Dirty Ties

by Pam Godwin

  I drew in a steady breath, recalling what my mother said when I broke my arm the first time. When I cried like a sissy and demanded she sell my sportbike. When I threatened to never ride again.

  She grabbed my helmet, my arm flopping painfully at my side, and growled through her teeth, “If you don’t wake up every morning scared out of your mind, you aren’t working hard enough, you aren’t fighting, and you aren’t living. You will get back on that bike.”

  She’d been right. Arm in a cast, I was on that bike the next day and every day after, welcoming the fear with each new climb of the sun.

  The phone on the desk buzzed. Alicia snatched the handset before it completed the first note of the ring tone. “Yes, Mr. Anderson.”

  Her eyes sparked, a curious change from the lazy, wanton looks she’d rolled my way for the past ten minutes. “No. There’s one more appointment before lunch. He’s waiting now.” A pause. “Thank you, sir.”

  Returning the phone to the cradle, she rose and sliced her gaze to me. “Mr. Anderson will see you now.”

  I took my sweet-ass time gathering my messenger bag, rising to my feet, and strolling toward her, all the while hoping and dreading I’d pass Kaci in the hallway.

  Alicia watched my movements, her eyes hardening when they landed on my Converse sneakers.

  Fuck her. I refused to own a pair of loafers, couldn’t imagine shoving my feet into something so pretentious. The suit was bad enough.

  When she raised her eyes, I winked. Her breath caught, her judgment scattering into flushed surprise.

  “Right this way, Mr. Smith.” She turned on her strappy heels and sashayed down the hall. The deliberate swing in her hips was all for me. Maybe I would’ve ogled her ass under different circumstances, but she worked for Trent and given what I knew about his employees, I suspected that ass had been spread for him more times than I cared to think about.

  The corridor behind Alicia’s desk led deeper into Trent’s wing. Kaci probably reigned over her own wing on the other side of the building. But if she were meeting with Trent, our paths could cross.

  At the end of the main hall, I followed Alicia through heavy double doors. No Kaci. I refused to examine why my chest shrunk with disappointment.

  The oversized name plaque on the wall was coated in glossy lacquer and reeked of arrogance. Much like the extravagant real estate that made up Trent’s office, the bold cityscape beyond the wall of windows, the leather couches, the wet bar sparkling with crystal tumblers, and the man perched behind the monstrous desk.

  This would be my office as soon as tomorrow, and I despised it. Despised him.

  He didn’t bother standing, simply waved a hand at the armchair across from him without looking up from the screen on his phone. “Have a seat.”

  I lowered into the chair and straightened my suit jacket as Alicia slid a folder before him.

  “Mr. Anderson,” she purred, cocking a hip beside him, “this is Logan Smith. Candidate for the Senior Vice President in the Technology Division.” She tapped the folder. “His résumé, sir.”

  He flicked his eyes to her, one brow lifted. “I don’t conduct interviews, Miss Murphy. What is this?”

  Benny had been right about Trent not preparing for meetings. Evidently, he didn’t even look at his schedule.

  “It…it was on your calendar.” Her chin lowered, her fingers twitching against her tight skirt. “I should’ve checked with you, sir. I apologize for the error.”

  It was on his calendar because Benny put it there.

  I cleared my throat, effectively capturing their attention. “Miss Murphy, please collect the other board members. We have some family business to discuss.”

  Her eyes widened at my audacity, and Trent’s shoulders stiffened. The skin around his thin lips tightened, his phone lowering to the desk.

  He and I sat at the same height, yet he managed to look down at me, his hazel eyes tapering over the sharp line of his aristocratic nose. “What’s your name again?”

  Not a hint of recognition in his unblinking gaze. Not that I expected it. But he knew something wasn’t right. Perhaps I wasn’t the first person to walk into his office with retaliation on the mind.

  I reclined in the chair and propped an ankle on the opposite knee. “Logan.” I traced my bottom lip with my finger, slowly, deliberately. “Flynt.”

  He didn’t gasp, didn’t twitch a muscle. Kudos to him for mastering a stone expression. Bet his stomach was churning though, boiling up some serious denial under that rigid facade.

