Executive Perks

by Angela Claire

  “Brian.” Virginia halted at the entrance to her office. Her tone was a cross between surprise and annoyance. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here because this Nazi secretary of yours here will never put me through to you and you don’t return my calls.”

  Virginia’s assistant typed on her computer, pretending not to hear.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Have you called me, Brian? I apologize. I’ve been pretty busy.”

  “Yeah, running an empire and all. I know how high and mighty you are. Christ, if Nora wasn’t so scared of her own little sister, I wouldn’t even have to be doing this.”

  Aaron tried to place the names. A relative apparently.

  Whether the guy was deliberately belligerent in order to gain entrance to her office and more privacy or whether he was just that way all the time, Aaron couldn’t guess. But if he was trying to get a private audience with her, it worked. Virginia shot a cautious look at her secretary and then said, “Come on in, Brian.”

  She ushered him in, then gestured to Aaron to follow. “No need to wait out here, Aaron. This won’t take a minute.”

  Aaron followed her cue and took a seat on one of the couches in her office, as Virginia assumed a place behind her desk.

  “Aaron?” Brian seemed to notice him for the first time. “What the hell is Aaron Winston doing here, Virginia, and why the hell are you on first-name basis with him?”

  Virginia took the metaphorical gloves off. “None of your business, Brian. Now what is this all about? If it’s a bigger allowance, I’ve told you before, I don’t handle that. The dividends go to Nora. It’s her stock. What she does with them is her own business. I have nothing to do with it.”

  “Bullshit. You run everything around here. You know you do. If it wasn’t for you and your damned obsession with this company, Nora would’ve sold her stock years ago like I wanted her to and we wouldn’t be nickel and diming it with the fucking dividends. We’d have some real money.”

  “I don’t call over a million dollars a year nickel and diming it, Brian. Not to mention, you know Nora has her own money, just as I do and all the Becketts do. Our father made sure of it. She doesn’t need to sell her stock.”

  “Yeah and your father made sure I couldn’t touch it and wouldn’t get a penny of it if we divorce either.”

  Aaron supposed it was some kind of progress in whatever screwed up relationship he had with Virginia that she was allowing him to hear all this. If a corporate raider wanted to find a weak link in the Beckett family chain, this guy was prime material. He wondered when it was that he had stopped worrying about taking over BFD and started worrying about the wellbeing of its current owner. About the time of the murdered girl maybe or before that?

  Virginia looked her deadbeat brother-in-law square in the eyes and said calmly, “I have to be honest with you, Brian. This kind of frantic behavior on your part confirms what I’ve been suspecting for some time. You’re using again. And if that’s the case, it’s understandable that Nora would be reluctant to supply you with the means with which to support your habit. You need help.”

  Brian reared out of the chair he’d barely just taken. “You tight-assed little—”

  Time to intervene. Aaron stood up and grabbed the guy’s arm to pull him away from Virginia’s desk. “Hey, calm down.”

  The bloodshot eyes that stared back suggested Virginia wasn’t far off the mark. Her brother-in-law was on something all right. He shrugged out of Aaron’s hold indignantly, straightening that garish tie.

  “A couple of joints a day and some coke is not ‘using’ to anybody but one of you killjoy Becketts. I came here to tell you that Nora is going to ask you about an investment opportunity that we have in a casino in Reno and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell her you think it’s a good idea. That’s it. No fucking graphs and present value crap. It’s a good idea. Just tell her.”

  With that, he stormed out, not bothering to close the door. Aaron did it for him and then sat in the chair Brian had vacated. “Nice guy.”

  Virginia, still seated behind the desk, leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. “He’s not always like that. At one point, a long time ago by now I guess, he was pretty brilliant. He had a lot of promise.”

  “With what? Meth labs?”

  “Computers. We all thought he was going to be the next Bill Gates. I actually haven’t seen him for a while. I was worried this was why. He usually tries to stay away from the family when he’s like that. It’s just…it’s just sad. They have three kids, teenagers. I know that’s why Nora tries to stick it out.”

  “That guy’s a lost cause. Trust me. I’ve had a lot of experience with that.”

  The door opened again and this time it was Brendan. He shut it behind him.

  “What’s going on, Virginia? Some cop showed up, asking questions and flashing pictures of some poor dead girl. I thought Uncle Victor was going to have a heart attack.”

  “Detective Baker was here?”

  “Yeah, that was his name.” Brendan nodded cautiously at Aaron as he sat in the chair next to him. “And no offense, Winston, but what the hell are you doing here?”

  Virginia filled him in on what happened. Not the hot sex part, of course, but the fake texts, the funeral home, the dead girl.

  “God, what is going on?” Brendan asked again after the whole explanation. “Do the police have any ideas?”

  “Yeah, they think it was me,” Aaron said.

  Again, some measure of progress that Brendan laughed, though why he didn’t suspect him—why Virginia didn’t either, apparently—was a mystery to him.

  “And that I’m in on it, of course,” Virginia added.

  That did not get a laugh out of Brendan. “Really? Maybe we should call Minlow, Virginia.”

  “Why? He doesn’t know anything about criminal law.”

