After less than five minutes of writing my name, I owed nothing.
All the bills and headaches and worries that had kept me up nights, the future that had been a black hole of endless debt? All gone, in an instant. My rent had been paid off, my apartment was being cleaned out and closed up, and the few boxes containing what little I owned would arrive in Chicago within a day or two. Kristen mentioned that Dallstrom Defense Systems would also be issuing substantial severance checks to all of my former employees, and I gave her a well-deserved hug of her own as she bundled all the paperwork back into her briefcase.
So what happened now?
I had no idea, but what happened twenty minutes later was that the limousine eased its massive bulk around one last corner and rolled to a majestic stop at a guard post. Peering through the smoky window glass, I made out the diagonally-striped metal arm of a security gate blocking our way. Two uniformed men with holstered pistols on their hips had words with our unseen driver, badges were flashed and phone calls were made, and then the gate’s arm swept skyward and they waved us on through.
We cruised across an ocean of asphalt towards a long white building that looked like a skyscraper turned on its side – only a few stories tall, it stretched on and on before us, looming over hundreds of employee cars parked in neat rows. More low buildings flanked it on either side and behind, and every one of them was studded with antennas and satellite dishes. A few standing alone off to one side were barn-like structures that might have been aircraft hangars, except for the fact that I couldn’t see a single airplane or runway – and why were some of these maybe-hangars surrounded by guards wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying assault rifles?
Kristen put away the iPad she’d been tapping on as we pulled up to the main building’s underground parking garage. We passed through another security checkpoint – can’t have the peasants sneaking in to park in secure comfort or anything, that would be just plain wrong – and Dave switched from staring moodily out the window to staring moodily down at his shoes.
Our limousine flowed into the fluorescent-lit labyrinth and pulled up in front of an elevator marked ‘Private.’ We climbed out, Kristen punched a code into a keypad mounted on the garage wall, and the elevator doors slid open.
As we hummed upward, Dave lounged against the elevator’s back wall, his hands thrust into his pockets as he examined the floor with an overwhelming lack of enthusiasm. He didn’t seem to notice the rest of us were even there.
After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, the doors slid open to release us onto a floor somewhere within the main building. We emerged and walked to our fate down a corridor crowded with people.
That hallway was wide and it needed to be, because endless streams of busy worker bees hurried past us on urgent missions. Men and women bustled past the sterile white walls, their flat and practical shoes whispered over the grey and practical carpeting, and their voices were hushed as they conferred on the run, rarely glancing up to take in their surroundings. Many carried clipboards, a few wore lab coats, and none of them looked at us.
I jumped like a nervous rabbit when Dave slipped his hand into mine.
“Cassie, I wanted to … well, to warn you.”
His fingers tightened around my hand and he fixed his eyes on Kristen’s back as we walked a few steps behind her. “You should know before we go in there that I’m not at my best around this guy. My father always brings out the worst in me – whenever I’m in the same room with him it’s like I’m fourteen again, full of hormones and spite, while he laughs and walks all over me. I’m basically a whiny mouse with an attitude being batted around for sport by a cat, and … anyway, don’t pay attention to the Dave I am in there. That guy’s not me.”
I squeezed his hand back. “I can’t help whatever the history is between you two, but remember that recent history counts too, and recent events say that you’re my loyal Jedi protector and provisional boyfriend. That guy wouldn’t let Big Bad Dad get to him – that Dave would just sit there, listen to what the man has to say, and smile to himself about all the amazing sex we’ll have later.”
His face lit up in his best wicked grin – only for a few seconds, but it was there. “I’ll try, boss.”
Two minutes later we turned down a small side corridor, followed it through a right-hand turn, and found ourselves facing a dead end. Ahead, a single unmarked door hung open, spilling a wedge of bright light onto the anonymous grey carpet.
We heard him before we saw him.