  “Flynt,” he repeated, his bored voice giving nothing away.

  “Yep.” I popped the p, rubbing my chin, methodically. “Flynt like the young stunt woman, Maura Flynt.” I cocked my head. “She used to talk about you. Said you were her biggest fan.”

  No finger wriggling under the collar of his tie. No squirming in his chair. Nothing that telegraphed discomfort. He simply jerked his chin at Alicia, his tone businesslike. “Call in the other members, Miss Murphy. Set us up in the boardroom.”

  Just like that, he gave into the threat? No back-and-forth conversation to convince him just how serious I was? It was a sign of guilt, not that I needed more proof. He thought I knew he’d murdered my mother. Wouldn’t he be surprised when I pretended I didn’t?

  Alicia’s footsteps sounded her retreat, followed by the click of the doors closing.

  Heavy silence settled around us. He regarded me as I studied him. His meticulously-styled blond hair, the inelastic skin around his eyes, the stern set of his posture, all of it frozen in reticence.

  If he was trying to intimidate me, it wouldn’t work. He didn’t know shit about me, but I knew him, knew his secrets. I held the upper hand.

  The leather of his chair creaked, breaking the tension straining between us. He crossed his legs at the knees. “You’re not here for an interview.”

  But I would be walking away with a job. I gave him my most charming smile.

  He pressed his lips together. “How are you related to Maura Flynt?”

  I held his unflinching glare with one of my own. “We’ll get to that.”

  A muscle bounced in his jaw. “I’m a busy man, Mr. Flynt. I don’t have time for games.”

  Very few wrinkles marred his face, and not a strand of gray in sight. He looked twenty years younger than sixty-five. Maybe his assistants found him attractive, but his mouth was too small, his forehead too big and, the more he stared at me, the deeper his beady eyes sank into his skull.

  I challenged his glare for another heartbeat before reaching into the messenger bag and removing a folder of papers. The first eight pages were newspaper clippings. Eight murders.

  Spreading them over the desk in front of him, I watched his blank reaction. This could go a number of ways, most of them ending with an assassin on my tail as soon as I stepped outside the building.

  I was prepared for that.

  He glanced at each article, briefly and dispassionately, and leaned back, found my eyes. Smart bastard. When hiding guilt, reserve was the best response.

  But I was only getting started. “We both know this isn’t the extent of your crimes. Just a sampling of the ones I’ve linked back to Trenchant.”

  He laced his fingers together on his stomach and rolled his tongue behind thin lips, his eyelids hooded. “Mr. Flynt, most of these articles are over twenty years old. You’re wasting my time.”

  I hadn’t been as successful as my mother at digging up his crimes. Most of what I had on the families came from her notes. For the millionth time, I wondered how the hell she’d uncovered what she had.

  Bending forward in the chair, I placed a transcript of a phone conversation over the article of the murdered Illinois woman. “Kelli Nelson. The assistant you raped five years ago. She threatened to file charges. You had her killed.”

  No reaction. Not even a flicker in his ratlike eyes.

  “How much did you pay the sister to destroy this phone recording?” I gestured to the transcript, the
phone call between Kelli and her sister the night Kelli was murdered, depicting the rape and Kelli’s fear of Trent.

  She’d explained to her sister in incriminating detail how she knew he was going to kill her. The fact that she’d recorded the conversation supported that. And while the transcript wouldn’t hold up in court, the witness testimony would.

  He sighed. “Are you done?”

  “Not feeling it yet? Don’t worry. You will.” I covered each of the eight articles with documents the FBI would’ve loved to get their hands on.

  The Trenchant accountant who discovered the board’s money laundering. Stabbed. The reporter who was too good at his job, so good he’d uncovered a negotiation between his employer and Chicago’s largest mob family. Shot in the head. And the security guard who was simply at the wrong place, overhearing the wrong conversation. Strangled in bed while sleeping beside his wife.

  There were four other murdered assistants, each one prettier than the last, each with witnesses who could vouch for the women’s willing affairs with Trent. Affairs that were cut off when his assistants grew too needy.

