Mr. Corporate (Mister #3)

by JA Huss

  I wasn’t sure she could do it. I really had doubts. All I thought about as we swam, the waves tossing us and pulling on us, was that I would never be able to live with myself if something happened to her. But there was an inflatable floatation belt in with the scuba gear, so I put it on her, tethered us together, and pulled her to the last island.

  So here we are.

  “Where’s the building?” Victoria asks. It’s raining again. Really starting to come down hard, but we’re soaked anyway, so it hardly matters.

  “It’s in the middle of the island.” We’re sprawled out on the beach waiting for our heavy breathing to even out. “I’ll go look first. You stay here and then when I know it’s safe I’ll come back for you.”

  “Like hell,” Tori says, standing up. “I’m not staying here. And if you try to make me, I’ll follow you into those trees. I do not care what danger is in there. I’m not staying here on this deserted beach alone. Fuck that.”

  I have to laugh at her defiance. Even though I want to get to the building first so I can try to figure this shit out, I know she’s firm on this. So I just say, “Suit yourself. But when the natives attack, don’t blame me.”

  Tori grabs my arm, squeezing tight. “Do you think there are people here? That we’re… like… trespassing?” Her eyes search mine, looking for reassurance.

  “No. I don’t. I think whoever owns this place has a lot more sense than we do. This hurricane has to have been on the news. People who own islands keep track of that shit. No one wants to be stuck out here during a hurricane.”

  She lets out a long breath. “Yes. That’s probably true.”

  I hold out my hand and Tori looks at it for a second. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go together then.”

  She smiles, rolls her eyes. But she does take my hand. We walk the beach in the worsening storm looking for a footpath. The trees and brush are thick, so there’s no real chance of making a new path. Not with the mud and the rain, and the gusting wind.

  We find one a little way down the beach, half hidden in the blowing palm trees. And once we get in under the windbreak canopy of leaves, we follow the narrow trail in silence. It leads to a lagoon with an empty boathouse, and from there we find the path to the main house.

  Which is a lot nicer than the piece of one-room shit we just came from.

  And the power works.

  “Why does the power work here?”

  “People with money, Tori. They can do whatever they want.”

  “Must be nice,” she says, irritated. “But that’s not an answer.”

  “I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

  But I’m humoring her. The power is on because a motion sensor porch light activates when we come up to the front door. Which means people were here not too long ago. They have a sturdier system than the last island, that’s all. It lasted a little longer.

  At least that’s what I tell myself.

  “There’s a radio!” Tori says, her voice excited after many hours of sadness and fear. “Look!”

  And yes, there is a radio right there in the mud room. I scan the area for leftover shoes or coats. Something, anything to tell me if people are here or not.

  But I see no signs.

  Tori runs over to it and is about to turn it on when I grab her hand away. “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “We don’t need to call now. They can’t help us and it will just make people worry.”

  “You’re crazy. People are looking for us, West. We need to let them know we’re OK.”

  “We will,” I say. “But not yet. Let’s just check this place out first.”

  She huffs some air and squints her eyes at me. But I didn’t say it as a command. It was a suggestion. So she’s not mad. I think I just set all her little alarm bells off though.

  “It’s pretty nice, right?” I say, trying to get her mind off my new anti-radio stance.

  Tori looks around and takes a few steps towards the great room.

  It’s like any well-furnished room you’d find in a vacation home. High-beamed ceilings, dark wood tables, built-in cabinetry, and dark marble-tiled floors. There’s even a flatscreen TV, for fuck’s sake.

  I look around, warily. Something is very, very wrong with this trip. Why was Victoria brought in for this contract? Was Liam behind this? Is he getting even for some old wound between him and my father? Was it the pilot? Who does he work for? Mysterious?

  This is where the panic starts to take hold of me. I’ve had that thought in the back of my head since yesterday and I’ve been pushing it down and pushing it down.

  But there it is.

  Mr. Mysterious.

  I think this is about him. Maybe even worse than that. Maybe he’s the one behind all this bullshit. He did refer me to that pilot. He did give me that tip about Wallace. The house back on that island had Paxton Vance written all over it. The set-up, the seclusion, the guns.

  I look over at the dry bag on the floor and wonder if I should get rid of them. What if he’s used them in some crime? What if they are murder weapons? I mean, all us Misters play it cool about him. Oh, he’s so mysterious. Like we’re rolling our eyes about his quirky eccentricities and not wondering how many people he’s killed since college.

  But I know what I’m thinking every time Mysterious shows up, so I know Nolan has to be thinking the same thing. He’s a suspicious bastard. Even more than me. Something is off about Pax and we all know it. I would not put it past him to sell us out.

  Hell, maybe he did rape that girl back in college? Maybe it was him all along. And then when the arrest warrant came who was there? Match and his stupid friend Five. Is it a coincidence that Match and Mysterious are the best of friends these days? Really? Pax has always been a man who hates people, but now he and Oliver are BFFs?

  I don’t buy it. Those two are doing business.