“I do not PAY you people to tell me what is fucking impossible! The concept of impossible does not exist on the property of Dallstrom Defense Systems, is that clear? Or are you clowns telling me that R&D was blowing smoke up my ass when they assured me this design was workable?”
“Sir, wind tunnel tests for the production model repeatedly show a variance factor of .08 per cent; this is well beyond the stated tolerance limits for the project, and my team feels this difficulty cannot be resolved without a substantial reworking of the original design.”
“Dr. Ranjeet, fuck your team – what do you think?”
The Ranjeet guy’s voice was low, his accent musical, and his nerves showed in every word – but he held his ground. “I think I cannot change the laws of physics, sir.”
“Goddammit … look, try this. Get with Matoaca at the Houston facility, and see if you can find anything in his test results that you can use as a work-around on this problem – we’re committed to delivering two hundred of these units to the United States Goddamn Air Force exactly eighteen months from today, and I refuse to let physics get in my way when it comes to delivering on a contractual obligation.”
Coughs, murmurs, and nervous shuffling feet were followed by one more bellow. “Stop looking at me like a herd of cows with Ph.D.s in ass-kissing and get back to work! I have five million other headaches to deal with today, and I don’t have one more minute to waste on this one – move.”
They moved. Half-a-dozen women and men in lab coats emerged through the open door, led by a small and weary man whose name badge proclaimed him to be Dr. Ranjeet. You knew he was important because he had a lab coat and a clipboard, and as he trudged past us, Dave came to life for a second.
He flapped a hand at Ranjeet. “Hi, Nuraj – so he let you live, huh?”
“For today, yes – tomorrow, who can say? It is good to see you, David. We were all worried when we heard you were gone – you are back to stay now?”
Dave, being vastly taller, had to reach down to set a hand on the man’s shoulder. “If he lets me live, I guess so – hang in there, buddy.”
“I thank you, David. We will do our best to make science be what Mr. Dallstrom wishes it to be, as always.”
Dr. Ranjeet led his team away, Dave subsided back into silence, and Kristen pulled herself into as straight and tall and commanding a posture as possible. Tugging at a microscopic wrinkle in her aggressively perfect outfit, she turned to me.
“Cassie, Dad’s a master of needling people past their breaking point and then pouncing when they blow up at him, so if you stay calm and don’t give him anything to react to –”
“Goddammit, stop lurking in the hall like mice and get IN here!”
Kristen never missed a beat. “And that’s our cue.”
Einar Dallstrom’s office didn’t look like forty billion dollars. No mahogany desk, no teak paneling on the walls, no gold and crystal light fixtures, no oil paintings by Rembrandt or Monet, no endangered species of tropical plants in Ming vases, no framed pictures of him with senators or the President or God – the room was nothing more than a stark white box barely big enough to hold his plain steel desk and the row of straight-back chairs that faced it.
The short and seething man behind the desk did look like forty billion dollars worth of angry, though. His wide face flushed red, his small eyes blazed as he looked at each of us in turn, and beads of sweat broke out on his bald scalp. The sleeves of his off-the-rack white shirt were rolled up to hi
s elbows, and he yanked the cuffs further up his ham-like arms as he leaned back in his chair and thrummed his stubby fingers on the desk blotter. A vein throbbed in his temple.
“Well, my brainless son and his conniving damn sister are here at last, and with some fat prairie whore in tow – my day just keeps getting better and better. Sit your asses down and explain yourselves.”
We sat. I reminded myself that this was not Walmart, and that it would probably not be a good idea to punch my boyfriend’s father thirty seconds after meeting him.
So instead, I turned left and looked at Kristen. “He did not use the F-word.”
“The W-word too, and he’s just getting started. Sorry.”
On my right, Dave sprawled back in his chair and propped his right foot across his left knee. His posture said mellow, his voice said murder. “Hey, Dad? Calling my girlfriend filthy names will not get you anything but my fist in your face, so you might want to knock that shit off right now.”