  I’d bought Kelli Nelson’s phone conversation from her sister. And Benny had hacked countless home computers and private servers belonging to crooked cops who had been paid off. Cops who had been bribed to hide evidence. A lot of evidence had been destroyed, but some nuggets remained tucked away on hard drives. Insurance policies, perhaps?

  As he scanned the documents without touching them, I wished my mother’s murder case was included, along with the written confession of her assassin. Just so I could see his reaction. But I couldn’t play that card, couldn’t reveal my true purpose, that I was here for revenge.

  My heart thumped painfully against my ribs, my face chilling with fevered anticipation. I wanted revenge so badly. He was sitting right there, and the blade strapped beneath my slacks was so close, sharpened with lethal purpose.

  Denying myself such an easy kill, the ultimate kill, fucking hurt. I wanted to bleed this pain, his blood, my memories. God, it would feel so good. Swinging the blade. Sinking it deep into his heart. Watching his life drain. A mind-numbing vibration of an open throttle. But Trent hadn’t worked alone. I wanted to take down all of them.

  I slouched low in the chair and sprawled my legs in front of me. “Five dead assistants, Trent?” And those were just the ones I knew about. “You’ve got some powerful connections to make something as repetitive and obvious as serial murders go away.”

  He smirked. “You know why conspiracies are so documented, researched, and resourceful?”

  I didn’t bother answering. He and I both knew I wasn’t there under the premise of a theory.

  Resting his elbows on the scattered papers, he leaned in. “Because they aren’t backed by eye-witnesses. Conspiracies are like religion, boy. When you find something you don't understand, you fixate on an omnipotent being”—he laughed—“then you dig and obsess, regurgitate some official quotes from the Internet, and sell your story to rally supporters to join your cause. Why? Because it makes you feel less delusional, brainwashed, or willfully ignorant.”

  “Mm. That’s all very fascinating, Trent, but I’m not interested in selling a story. I want to be a part of it.”

  A flinch snapped through his shoulders. Finally, cracking that hollow shell.

  “Time for you to retire, old man. You can offer me your job now or after I meet the family. Either way, I’m walking out of here as CEO of Trenchant Media.”

  Crimson flushed his cheeks, and his eyes flashed. “You’re out of your fucking mind. You’re a goddamned nobody. A nutjob off the street.”

  I tossed a large orange confidential envelope at him, the final hammer dropping on his desk. I waited as he ripped it open, my body buzzing as he read through every paper.

  When he finally raised his eyes, shock and fear strained the edges. His mouth opened, closed. Tongue-tied? Definitely dazed.

  A heaviness settled in my chest. I expected to feel…lighter, but giving him the documents I’d held close for nineteen years hadn’t changed a damned thing. “Now you know.”

  Now he knew my secrets. Well, all but two. He didn’t know I knew who killed my mother. And nothing I gave him linked me to Evader and the underground racing syndicate.

  The phone on his desk lit up. He pressed the speaker button, and Alicia’s voice piped through the room. “Sir, Mrs. Anderson and the Baskels are waiting in the board room.”

  Super. Time to meet the families. I had folders for them, too. If Kaci and Collin were with them, maybe I’d have my answer about their involvement.

  “Five minutes.” He disconnected, his eyes still locked on me. “And if we don’t meet your demand?”

  “I have digital copies, of course, of all of this, of everything you’ve buried over the span of your careers.” Some my mother had collected, the rest hacked, purchased, and bribed thanks to Benny’s expertise. “Recorded conversations, coroners’ reports, DNA evidence, statements given by eye-witnesses.”

  His face paled. Yeah, that kind of leak wouldn’t be a conspiracy or a scandal. He was looking at a six-by-eight-sized future with a bedmate named Bulldawg.

  He held up a page from the orange envelope and angled it so I could see it. “I take it this is your real résumé? Top honors at MIT?”

  I’d included it to prove I was more than qualified to handle the legitimate aspects of the job. I nodded. “You realize if anything happens to me, I’ve got a trigger man waiting to press send. You can guess what that recipient list looks like.”