  And I’ve been suspicious about Match for a while now. What kind of man runs an online dating site and never has a girlfriend? No. They are up to something and this trip proves it. I’m stuck out here—Victoria Arias is stuck out here—because Paxton Vance gave me bogus information.

  “What are you thinking so hard about?” Tori asks from across the room. She’s got a remote in her hand and the TV comes to life. “Holy shit. We’ve got HBO and everything. Whose place do you think this is? Some rich movie star? Silicon Valley tech mogul? What if we’re in Peter Thiel’s doomsday bunker?” She laughs like this is ridiculous.

  I don’t laugh. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to set this place up. Except I don’t think it’s the PayPal billionaire’s island. I think whoever owns this island probably owns the other one too. And I think I’m on a first-name basis with whoever that is.

  “Jesus, West. What are you daydreaming about?” Tori puts the remote down on the coffee table and walk towards me.

  I paint on the smile and head for the dry bag to keep myself busy. “Nothing, really. Just thinking about how lucky we are to have found a safe place to ride out the storm.”

  “Shit, do you think that hurricane is still coming this way?”

  “I hope so,” I mumble under my breath. Because if it’s not, someone will come looking for us very soon.

  “What?” Tori asks. “What did you just say?”

  “I said I hope not. I hope that fucking pilot has called the coastguard for us and they’re arranging some kind of pickup.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Tori says, sighing as she crosses her arms. “I’m cold. Does it feel like this place is air-conditioned?”

  I look up at the tall ceiling and see massive fans hanging down by long poles. And sure enough, there are vents on the ceiling.

  How much money does it take to run this place? Who would leave all this going if they left the island?

  “What if someone’s still here?”

  Tori and I come to the same conclusion at the very same moment. We look at each other and I see the fear in her eyes as I start shaking my head. “Nah,” I say, playing it down.
“Where would they be? The wind is blowing hard now. And it’s been raining most of the day. If people were here, this room is where they’d be.”

  Tori looks around like she needs a moment to talk herself into my lie. For such a wild girl, she sure does have a sweet, vulnerable side.

  “Want to check it out?” I ask, reaching to the bottom of the dry bag and grabbing the guns. “Together?” I pull them out one at a time and set them on the floor beside me. When all three are there I look up at Victoria.

  “I knew you took them.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  She shrugs. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  I shrug this time. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Do you think it’s about Wallace? I mean, that was all pretty strange, right?”

  I have no answer. “I don’t know, Tori. I’m not sure if it’s Wallace or the people behind the job to get Wallace.”

  “Like Liam?”

  So she’s been thinking about this too.

  “Maybe.”

  “But isn’t he a good friend of your family? Why would he set something like this up, West?”

  I open my mouth to tell the lie. The lie I’ve been telling since I was seven years old. But I can’t bring myself to say the words.

  “West?” Tori prods.

  So I make up a new one. “Not good friends,” I say. “Not exactly.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Victoria

  He’s lying. I’ve always known he’s been lying about who he is and where he came from. But I figured it was some small lie. Like, his father wasn’t in the import-export business. I mean, come on. I’m from Brooklyn. I know that import-export is code for mafia.

  But I don’t think this is what he’s lying about. It’s something deeper. Bigger. Badder.

  “Then…” I say, trying to reason it all out. “Why would Liam set us up?”

  “Maybe he didn’t.”

  “Then who?” I ask.

  West picks up the smallest gun and stands up, offering it to me. “You know how to shoot, right?”

  “Sure.” My father was a policeman. He taught me to shoot when I was fourteen. About a week too late, unfortunately. “But I’m not taking that gun.”

  “Tori, look. You’re right. Something weird might be going on here. I need to know you can fight back.”

  I shake my hands in the air and laugh. “I am a lethal weapon, Mr. Corporate. Don’t you worry your pretty head about me.”

  He lets out a long breath and smiles. It’s the first smile I’ve seen on him today, the only time his forehead wasn’t creased with worry and exhaustion. “I know, Miss Arias. But you can’t karate-chop someone from across the room.”

  I chuckle back. Karate chop. He’s so cute. What I am capable of doing to a man is nothing short of torture. “I feel safe here,” I say. “I can’t explain why, I just do. I don’t think we’ll need guns. But we should look the place over thoroughly.”

  West’s smile drops on one side, making that lopsided grin I love so much. He doesn’t do it often. Only when I’m right and he’s not mad about it.

  To me, that look says, OK. We’re OK.

  “We’re OK,” I say, to give him the same comfort he’s been giving me these past two days. “We’re fine. We’ll wait it out here and figure it out when the storm ends. And we have a radio now. So… we’re fine.”

  “Yeah,” he says, barely audible. “Let’s look around. Maybe they left food.”

  We do look. But there is no food. There’s pots and pans and a real oven—gas even—a refrigerator—empty—and a microwave.

  All of which is useless.

  There is a massive set of stairs which go down on one side and up on the other. We go up first, and find three bedrooms.

  “I guess we won’t have to sleep together tonight,” West says.

  “I guess not,” I agree. I glance up at him really quick to see if he’s got any regrets about that, but he’s moved on to look at the bathrooms. I wait in the hallway as he flushes all three toilets, and then I follow him down to the basement.