Dave’s father smiled a tight, thin smile that looked like it hurt his face. “You don’t have the balls to hit me, boy, never did.”
The helpless fury in Dave’s eyes made me sick, and I decided that calm could go screw itself.
“Mr. Dallstrom, I’m not going to worry about you calling me names like the bully you obviously are – but Dave’s your son, Kristen’s your daughter, and family is something you can’t buy with forty billion dollars. I lost my mom and my dad, thanks to you I lost the bar that was their dream, and I’d happily rip your lungs out and feed them to you on a plate if it would get my family back.”
I leaned forward, forcing myself to stare into his hateful little piggy eyes. “Have you ever lost someone, Mr. Dallstrom?”
Dave froze. Kristen went white. Einar Dallstrom stared. Time stopped.
I forgot to breathe when I remembered that Dave had never once mentioned his mom. Neither had Kristen.
A century crawled by, or maybe thirty seconds.
Time started again when their dad’s chair squeaked as he shifted his weight.
“I don’t often misjudge people, but maybe this time I have – you’re fat by my standards and you may or may not be a whore, but it looks like you’re also smart and tough. Granted, smart and tough bitches like you are the worst kind – but I’ve dealt with difficult bitches before and I’m still standing.”
Kristen spoke up, and her tone was frosty and formal. “Dad, you mentioned the value of your time earlier. With that in mind, perhaps it might be best if you stopped insulting us and moved on to the point of this meeting, whatever that might be?”
“Fair enough.” He swiveled his wide head on his wider neck to look at Dave. “Son, first let’s establish whether or not you’ve learned anything from what’s happened. Whatever your idealistic bullshit reason was for taking off, you understand now that running away from your responsibilities is not an option, right?”
Dave crossed his arms and stared up at the ceiling. “I understand you’ll make innocent people suffer if I try to live my own life, yes – not that squashing human beings like bugs is anything new for you, but whatever. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Go ahead and be all holier-than-thou if it makes you feel better, because I couldn’t give less of a shit about what you think of me. Anyway, now that you’re back to stay, you also need to understand that your old life is over. Wasting my hard-earned cash fucking around at the university is –”
Kristen spoke up. “Dad, I find it interesting that you regard pursuing a master’s degree in architectural engineering as being a waste of money, not to mention that I imagine most people would not characterize maintaining a consistent 4.0 grade-point average with a full course load of tech-heavy classes as ‘fucking around.’ Or is that just me?”
Einar Asshole Dallstrom shot her a look that could have melted lead. “Kristen, did I ask for your bitchy damn opinion?”
Her smile belonged on an angel and her voice was pure honey. “No, Dad, you did not in fact ask for my bitchy damn opinion. Has that ever stopped me from giving it to you?”
He turned his glare to me because hey, I was there. “You see what I have to deal with? From my own flesh and blood?”
I volunteered, “Um, honesty? Dedication? Brass balls?”
“Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, no wonder my idiot boy likes you.”
He returned his attention to Dave, who was doing a terrible job of keeping a straight face. “Anyway, that architecture nonsense is done – I threw a shitload of money at the Board of Trustees last week, and they booted you from all your classes like good little trained monkeys. The part-time job with Sperryville Construction that you thought I didn’t know about no longer exists, seeing as how I bought them out and had you fired. You now have a full-time job with this company, my company, the company whose profits have provided you with a plush living every day of your undeserving life –”
Dave flashed back to sullen anger in an instant. “And that’s why I got that construction job, so I could pay for my own place and my own food and my own clothes out of my own money – you know, decent money, not the kind that comes with blood on it and plenty of strings attached.”
“Spare me your self-righteous crap – and by the way, thanks for reminding me about your shitty little apartment, because guess who’s your new landlord?” He jabbed a thumb at his chest and grinned. “That dump of a building didn’t cost much more than the change in my couch cushions, and you are out of it as of tomorrow morning – so you might want to head over there and clear out your junk before management dumps it at the curb.”
