by Jenny Rose
“I remember when that sandwich was all I could afford. Now, I want to treat my parents to the finest meal in New York so I’m just going to make reservations at The Montclair. Just in case you weren’t aware, that’s where all the snobs hang out and talk about the common folk. Be there at seven, brat.” She replied that he hadn’t even called yet and he stopped her before she could continue, “I don’t get wait listed.” As she pressed the button to disconnect the call, she shook her head and smiled. Her relationship with her stepbrother had always been a pleasant one but there was a part of her that had a small crush on him before their parents married. He was the cutest boy she’d ever seen but she knew when he looked at her, he saw what everyone else saw; a gawky girl with wiry hair and braces that was better to just be overlooked. Looking back, it was a good thing that her crush faded because it was shortly after meeting him that he became her brother. She managed to grow up alongside him as any other sister would but there was never any denying that he was handsome. Over the years, she grew into an attractive woman but when she thought about the fact that he’d married a beauty queen, she knew that they lived in two different worlds.
Tori had been dating an accountant named Pete Hinkley and even though the relationship was new, she already knew that he wasn’t the man for her. She wanted a man with a bit of danger in his eyes that made you wonder if you were safe with him. Her heart yearned for a man who could sweep her off her feet both literally and figuratively and poor Pete was doing good to be able to lift his overcoat. He was definitely built how one would expect a skinny bean counter to look and though she hadn’t gone out with him for his biceps, it would have been nice if they were a bit bigger. She didn’t consider herself a superficial woman and prided herself on the fact that she tried to see the inner person above all else but that naughty side wanted a man who looked as if he lived at the gym. She had fantasies about men who could pick her up and hold her against a wall with ease as he did the most intimate of things with her but she wasn’t going to find him at her desk, which was the only place she went these days. Tori worked adamantly for the remainder of the day and when she heard the knocking on her door, she didn’t even realize that it was already past five o’clock.
“We’re all headed out, want us to wait on you?” Rachel had worked for The Pierce Group for nearly a year and the hyper redhead always seemed to have a smile on her face.
“No thank, Rach. I’m just finishing up here but I won’t be too long. I’ll see you on Monday.” She waved as Rachel nodded and tapped the door frame as she took off walking towards the elevator. Tori heard her call,
“See you on Monday!” as she walked down the corridor. Her plans for the weekend consisted of laundry and TV dinners, so she wasn’t really in a rush to get the party started. There was no doubt that she needed a more active social life but it was more important to her to make sure that work was always placed as a top priority. She refused to be one of those women who drops everything as soon as they find a man just so that they could squeeze out a few kids and take care of a home that she grows to resent. As hard as she tried, she could never see herself as Betty Crocker living in suburbia with 2.5 kids and a low-interest mortgage. Tori loved her apartment and solitude too much to give it up for a picket fence and if working late meant that she never got to hang a tire swing in the front yard, so be it. If the time ever came that she did decide to marry, she doubted that she would ever give up her career and all potential suitors were informed of this from the beginning. It was unfair to get into a relationship without first divulging that important piece of information and she felt that this honest and straightforwardness was what usually prevented most relationships from coming to fruition.
The short drive to her apartment usually gave her a few moments to unwind after work and as she made her way up Bennis Lane, she admired the freshly bloomed iris that lined the walk. Halfway tempted to roll down the window of her sedan, she decided against it due to the inherent street noise that was sure to invade her vehicle. The best thing about living in the city was a good high-rise apartment. Once you get above the noise and congestion, one can truly appreciate the beauty of their surroundings. It took getting away to see what was right in front of your face and to Tori, that was the most poetic thing she’d ever thought. For something to be such a jumbled mess while you’re in the midst of it but to be such a wondrous sight once you pull yourself from it was purely magical and seemed almost as if she were living in a fairyland.
Chapter Three
Monday met Tori with two new accounts that needed her approval and a slew of items that required her attention. The Matthews account, which had been her baby since inception but had been handed off to a junior partner, had become one of the firm’s most lucrative endeavors and now there was a problem with some of the majority investments. As she tried to make heads or tails of the information on her desk, she placed her head in her hands and released an exasperated sigh as she ran her fingers through her hair. A knock on her door pulled her from her despair and she put on a quick smile and said,
“Yes? How may I help you?” Her visitor was a bike courier and from the looks of him, he’d traveled quite a way to deliver a correspondence. She signed the small electronic tablet, he handed her a standard sized manila envelope and thanked her for her time as he ducked back out into the hallway and out of sight.
Using the letter opener on her desk, Tori fished out the paper inside and felt that there was something in the bottom of the package. As she read the typed note, she felt the color leave her face and her hands began to tremble. In bold font, were only the words,
“You aren’t safe.”
