At the Brink

by Anna del Mar

  I hadn’t lied to her when I told her I thrived on challenges. The idea of this one in particular thrilled me. My pride was also in the way. Nobody screwed with me. And my lust... Fine, I couldn’t deny that the dark part of me was in full play, but I’d been truthful about that too. I wanted Lily, I believed she wanted me, and once I set a goal, I always hit it.

  Martin claimed Lily hadn’t come home since our meeting. I, of course, knew exactly where Lily was. She’d stayed with her girlfriend for the last two nights. Monday and Tuesday she had gone to work at the coffee shop and then the restaurant. Today, Theon Riker, my chief security officer, reported she was teaching at the community center.

  Riker had conducted further research and surveillance on Lily. It was part of his standard security protocol, but I also wanted him to assess her situation. He confirmed her financial liabilities, but no criminal or civil offenses, nothing that could explain Poe’s stranglehold. I’d asked him to keep eyes on Lily in addition to gathering info. I needed to know she was okay.

  I’d been rough on Lily. If nothing else, the panic attack was confirmation of that. I’d gone after what I wanted in the only way I knew, using all the resources at my disposal, a frontal attack. But Lily was a fundamentally decent person with a strong set of values. I couldn’t expect her to understand the merits of my proposal or how my world worked.

  And yet despite her initial reaction, Lily had impressed me. She had the mettle of a combat swimmer and the mental toughness of a trained operator. She’d surmounted her fears and listened to everything I had to say. She had even overcome a panic attack. Her courage was real and unusual.

  My cell beeped again. Emails and texts flew on all fronts. I was closing three mergers, juggling negotiations for several acquisitions, and evaluating no fewer than a dozen projects. And yet my mind wandered, daydreaming about the possibilities, caught in a sequence of erotic mirages that would have sent prim and proper Lily screeching out the door.

  The odds were against me on this one and yet when I thought of Lily, something old and battered heartened in me, echoes of the optimist I’d once been. In that spirit, the contingency thinker in me shot off a few emails giving directions to make preliminary arrangements, just in case the odds turned in my favor. The control freak in me fought a constant urge to call Lily. I knew she had to make this decision freely and by herself.

  Riker marched into my office and parked his hefty, six-foot-five-inch frame on the chair across from my desk. Riker contrasted in every way with Thomas Stratton, who trailed behind him and plopped down on the sofa, carrying a pile of papers, and looking even more scrawny and spooked than usual.

  “What?” I said testily.

  “We’ve just repelled a massive cyber attack on our servers,” Riker said.

  Jesus Christ. “Damage report?”

  “Assessment is still in progress,” Riker said, “but so far, we’re in the clear.”

  “Did they go for the technology database again?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Source?”

  “The attack came through several European servers, but we tracked it back to Shanghai.”

  “China,” I muttered. “Did you call the State Department?”

  “They’ve been alerted, and so has the FBI department of cyber investigations.”

  “Those sons of bitches really get a high out of rattling our cage, don’t they?”

  “Yes, sir,” Riker said. “It’s like they want to rile us while trying to steal our technology.”

  “Did the encoded drone engage?”

  “We think it did, sir. It certainly grabbed onto the trail. If it makes it back to the source, it should establish a solid infection chain, bounce back some interesting information and do some damage. If not, someone in the chain, somewhere in Eastern Europe probably, is going to get their servers fried.”

  Knowing that we weren’t just sitting ducks for these global thugs gave me some satisfaction. I’d learned the hard way that holding back and taking shit never helped. The best defense was an active offense.

  “What else?” I said when Riker didn’t get up.

  “I want to add another agent to your personal security detail.”

  “That’s a no.” I stood up and paced to the window. “I can take care of myself. You’ve got the house, the office, the routes, the car and all my activities covered. I hired you to secure Phoenix Prime, not to babysit me.”

  “Hear him out,” Thomas said from his perch at the couch.

  “We’ve intercepted that Shepard psycho out of Seattle trying to infiltrate the building twice this week,” Riker said.

  “Didn’t we fire him for conduct unbecoming?”

  “Yes, sir,” Riker said. “But’s he’s damn determined to ‘talk’ to you about his chemical energy formulation, which makes that Smith and Wesson he carried unnecessary in my view.”

  “It’s no match for a trained Sig Sauer MK25.”

  Riker rolled his eyes.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m not worrying and neither should you. Did you send Shepard back to Seattle?”

  “He’s at Nashua Street at the moment, courtesy of your friend the police commissioner. He’s got a while to go, something about a mental health evaluation.”

  “So he’s out of circulation,” I said. “You can go back to snoring soundly.”

  “With all due respect,” Riker said, “we’ve got too many bleeps on the radar. There’s also that Muslim cleric, that Taliban piece of shit Shah, who wants atonement for the war.”

  “Shah is all bluster and newspapers.” I checked my phone messages. “He’s all about getting attention.”

  “That may be the case,” Riker said, “but he sure likes to focus his hateful rhetoric on you. The mayor giving you the Patriot’s Award last year didn’t help.”