Dave kept a white-knuckled grip on the arms of his chair. “So where do I live now? The penthouse? Where you can toy with me whenever you want?”
“Yeah, it’s going to be sheer torture living in a high-rise luxury apartment, you poor kid – Jesus, will you stop with the queeny whining? Besides, you won’t be spending much time there anyway – your new position with Dallstrom Defense Systems will keep you on the move and very busy.”
“Doing what? Crushing puppies? Grinding orphans into bone meal? Using the peasants for target practice?”
Einar Dallstrom leaned forward on his meaty arms, his fingers tapping faster on the desk. “You will be our spokesman. You’ll talk to the press, you’ll give speeches to industry groups, and you’ll appear on whatever talk shows are fashionable right now. You’ll do interviews right and left, you’ll be on magazine covers, and you will sell our role in defending this country with every breath you take. In public, you’ll be the company’s beautiful golden boy.”
“I hate that glad-handing stuff and you know it.”
“I know I don’t give a single tin shit. I also know that while you’re shaking hands and smiling and being photographed and saying exactly what I want you to say in public, you’ll also be working for us in private. You will ensure that our contacts in Congress toe the line, you’ll monitor the people we have inside the Defense Department, and you will make it clear to everyone we deal with behind the scenes that you are the future of this company.”
“Dad, I’ve got this crazy idea about making my own future, a future that doesn’t involve shilling for your murder machine –”
“Son, listen to me.”
Dave shut up, his eyes still burning with anger.
Einar Dallstrom stared at his son.
“David, it’s not just that you don’t have a choice. I don’t have a choice.”
He indicated Kristen with a shrug of his shoulder. “She doesn’t have a choice.”
He nodded in my direction. “Your prairie flower doesn’t have a choice either, not that she knows that yet.”
The CEO and founder and majority shareholder and Grand High Poohbah of Dallstrom Defense Systems settled his eyes back on his son. “This business I’ve spent a lifetime building is an empire, boy, every bit as much as ancient Rome. It has a life of its own, a momentum that not even I can control, and it leaves you with next to no choices.”
Dave didn�
��t think so. “Look, Dad, I refuse to –”
“No, kid. You may think you know my secrets, you may think you know what I’ve done to secure this company’s place in the world – but you don’t know the half of it. Decisions have been made and alliances have been built that cannot be undone. Thumb your nose at that, walk away like an idealistic little boy whistling a happy tune, and everyone will pay one fuck of a huge price. Do you understand what I’m saying, David?”
“I understand you’re asking me to take a lot on faith, Dad. You’re asking me to upend my life and everything I believe in, just on your word.”
“Yes, boy, I damn well am. You’re not ready to know everything, not yet.”
Dave looked as pale and hopeless as a drowning victim. “Why now, though? The timing doesn’t make any sense – I mean, why am I expected to throw myself over this cliff today? Why not last year, next year, ten years from now?”
“You’re not ready to know that either.”
Einar Dallstrom sagged back in his chair with a weary sigh and smiled like he barely had the strength for it. “Trust me.”
The man rubbed a hand across his face while the three of us stared at him. He shook himself all over, sighed again, and looked to Kristen.
“This move needs to be very public, and it needs to happen yesterday. I’ve already reserved the Wentworth Center for this coming Friday night, and that’s when we’ll make the official announcement. Set up the details, invite the usual people plus everybody else who’s remotely anybody, hire tons of security and dress up the venue like it’s hosting the Oscars, you know the drill – make it big, make it splashy, and make sure it’s plastered all over every news channel in existence.”
Kristen’s jaw dropped. “This Friday? You do realize that’s less than six days from now, right?”
“Yes, because I can do math too – cry me a river, just make it happen.”
“Do you have any idea how impossible it is to set up just the guest list alone in that amount of time? People have schedules and prior commitments, Dad, and what about the on-site arrangements, the publicity, the security, the –”
No Dreams Allowed: A Billionaire Romance Page 11