  “Well,” West says, once we’re down there. “This is… interesting.”

  There’s a safe that spans an entire wall. Complete with one of those round wheel things that you use to open it, and a computer pad where a combination needs to be entered.

  There’s a silver envelope taped to the ginormous door. West rips the note off the door like he’s taking it personally, then looks at me with raging eyes.

  “What?”

  “Do you know who wrote this?”

  I feel all kinds of defensive. “Why would I know that?”

  “No,” he says, taking a deep breath and combing his fingers through his tousled hair. “No, I mean, Mr. fucking Mysterious wrote this! I fucking knew it!”

  “What? Your friend? This place belongs to your friend?” I look around, take it in with a new set of eyes.

  “I’m pretty sure that last one did too.”

  “So that’s who that guy was at the table with you?” I didn’t see him. I’ve never actually met any of the Misters in person before. West and I went in a whole different direction after those charges. I never saw any of them unless it was on TV.

  “What?” West’s eyes are blazing. “What guy I was with at the table?”

  Shit. Good going, Victoria.

  “You were listening, weren’t you? When Pax gave me the heads up on where Wallace would be yesterday.”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I start.

  But West cuts me off. “You were trying to steal that contract, Tori.”

  “You don’t even need that contract. You’re rolling in money, Weston. I need it. And not for selfish reasons like you. Like your stupid cars and your stupid houses.”

  “Way to get defensive and nasty when you know I’m right,” West counters.

  “It’s all true though. You’ve always been greedy, Weston Conrad. I’m trying to save people and you can’t let me have one stupid contract to keep that stuff afloat?”

  “Save who?” He practically snorts. “Cut the shit, Tori. The only person you’re trying to save is yourself.”

  “Well, fuck you. You know? Because you’re wrong. You’re totally wrong about me. I’m trying to save my father’s legacy. He’s dying, Weston. He’ll be lucky to live six more months and all he’s ever wanted was to keep that trust fund afloat.”

  He looks shocked. “You have a trust fund?”

  “Not me, you idiot. The kids.”

  “What fucking kids, Victoria?” Now he looks pissed.

  I’d forgotten I’d never told him. Jesus Christ. I never told him. It’s been so long since we spoke. Three years at least. And that was only a drunken one-night stand. We went to my place in Scarsdale because it was closer to the bar we met up in and my Manhattan building was still being renovated. West was gone by the time I woke up in the morning. Probably sorry he let things go so far. He was still very mad at me about that seven-million-dollar contract he thought I stole a few months earlier. There was no call, no text, not even an email saying, Thanks for the fun. Just here and then gone.

  I didn’t take it personally. I was a little bit relieved. Because there’s no room in my life for a man like West. One night of sex is fine. Like last night. That’s OK with me. It was fun, felt good. But once we’re off this island there’s no way in hell we’ll ever see each other again.

  “What fucking kids?” West repeats.

  “Look, it’s a long story—”

  “Did you have a fucking baby?”

  “No.” I laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then what kids are you talking about? You don’t have any siblings.”

  “Well, it’s a funny thing. Really. And it is a long story. But I was adopted, West. When I was fourteen. I grew up in foster care and my father, the man you know as my father, well, he saved me after…” Shit. I never had any intention of talking about this again.

  West takes a seat in a nearby chair. “Are
you shitting me right now?”

  “No, why?”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes. Why would I lie about this?”

  “So you were never going to tell me your backstory?” He stands up again, begins to pace.

  “Are you getting attitude with me about my personal life? Please. You pop off with this little hint that you’re some kind of reformed blue-collar worker yesterday. ‘I worked on a boat, Tori.’ ‘I know how to catch lobsters with my bare hands, Tori.’ ‘I have memorized the fucking tides, Tori.’ And you think you’re allowed to get mad at me for not telling you about my past? Fuck off.”

  He grabs me by the arm before I can spin around and leave, but instincts kick in and I deflect his wrist, kick forward toward his balls, and—

  I’m down on the ground face first. “Nice try, Miss Arias,” Weston breathes into my ear. He’s got my hands behind my back and… and… I’m stunned.

  “What the fuck—”

  “I’m a third-degree black belt, Victoria. So you can cut your tough-girl shit, OK? I’m not in the mood.” He lets go of my wrist, gets up, then pulls me to my feet.

  “Since when?” I huff. “You never took martial arts when we were together.”

  “Wrong. I’ve been taking classes since I was seven. I earned my black belt when I was nineteen.”

  “But… you never fought back. When I used my moves on you!”

  “You’re a girl, Tori. Why the fuck would I fight back?”

  “You’re such a dick.”

  “Why?” he snarls. “Because I’m a gentleman? Come off it. I’m not going to hurt you. I only took you down this time because I’m sick of your shit and we don’t have time for this.”

  “You’re sick of my shit? Ha.”

  West just stares at me. He’s so pissed off right now. He points his finger in my face, the same way I’ve done to him, over, and over, and over. “You’re hiding things from me.”

  “You’re hiding things from me! So I guess we’re even.”