RAGE (The Rage Series Book 2)

by MJ Riley

  At the sight of Charlotte, disheveled and hollow-eyed in a chair by her father's side, the man seemed to hesitate slightly before answering. His neutral expression softened slightly into something that might have been pity before instantly hardening once more. “No, sir.”

  “Good.” Emerson looked back to Charlotte once more, his eyes narrow. “If you fight me on this, girl, you will lose. You're to be Causewell's secretary to use as he sees fit. Do you understand?”

  He could he do this to her?

  She was his daughter.

  Didn't he have a heart at all?

  “Dad,” she said, softly. Reaching out, as she hadn't in years, she took his hand gently in hers. All she'd ever wanted was his approval. While, yes, she had run the company in a fashion that didn't yield the highest personal profits for their family, she liked to think she had run it well. Apparently, however, her father disagreed to the point that he was willing to oust her over a situation that her heart was still bleeding over.

  Without hesitation, Emerson yanked his meaty hand from hers, wincing as it taxed his injured jaw. “You should be lucky I don't disown you, girl. Hopefully, you'll learn something from Causewell. You had better hope that he can somehow pull us up out of the hole you've dug us into.” Then, he grunted, as if satisfied with his own statement. Next, he turned his beady gaze onto Samson and said, “And you, you'd better deliver. If Mathers goes down, you'll never work in this town, or any other, again. Mark my words.”

  “Of course, sir.” Samson's slightly accented tones flowed sinuously over the statement. “It's all under control.”

  However, Charlotte barely noticed what he said. She had already risen from her chair and stumbled from the hospital room. Outside, Adeline caught her arm as she trudged past, in a daze. “What is it?” she demanded. “What happened? Who was that guy?”

  “He sacked me,” Charlotte replied dully, unable to believe it actually happened. “I'm not the company head anymore.”

  “He what?” Adeline's incredulous exclamation echoed down the hospital halls, causing several orderlies to eye them sternly. “He can't do that.”

  “He can and he did,” Charlotte replied, completely hollow. “He said I'm supposed to be the new guy's secretary. He stripped me of all control.”

  “Charlotte, I won't stand for this. I'll resign. I'm not going back to the company if you're not running the show. I—”

  “Addy, don't.” Suddenly, she was tired—so very tired. Too much happened in the past twenty-four hours. She needed to get home, get into bed, and sleep for a very long time. “You're not going to quit. You're going to stay right where you are.”

  “Like hell I am!”

  “Without Marscomb, we need you to keep the tech department up and running. You wouldn't strand us like that, would you?”

  Almost immediately, the fire in Adeline's eyes died. Her expression became torn as she bit her lip, lowering her gaze to her twisting hands. Sighing, Charlotte shook her head before walking back down to the lobby and out the front door.

  By this time, night had long fallen. The stars were out, and though it was usually her favorite thing to count the few stars not blotted out by the bright lights of the city, tonight it gave her no comfort. Everything had been taken from her. Absolutely everything.

  She let Addy hail a taxi, as she struggled to take it all in. The man she had thought loved her was a charlatan. She'd been trying for weeks to discover what dark secret he kept and how to help him get over it—only to find that she was the secret. She and her company.

  Well, it wasn't hers anymore.

  In reality, Charlotte realized that Mathers Incorporated had always belonged to her father and always would. Every piece of information she tried to keep from him, he discovered with hardly any obstacle. He invaded her private life to a stunning degree. Plus, disgustingly, he'd let her sleep with her own brother just so he could get the upper hand.

  The man was sick.

  Any love or pity she might have had for him was gone in that moment. He'd betrayed her almost as woefully as David had, and she didn't know if she would ever recover.

  “You need rest, Charlotte.” Adeline, also incredibly upset, slid Charlotte into the taxi first and then slid in beside her. “Give yourself a few hours of sleep and some perspective. We'll figure things out. We always do.”

  Would they?

  Did it even matter?

  It seemed as if she couldn't trust anyone, and Charlotte was sick of it.

  Closing her eyes, she blocked out everything and tried to think only of her bed, her apartment, and blessed silence from the din of horror that surrounded her.

  Chapter Three

  Monday was pretty damn torturous.

  Despite the fact that Addy had pretty much demanded that she take a day for herself, came into the office. She'd been up the entire night, despite her exhaustion, and had come to the conclusion that if she wanted to get used to her life as it was going to be, she had better start falling into line—the sooner, the better. It seemed almost impossible for an hour to pass where she didn't think of David; so, she figured that she could at least try and settle into her new position.

  Secretary.

  Pushing papers, making calls, and taking messages. She cringed at the thought of being so useless; but, nonetheless, she made herself up, pulled her hair back into its customary up-do, and was at her desk—outside the huge office she had so recently vacated—at seven-thirty sharp.

  It took some effort to shoo a furious Adeline, but eventually she managed. She was subsisting on several cups of strong coffee by the time Samson arrived at eight.

  The man's appearance was just as impeccable as it had been before at her father's bedside—tailored suit, perfectly cut hair, and well-groomed. He probably came from a family almost as well-to-do as hers, having had so much experience in the big business world. Though she fully expected him to ignore her and enter the office behind her without a word, he surprised her by pausing at the edge of her desk.

  For a moment, Charlotte attempted to be absorbed in what she was writing. It helped to concentrate on the computer screen when a bout of nausea—suddenly a frequent occurrence with her life crumbling about her— occurred. When he didn't move, she finally looked up, her expression carefully neutral.