She turned the envelope upside down over her desk to find a small USB drive with no identifying markings. Curious as to what was on it but leery to open it at work, she grasped it tightly in her hand. Glancing around to see if anyone was looking in through her open door, she found everyone diligently working and paying no attention to her whatsoever. If the package had been sent from someone inside the office, surely, they would be watching for a reaction. Unsure on what to do with the drive, she decided to wait until she got home and access it from her personal computer. She watched the news and knew how easy it was for computers on a network to be accessed and hacked and felt more comfortable viewing whatever was on the drive in the privacy of her own home. If she was indeed in danger, she would have to find out why and she figured the sooner that happened, the better. She picked up the receiver to her phone and dialed 121, the extension to senior partner, Burt Pierce. Explaining that something had come up and she would be taking off for the rest of the day, Tori told Burt that she would see him in the morning and before she had even finished with their conversation, she already had her coat and purse in-hand. She dropped the USB into a small pocket of her bag and zipped it immediately before grabbing the Matthews file from her desk and heading toward the door.
It was not like Tori to spook so easily but it wasn’t exactly normal to receive such cryptic messages, either. She didn’t participate in illegal activities and had never been in trouble with the law outside of a speeding ticket when she was nineteen. If she wasn’t safe, she needed to know why. If this was all some kind of joke, she also needed to know so that she could return to her secure state of mind. Feeling vulnerable and exposed as she walked from the elevator to her car in the parking garage, she quickened her pace and fumbled with her keys in an attempt to open her lock. Her car chirped as she approached and she quickly reached for the handle so that she could enter the vehicle. It was only after closing the door that she gave a slight chuckle and said,
“You’re being ridiculous.” Turning the key in the ignition, the engine sparked to life and she listened to its quiet hum for a moment before placing the shifter into drive. After she made her way onto the street, she squinted as her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the actual world and she left the darkness of the subterranean level behind her.
She wasted no time returning home as she darted i
n and out of traffic in an attempt to reach her apartment as quickly as possible. When she almost side swiped a Buick, she let her foot off the gas pedal a bit and told herself that dying in a car accident wasn’t exactly the best way to make herself safe. The feeling of impending doom seemed to loom over her and until she found out why, there was no way that she would be able to think straight. Her building approached and she legally and carefully made her way to the far lane so that she could turn and it seemed as if time were moving in slow motion as she made her way upstairs. She held on to her keys tightly as she walked to the elevator and pressed 9, noticing the white in her knuckles. Releasing her grasp a bit, she took a breath and leaned against the back of the elevator as it slowly ascended to the ninth floor. As soon as the doors opened, Tori stepped out into the hall and turned left toward 904. Fumbling with the lock but finally managing to get it opened, she stepped into her apartment and quickly closed the door behind herself. She dropped her purse on the table and shucked off her coat so she could toss it in the closet before fishing out the USB and heading to her study.
After what seemed like an eternity, the computer was finally ready and she popped the drive into the slot on the side of the slender laptop. Making a few clicks to open folders and files, her screen was flooded with hundreds of photographs of her partner with numerous unknown individuals but she saw nothing in the barrage of pictures that she found alarming. Clicking through them hurriedly, she tried to make sense of what she was seeing but nothing was falling into place. Another folder held a familiar sight when she noticed her company’s logo on one of the transfer orders. Still, nothing was making sense and she knew that she was going to be here for a while. Kicking off her shoes with a slight grunt, she picked up the laptop and walked to the kitchen so that she could brew a pot of coffee. Her java jolt from earlier had long worn off and she needed the extra kick to throw her brain into gear. She sifted through the information as she waited for the joe to brew. Each document had something to do with The Pierce Group but it seemed to be an indirect connection but she couldn’t quite put the pieces together. Taking a break from the screen to pour herself a cup of the freshly brewed aromatic blend, it hit her like a bolt of lightning from the heavens and she rushed back to her laptop.
She found that each company that was being used to make deposits into an offshore account had been obtained through a cash transaction but not by The Pierce Group. The Pierce Group was being used as a front for many smaller businesses and the only reason she could come up with for that was to illegally launder cash. Looking further into the proof before her and using her trusty calculator from college, she rapidly pecked in the numbers from various reports and ledgers finding that the totals from one always equaled the other. Burt had been using the firm to acquire failing businesses and pour cash through them for a small percent, allowing the money to be clean and therefore filed with the IRS, avoiding tax evasion. Sitting back in her chair, she sipped coffee and ran her fingers through her hair but a small strand by her eye fall right back into place, anyway. Now, all she had to do was figure out what any of this had to do with her and what all this had to do with her safety.