  “That was a major clusterfuck.” I had gone into the mayor’s office to talk about the need for improved health care services for veterans and ended up blindsided, standing on the steps of city hall, receiving an award that revealed to the world I’d commanded special operations troops in Afghanistan, in front of the very herd of journalists and hangers-on that I avoided at all cost.

  Riker wasn’t done. “There’s also those fuckers who go around protesting the war by targeting military funerals and decorated veterans like you.”

  “They haven’t been back, have they?”

  “A couple of them tried last week.” Riker stared at his fingernails. “The boys and I took care of them.”

  “Jesus, Riker,” I said. “That’s what the police are for.”

  Riker scoffed. “The police’s hands are tied to their dicks with barbed wire, if you ask me. It’s too much goddamn paperwork for them to arrest those dipshits.”

  “You need a Xanax.”

  “With all due respect, you need an additional friendly on your protective detail.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, returning to my chair. “Now go make sure that this latest cyber-attack didn’t net anything for those fuckers. Keep me in the loop. I want to know if we blow up anybody.”

  “Yes, sir,” Riker said, vacating the chair.

  Thomas got up from the couch and took over Riker’s chair. “Listen to Riker,” he said. “He’s good.”

  “The best,” I said. “It’s why I hired him. What’s up with you, Thomas?”

  “Martin Poe just called,” he said. “What’s the status on his project?”

  “I’m still thinking about it.”

  “Any idea of when you’ll know?”

  “Soon.”

  “You need to sign these.” Thomas placed a pile of documents on my desk. “Who will you put in charge of the WindTech project if you decided to go with it?”

  “That’s putting the cart before the horse.” I be
gan to sign, but Thomas was right. I had a duty to my investors. I would not compromise their interests. If I took on WindTech, I owed them profit and they would have it.

  “Sylvia Acosta might be a good project manager for WindTech,” I said. “She’s sharp. She’ll keep an eye on Poe and derail his scams. Give her the heads up, but tell her it’s not for sure.”

  My phone beeped, announcing the arrival of yet another text. I glanced at the screen. My heartbeat accelerated.

  “Everything all right?” Thomas asked, pausing at the door.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You look a little anxious. You’ve been working 24-7. Are you sure you’re feeling well?”

  “I’m fine.” I dismissed him with a wave.

  My usually reliable fingers fumbled like greasy sausages on the keypad. It might have been hilarious if I hadn’t been so nervous. I felt jittery, like a teenager asking a girl out to prom for the first time. I was pretty sure Lily was going to tell me to go to hell, where Dante would add a new circle for depraved lechers to accommodate my damned soul.

  There were no words to her text. The shot was out of focus, but the picture on the screen was a work of art. Lily, standing in front of an oval mirror, holding up her new cell, the one she’d accepted from me despite her misgivings. In the picture, she wore a matching pair of panties and a bra—black lace. Her lips were set in a grim line. Her eyes betrayed a kind of somber resignation. It was sweet. This was Lily’s version of a compromising photo.

  The smile on my lips wilted. Even a son of a bitch like me understood how difficult this was for her. I felt like a jerk asking this of Lily, but I didn’t see any way around it. Perhaps if the situation involved only me, I could’ve assumed the risks without the need for old-fashioned insurance. But it wasn’t just me. My methods were crass and far from gentle but necessary to the success of my plan.

  The photo may have been inadequate, but her efforts were encouraging. I punched in her number and waited while the phone rang one, two, three, four times and still nothing. If this went through, she’d require an awful lot of work. I had a vision of her cowering in a corner and the phone hissing like a rattlesnake at her feet. She picked up somewhere around the eighth ring.

  “Yes?”

  “You need to pick up your phone right away when I call, one ring, no more. Do you understand?”

  “I was in the kitchen.”

  “Then you’ll have to keep the phone with you at all times. Otherwise, this isn’t going to work for me.”

  “Um, okay.”

  “I got your text,” I said. “It’s a beautiful picture, Lily. I really like it, but it won’t do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I like having it, but it’s not what we talked about. You’ve got to send me something else, something definitive, something that would prove to my attorneys in a worst case scenario that you were a willing partner. Something that tells me that you really want to do this.”

  “Mr. Lane?”

  “Call me Josh, Lily.”

  “Josh?” She hesitated. “You and your attorneys, you’re all crazy. You’re screwed up.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “but that’s the way things have to be when you’re me.”

  “I don’t understand what you want.”

  “Lewd, Lily. A sequence of pictures, a video clip would be even better, something obviously compromising, something that would make people gasp.”

  Silence. Then, “I don’t think I can do that.”

  “You’re wasting time,” I said. “Come Friday, it’ll be too late. Go do it now. Yes?”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’m late. I have to go to work. I can’t just blow off Vinnie after he gave me the hours when I needed them most.”

  Christ, but she was stubborn. “Vinnie will be fine. You, on the other hand, are not going to be fine unless we can finalize our agreement.”

  “I know, okay? I’ll try. That’s all I can promise right now. Good-bye.”

  The phone clicked. The line went dead. She was obviously very upset. I was trained to reason above emotion, but it was very different for Lily. Time was running out and I didn’t know if she could overcome her fears.