  Benny would broadcast every piece of evidence to Trenchant’s multimedia competitors, local law enforcement, the FBI, and the families of the murder victims.

  Neither Trent nor I wanted that. Of course, he didn’t know I planned to kill him instead, so I needed to make damned sure he understood my fictitious motivation. “I want the same things as you. Power. Money. Women. But most of all, I want security.”

  Vertical lines appeared between his eyebrows.

  “I want the protection that comes with the connections of a powerful family.” I propped my elbow on the armrest and leaned my chin against my closed hand, all casual and contemplative. “Has there ever been a murder attempt against you or yours?”

  “No one would dare.” He studied me, something shifting in his narrowed eyes.

  Was he remembering how he’d orchestrated my mother’s death? Or was he berating himself for not knowing she had a son? Granted, she’d hidden me from the world, but if Trent had looked, it wouldn’t have been hard to find me.

  He was still studying me, his gaze ever-calculating. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m here”—I stretched out my arms, indicating the expanse of my soon-to-be office—“to take advantage of your wealth, your connections, the reputation you’ve built, and the respect you command. But most importantly, your protection.” Blah blah, bullshit. I lowered my hands, hardened my face. “No one will ever hurt someone I love again.” And now he had my fake motivation.

  The dickhead grinned. “Fierce. I like that.”

  Just wait, motherfucker. You haven’t seen fierce.

  “I wonder…” He returned the papers to the envelope. “Who this someone is you love?”

  Of course, he’d want to know who his blackmailer loved and how he could use them as leverage. I would do everything possible to keep Benny out of his sights. As for the other someone, the truth was harmless. “Someone I haven’t found yet. But when I do, I will not lose her the way I lost my mother.”

  He held up the orange envelope filled with secrets. “And this is why you chose Trenchant to be your security? Why you chose me?”

  I’d hoped the contents of that envelope would make my motivation believable, make him want to trust me. But I knew, as soon as I walked out of here, he would investigate me, try to dig up whatever he could to use against me. I also knew he’d come up empty.

  I smiled. “We understand each other.” Not even close.

 
He leaned forward and tossed the confidential envelope in my lap, his eyes watching me with their unnerving scrutiny, analyzing my play. “There’s one problem with your proposal.”

  I returned the envelope to the messenger bag with a calmness I didn’t feel.

  “The position has been contractually offered to my daughter-in-law.”

  My stomach dropped. Kaci Baskel. “Then contractually un-offer it. Sic your lawyers on it. Not my problem.”

  That smirk reappeared. “As CEO, everything is your problem. And she wants this job, passionately. Enough to fight for it. And she’ll stir up a goddamned media circus on her way to the courthouse.”

  I gritted my teeth. Fuck, I hadn’t seen this coming. Last thing I wanted was a publicized legal dispute.

  How far would Trent go to avoid that? It seemed he was willing to deal with the scrutiny that would come with a new CEO with no experience in running a media corporation over ignoring my threats and giving the position to a family member who had been molded for the position since birth.

  He stood and gathered the remaining papers. “The contract has a fidelity clause.”

  My throat thickened. “A what?”

  “The contract is void if she cheats on my son.”

  Back in the mortuary-like lobby on the executive floor, I sat in a hard-ass chair, waiting to be invited into the boardroom, surrounded by stainless steel shelving and side tables, monochromatic wall art, and Alicia’s lifeless personality where she sat behind her desk ten feet away. My palms grew hot, my jaw locked, and my veins thrummed with restless energy. Fucker kept me waiting.

  When Trent led me to the lobby, I gave him the last of my folders. Documents that held all the unsavory evidence against his wife, Nicola, as well as Dalton and Kathleen Baskel. When he’d snatched them away, he ordered me to stay like a damned dog and strode off toward the boardroom.

  Adding to my annoyance was the babysitter who arrived seconds later. A burly guy with a piece holstered at his hip, big arms crossed over a barrel chest, his suit-clad back holding up the wall beside the elevator. For twenty minutes, his tough-guy stance and watchful eyes broadcasted, Just try to get past me.