  “I’ll call Rye. He doesn’t do criminal law himself, but I know he has contacts.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Virginia acknowledged.

  “And not to point out the obvious here,” Aaron pointed out the obvious, “but if we’re looking for somebody who’s bent on causing Virginia trouble, I’d say your brother-in-law there looks like a pretty good candidate.”

  “Brian?” That Brendan had no trouble discerning which brother-in-law Aaron was referencing was telling.

  “Yes, he was just here.”

  “Christ, why didn’t anybody tell me? Could this morning get any worse?”

  “Look on the bright side. We haven’t found any bodies yet.” Aaron pulled out his cell phone. “Is there somewhere where I can call Rye and fill him in? I want to get him started on finding a criminal lawyer right away.”

  * * * * *

  Rye’s silence on the other end of the line was daunting. Rye almost never shut up. Finally, he said, “That’s hard to believe, Aaron.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. But that’s the truth.” Aaron fiddled with the bottom of the tie he’d let Virginia pick out for him this morning. Although why he was even wearing a tie, he had no idea. Getting any work done, even if he did manage to coast into the office with all he had on his mind, was just not happening.

  He tugged on the conventional dark-blue-on-light-blue striped fabric. Hell, he had to admit it. He had just wanted to see Virginia perform a little conventional domestic ritual for him and was oddly thrilled when she did so. Funny, he’d always thought if he hooked up with a girl, really hooked up with her, it would be some model or other airhead, or a woman like Julie, who wasn’t but would be more than willing to play the role of lady of leisure if he married her.

  Virginia Beckett was never going to be that type.

  He yanked on the tie. Permanently hooking up? Jesus, what was he thinking? He tried to hone back in on what Rye was saying. “What?”

  “I said okay. So I guess we should get a PR firm on this, be ready to make a statement if it gets leaked you’re involved. The stock might take a hit.”<
br />
  Aaron sat up in the conference room chair of the room Brendan had ushered him into in order to make the call. “I’m not worried about my portfolio right now. More like my neck. Who’s the best criminal lawyer for this kind of thing? I want to make sure we have some representation when and if we get questioned by the police again.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, me and Virginia.”

  “Even if I take it as a given that your claim to not be seeing Virginia Beckett was exaggerated—”

  “Or outdated.”

  “Whatever. No matter what you got going with her, you need separate counsel.”

  “Why?”

  “I shouldn’t have to explain this to you, Aaron. Your interests could obviously diverge. You don’t know what she might not be telling you, for one thing.”

  Aaron laughed. “Please. She’s a girl scout. And I mean that in a good way,” he added hastily.

  “Don’t underestimate Virginia Beckett. She’s tough as nails.”

  “I don’t see her murdering anybody, Rye. As a matter of fact, given our respective bios, she’d be more justified in suspecting me.”

  “How do you know she doesn’t?”

  * * * * *

  Phil Carstairs was just getting into a groove with Juanita, about to justify the price of this apartment he paid the rent on for her. Her smooth, light-brown skin was flushed with her exertion as he bent her over a kitchen chair and fed his cock into her from behind, a little at a time.

  Right up her nice, tight ass. She groaned.

  “Relax,” he snapped, slapping one of her butt cheeks lightly. And obedient as ever, the girl did. He slid his dick farther in and this time it was he who groaned. He leaned over to get the full experience, palming one of her full, heavy boobs as her back door muscles gripped him. The girl Juanita got to join them sometimes had not been available this afternoon and Phil was still a little disappointed. He tweaked one big dark nipple.

  “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was here to suck your tits while I fuck you?”

  She muttered something in Spanish.

  “In English,” he demanded, moving to pluck the other nipple.

  “Yes,” she moaned.

  “That wasn’t what you said.” She didn’t deny it as he buried himself up to his balls in her sweet, plump butt. He’d used a lot of lube, shooting the tube right up her asshole before they got started and then coating his cock with it for good measure. She was such a baby if he didn’t. Crying that it hurt before he’d barely gotten the head of his cock past that first tight circle of muscles. Christ.

  But she seemed to take it okay today, the lube making the ride slick and comparatively easy. His fingers wandered down to her pussy, which was drenched, the little whore. Sliding his fingers up her cunt as he slid his dick up her ass felt so damn good. “Or your girlfriend could eat out this sweet cunt while I fucked you. How about that?”

  Again, with the Spanish, of which he could not understand a fucking word, except one. Edurado seemed to jump out of her mutterings.

  He paused. “Eduardo? Who the fuck’s Eduardo?” She glanced over her shoulder back at him.

  “Nobody, baby,” she said. He always marveled that her accent was pure Queens, not a trace of Mexican or Cuban or whatever the hell she was, and yet she could rattle off that Spanish crap like nothing.

  “You just said it. Eduardo. Clear as day.” He rammed his cock harder up her butt in sync with his fingers, three of them now, stuffed up her roomy cunt. “He some asshole you fucking on the side?”

  She moaned and closed her eyes again, gripping the arms of the chair. Bizarrely, though, the thought of another guy fucking his mistress somehow mixed up with his own fucking her now and he found himself as turned on by the idea as he had always been when he paid that little whore to join them.

