Lord had taken Vanessa inside.