Who was the man in most of the photographs? If she could figure that out then maybe she could protect herself from whatever may be coming in her direction. It was possible that Burt Pierce had bitten off more than he could chew and all his associates were deemed guilty by association. She had to know for sure just what she was dealing with so she dove in headfirst through what seemed an endless file of pictures. Wondering if she could come up with anything by placing his photo into the search engine on her computer to come up with any matches, she opened a browser and dragged a close-up to the box and pressed enter. The man was balding with white hair and it seemed as if hundreds of different faces appeared before her on the screen but this man had particularly disturbing eyes. They were so blue they seemed to glow and his gaze sent a shiver up her spine. As she scrolled, she saw the eyes from the photo staring back at her and she clicked the image. There was a link attached so she opened it and saw a news headline that read: Russian Mob Boss Acquitted of all Charges.
She let out a gasp and placed her hand over her mouth in response to the alarming headline. Tori read that Alexi Patrov had been on trial for the murder of a business associate but after a mishandling of evidence, it was declared that there wasn’t enough against him to convict. Now that she had a name, she typed it into the search engine so that she could find out all she could.
Having a man like this on your bad side is not something that the everyday, average woman wants or needs in her life and she hoped that she could manage to find out how to keep herself out of both prison and an early grave. She needed someone to help her with all this because even if she figured out how she was involved, she still had no way to figure out how to get out of this mess. Calling the only person that came to mind, she began rambling as soon as Easton answered the phone. The more he told her to calm down and speak rationally the more she told him that he didn’t understand and that she was in danger.
“I’ll be over there in an hour. Okay? Just make sure your doors are locked and don’t go anywhere.” She heard his phone go silent and she tapped the screen of her own before tossing it on the counter. Making sure the door was locked, she twisted the knob then unlocked and re-bolted the deadlock. Tori plopped down on the couch but it wasn’t half a minute later she hopped back up and drew the curtains. The anxiety of not knowing was eating her alive and she noticed that she had started to sweat.
“Oh, great. Just calm the hell down, already,” she said out loud to her empty apartment. Laughing to herself, Tori took in a deep breath and calmly looked at her computer again. The more she looked, the more she understood about the intricacies of her partner’s illegal goings on but she still couldn’t find anything implicating herself. None of the orders held her signatures nor came from her department and she couldn’t find a single photograph of herself in the endless images. Whoever took the pictures must have followed Burt to each and every meeting he ever had with Patrov and was diligent about his work. From the looks of some of the pictures, this had been going on for quite some time because there were pictures of Burt from when he still had a beard.
On Burt’s desk, there sat a family portrait in a mahogany frame and smiling proudly in the center of his wife, son and labradoodle, was a bearded Burt. She’d inquired about the facial hair once before, stating that he looked so much different and what had changed his mind about growing it. He had told her that it just didn’t suit his image anymore once he started getting noticed so the responsible adult inside him made him shave. Tori had been working for him for almost five years now and in all that time, she’d not known him to even keep a five o’clock shadow so the activity must have been going on since before she even knew him. There was no way she was going to allow herself to be implicated in any of these actions and maybe Easton could help her calm down and figure out this mess.
Chapter Four
The knock on her door startled her but she knew that it was probably just Easton since it had been a little over an hour since she called him. Not taking any chances, she looked through the peephole and saw his handsome face. She’d almost forgotten how good-looking he was after not seeing him for so long but it all came back to her as soon as she opened the door. He flashed his charming smile as he stepped inside and kissed her on the cheek. Placing his hand on her hip seemed like the natural thing to do but it made Tori’s heart race. It had to be the adrenaline from her recent discovery that had her all twisted up inside so she offered him a cup of coffee and invited him into the apartment. Trying to explain what she thought was going on without sounding insane was more difficult than she realized as she started rambling like a madwoman. Easton sat on her sofa with his legs crossed, sipping his coffee and trying to follow what she was saying without interrupting her too much. He knew that she was a rational woman and that if she thought there was a problem, he should at least hear what she
had to say. He’d butt in intermittently with a question or clarifying remark but mostly she went on and on about photos of Russians and shady businesses or those that didn’t exist at all.
“So, what you’re telling me is that Pierce is in with some Russians and now he’s taking you down with him?” She threw her hands up in the air with a contended expression and sighed,
“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m telling you. The note just says that I’m not safe but I don’t know if that means from the Russians or the cops or my damn job security! I’m so confused and I wish I wasn’t so smart so at least I wouldn’t know what was going on but I’m flipping brilliant and I can’t stop my brain from putting all these pieces together and coming up with my grave.” He moved towards her on the couch and placed his arm around her, pulling her in for a warm and secure embrace. As she laid her head on his chest, she couldn’t help but breathe in the intoxicating scent of his cologne. Closing her eyes, she allowed him to hold her for a moment. It had been so long since she’d been held, she lied to herself for a brief moment and told her mind that she was in the arms of a comforting lover. Her heart began to race and she pulled away from him before she started to blush.
“I’m sure everything is fine and that you’ve let your imagination get the best of you.” She raised her head and said,
“Did I mention that some of the pictures show the Russian blowing off people’s heads?” He raised his eyebrows and took in a breath as she sat back on the couch but he left his arm around her shoulders.