  Yeah, a ripped, dark-haired greaser type, like that what’s-his-name who delivered sandwiches sometimes, a sulky frown on his smooth features as he took your twenty bucks and made change. Phil bet that type had a sweet ass of his own.

  He rammed his cock faster. “You want this Eduardo fucking your hot, wet pussy while I take care of your ass, Juanita?”

  She squealed and erupted into a torrent of Spanish.

  “Or maybe you want to suck this Eduardo’s cock, while I bury my own cock in his ass. You want that?’

  He thrust one last time, pouring his hot cum into her butthole, or into the condom up her butthole anyway, since the bitch always made him wear one.

  Panting, he pulled his wilting cock out of her and wandered into the bedroom.

  He wondered if she made Eduardo wear a rubber.

  She followed him after a minute.

  Depositing the spent condom onto the floor, he stretched out on his back on her fleabag bed. “Bring those big tits of yours over here, Juanita. I want a tittie sandwich before I go.” At least that was one thing she let him do without the condom.

  Obligingly, she straddled his lap, leaning over to pillow his cock, just perking up again, with the big soft mounds.

  Just as he was feeling into it enough to maybe come again, her cell phone rang. “Ignore it,” Phil ordered.

  Juanita looked at the phone on the nightstand, still ringing. “It could be about Marissa. I left her with my mom and she gets kind of, I don’t know. Maybe I should answer it just in case.”

  Juanita’s big brown eyes stared up at him. Once she got it into her head that kid of hers needed something, there was no getting it out. Phil’s cock began to shrivel as she climbed off him and scrambled to the phone. Bad enough he had to plan his visits around when she could get a babysitter, but to have the little brat interfere even then was more than he could take.

  He idly thought of that new waitress who worked with Juanita. Blonde. Big tits. A little hard-looking, but Phil liked that sometimes. He wondered if she had kids.

  Juanita spoke in Spanish when she picked the phone up, but then switched to English. “What? Who is this…? All right.”

  She handed the phone out to him. Oh shit, had Marilou somehow gotten Juanita’s number and tracked him down?

  He shook his head furiously at Juanita, but she said, “It’s some guy. Says to tell you that you’ll want to talk to him.”

  Phil knew immediately who it was. Christ, did the guy have a tracker on him or something? This was getting too weird. He’d just tell the guy to fuck off, but by now, frankly, he was a little afraid of this disembodied voice, whoever he was.

  “Yeah?” he said into the phone.

  “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  The question sounded comical relayed through the voice distorter. Phil resisted the impulse to laugh.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “The girl? Who told you to kill the girl?”

  “What girl?”

  “The funeral home. You were just supposed to plant the cameras and lock them in. Why did you kill the girl, you bastard?”

  Now this was really weird. “Virginia Beckett’s dead?” He hadn’t heard anything on the news. Strange. “I didn’t kill her!”

  “Not Virginia. The other girl. Samantha.”

  “Who’s Samantha?”

  “You didn’t—”

  “Look, I planted the cameras. I arranged for the doors to lock and that’s it. I don’t know anything about some dead girl.”

  Click.

  Juanita looked at him speculatively, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms around knees. “You gave someone my number?”

  “What? Christ, no. Of course not.”

  “What dead girl?”

  “You got a newspaper around this dump?”

  * * * * *

  He switched off the voice distorter and hung up the phone. God, this was all going so very wrong. He’d only meant to cause enough trouble to get that little bitch off her high-and-mighty throne. And now this.

  Samantha.

  He couldn’t even think of it. How could Samantha have gotten mixed up in all this? Could she h
ave heard something at some point and decided to investigate? What had happened then?

  The sight of her white lifeless face reared up in his head and to shut it off, he turned back to the recording on his computer and switched it on play.

  “I’m going to take care of you, baby,” he heard Winston murmur.

  That hadn’t taken long.

  No, he’d take care of Virginia Beckett. Somehow this was all her fault. Now, with the police involved, they’d probably find the cameras too. Oh well, no matter how incompetent that moron who’d placed the cameras might be, there was nothing that could be traced to him.

  He watched the little hypocrite on the screen moan as Winston really got started on her.

  It was disgusting.

  He pressed send, thinking of Samantha. About now, he could kill Virginia Beckett himself.

  * * * * *

  When Aaron came back into the office and resumed his seat next to Brendan, Virginia was just about finished with checking her email, a near compulsive habit with her. When she saw the most recent one, she gasped.

  “I got another email.”

  “Yeah?” Aaron looked intrigued.

  “It says it’s from you, Aaron. And it’s got an attachment.”

  Brendan looked uncertainly between them while Aaron said, “Whoever this is, he seems to be able to hijack our computers somehow and send things out that seem to be from us. Obviously, I didn’t just send Virginia something.”

  “You were in the other room with your BlackBerry,” Brendan pointed out.

  Virginia shook her head. “It’s from him. Not him—” She nodded at Aaron. “Him. Whoever this is who’s doing this.”

  “Don’t open it, then,” Brendan cautioned, coming around behind her.

  “Too late. I just did.” She glanced at Aaron, still seated. “It says attached is a present.”