  The intercom on the desk phone rang. “Mr. Lane,” Alice’s voice announced. “Your four o’clock meeting is set to start.”

  I made my way to the conference room, chiding myself, waging a battle between my noble self and my darker instincts. Why was I so damn set on getting Lily Boswell to my bed?

  Because she was Lily, that’s why. Because she, who was willing to defend others, wasn’t able to defend herself.

  Was she playing hard to get? I dismissed the idea—she wasn’t capable of playing those kinds of games. No, there wasn’t a scheming bone in her body.

  The problem was that the agreement I had proposed went against her grain. She was too modest for pictures, too self-conscious to show off her beauty, too fearful to reveal her true self and too wary to trust anyone, including me. She was all instinct and reaction, and all of those factors combined made her irresistible to me.

  * * *

  At forty-three, Ernest Chamberlain was a hunter in his prime. Known as the Lion of Wall Street, his family name, fortune and Ivy League education had positioned him for early success. I had to admit his company’s record-breaking profits impressed.

  I gripped Ernest’s firm hand and took my seat at the head of the table. I faced a formidable opponent, a greedy son of a bitch who lusted after my business and was loyal only to the mighty dollar. Chamberlain typified a certain kind of raider, the entrenched, powerful alpha, confident, arrogant and self-assured. I was just a Navy brat, but in many ways, Ernest Chamberlain reminded me of—well—me.

  Ernest’s green eyes fixed on me as he ramped up the charm right away, buttering me up before unveiling his proposal. I forced myself to focus on the numbers he presented.

  “It’s win-win.” Ernest flashed a set of brightly whitened teeth. “You get all of the benefits of being in the public market, without incurring the expenses and regulatory hassles of going public. Your capabilities triple in size, your access to capital quadruples and your global presence expands. It’s a no-brainer.”

  “Except for a couple of details,” I said. “First, as you well know, we work with a limited number of qualified investors, a very specific set, whose interests would surely be diluted by your expansive clientele. Second, I like my independence. I value my flexibility and these would be the first casualties of joining you.”

  “Working with me isn’t so bad.” Ernest waved his manicured fingers in the air. “Ask any of these fine gentlemen sitting in this room. Perhaps we can add some additional profit to entice you.”

  “It’s really not about money for me.”

  “I know you’re a workaholic,” Ernest said. “We would keep you very busy doing some very interesting stuff.”

  “You’re missing the point,” I said. “I don’t like to be told what to do and I don’t share my toys well.”

  “You sound like a toddler.”

  “I also bite when I get cranky.”

  Everybody in the room laughed. I looked at my watch. I’d allotted an hour to this meeting and it had already lasted two. I tapped my fingers on the table.

  “Surely there are others in your company that would see the benefit of this merger.” Ernest adjusted his silk tie. “Thomas, you’ve been at this for many years. What do you think?”

  “It’s Josh’s call,” Thomas said. “All of us at Phoenix Prime will support his decision.”

  “I tell you what,” Ernest said. “How about if I throw in some generous contributions to the Healing Warrior Development Fund, the Rubicon Project and the Houses for Heroes Program?”

  Son of a bitch. As if the obscene offer wasn’t enough, now he
was trying to bribe me with charity. I refused to sell out my investors. “The answer is no, Ernest.”

  “But...”

  I was done listening. Instead, I glanced at my phone, scrolling down my texts. My heartbeat tripped. There it was, a new text from Lily.

  “Time to call it a day.” I ended the meeting, riling Ernest but managing a quick exit. I’d fended off one assault. Now it was time to launch a new offensive.

  I clicked on Lily’s text as soon as I got into my private elevator. Her efforts brought another smile to my face. Was this her definition of outrageous? She stood in front of the same mirror again, but this time without her bra, shielding her nipples with one hand while taking the picture with the other. At the bottom of the picture she’d added one word.

  Please.

  I’ll admit that I found the picture provocative, but only because it was Lily. I’ll also admit to another hard-on, but that’s because I was in the grip of a major obsession. What should have been a simple requirement was turning out to be a monumental feat. That’s what I got for deviating from both my mission and my usual uncomplicated type. But the thought of giving up now was inconceivable.

  It pays to be a winner.

  With a muted chime, my private elevator doors slid open at the lower garage level to reveal my favorite sedan—a custom silver Audi S8—and my driver, Amman, holding open the passenger side door. I settled into the back seat, pulled up the last report I had from Riker and punched in the address into my cell’s GPS.

  “Back Bay?” Amman said, buckling into the driver’s seat and starting the car.

  “No,” I said. “Head to the North End.”

  Twenty minutes later, we parked on a narrow street across from Vinnie’s Italian Diner. I asked Amman to wait and went inside. It was late and the dinner rush was over. The restaurant’s booths were empty and only a couple of locals lingered at the bar. I took off my jacket and, after loosening my tie, sat in one of the diner’s back booths.

  The black giant who came to take my order was Vinnie himself, very different from the little Italian grandpa I’d expected.

  “Yo, friend, what can I get you?” Vinnie spoke in a thick Cajun accent.