  “Good morning, Mr. Causewell. Is there something I can help you with?”

  He sighed at her upturned face, his green eyes slightly pained. When he spoke, Charlotte found herself trying to place his accent. Something Highland…northern Scotland…or Ireland, perhaps? It was very slight; and, therefore, slightly difficult to figure out.

  With sympathy in his eyes, he said, “You look like you haven't slept all night.”

  Charlotte was immediately suspicious. If this man was going to try to be chummy with her, she wasn't going to give an inch—not after she had been so recently burned. “I slept fine,” she lied, turning her attention back to the screen before her. “I got in thirty minutes ago.”

  “Probably because you were already awake.” The statement was not unkind, but Charlotte refused to acknowledge it.

  “Mr. Sekihara called,” she said, regaling him with his messages instead. “He'd like a confirmation on the time for the conference call later this afternoon. Also, the board is asking for a date for the meeting this week.” It was the meeting where she would be officially ousted as CEO of Mathers Incorporated. The call had been particularly difficult to take.

  “Miss Mathers, I know it might be hard to believe right now, but I'm not here to steal your job. When your father called me in, he merely said that he needed a replacement for a higher up. He didn't mention that I'd be replacing his daughter or taking over the entire operation. Trust me, I'm as shocked as you are.”

  Impossible.

  Charlotte would be willing to bet her quite sizable family fortune that the man had never lost his company, his father, and his significant other all in one day. Glancing up at the man, she shot him the most functional of sm
iles. “I'm perfectly fine, Mr. Causewell. Thank you for your concern.”

  “You can call me Samson.”

  “I think Mr. Causewell would be more fitting.” Her answer was overly cautious. “I'm your secretary and you're the CEO. I wouldn't want to risk any unprofessionalism.”

  For a moment, there was silence on the man's part before he merely sighed, turned to pass her desk, and disappeared into his office. Charlotte let out the breath she'd been holding. She would do her job. No matter how friendly this man was, she would not be anything more than his employee. She would not be his friend, and she certainly wouldn't be the guest of honor at his pity party.

  No way.

  Taking a gulp of coffee, the young woman began to click through her emails. One of the most recent was a request for a breakdown of the original Uphone schematics from the production company. They were looking to make sure the patents from the upcoming Uphone upgrades were all in order. Automatically, Charlotte clicked through the paperwork, forwarding all the needed forms to Samson.

  And then she paused.

  On a sheet that cited the location in the database for the original Uphone plans, the entry line was simply marked CONFIDENTIAL.

  That was strange.

  They kept all their patents on the public website. They could be accessed by any Mathers customer at anytime to ensure the authenticity of the product. Why would the patent for the Uphone, one of their first and most popular products, be marked as confidential?

  Frowning, Charlotte glanced back at the double doors to her former office. No doubt Samson was settling in quite nicely. She'd ordered the coffee he'd requested from his blackberry on his way in and there was a nice pile of paperwork on his desk that would take him half the morning to work through.

  He'd be busy for a while.

  So, perhaps, she could do a bit of snooping. Making sure no runners were lingering on the top floor, Charlotte hurriedly logged into the server. Once she did, she was surprised to see that she still had Chief Executive Access. It must have been something that her infirmed father had forgotten to change. However, it would make her current task leagues easier.

  Sifting through the various files—there were thousands—that comprised the company’s database, Charlotte finally came upon the patent origins grouping. There, she could sift through every patent ever applied for by the company, going back to decades. Since the Uphone had been one of their first successes, she went as far back as the files would allow.

  However, when she clicked on the directory that was supposed to house the JPGs, she received an error message.

  File not found

  What the hell?

  The patents were all supposed to be up-to-date, pending any possible lawsuits that could be filed against them. They needed to provide the patents to prove that the products were original work. Sure, no one had probably gone back so far in the data for years, but that was no excuse. Maybe it was an IT error?

  Picking up the phone, she quickly dialed down to the IT department, quickly thinking of an excuse. They answered on the second ring.

  “IT.”

  “Hi, Pat.” She recognized the voice on the line instantly. Before David had been hired, she couldn't count how many times she'd called Pat up to her office to fix her laptop.

  “Hello Ms. Mathers. How may I help you?” Now, of course, the man was stiff and cold. All the employees had probably been warned not to treat her gently. It was just like her father to isolate her.

  “Yes, I have an inquiry from Mr. Causewell? We're missing the patents for the original Uphone, and we have a request to submit them to the production company for review. I'll forward the email to you. Apparently, there's an error in the directory? The file isn't popping up.”

  “Can you forward me the message, please?”

  Of course the man would be thorough. Ass. Luckily for her, she'd only made up what she had to. Her needs were real enough.

  Perhaps two minutes later, Pat was back on the line with her. “Yes, Ms. Mathers?”

  “I'm here, Pat.”

  “It seems that file was exported to the executive private server over a decade ago. It's not on our system.”

  The executive private server? In all her years as CEO, she'd never heard of such a thing. Quickly, Charlotte wracked her brain, trying to figure out how she could gain access to it without revealing her woefully scant knowledge on the subject. Though her father could be exceedingly paranoid when it came to most subjects, he was also somewhat predictable.

  Charlotte remembered when she'd been eighteen, she'd been banned from their house in Long Island after attempting to have a party there. It turned out, the country house was where her father did all his discreet wheeling, dealing, and whoring. While she didn't like to think of the latter, she supposed she couldn't judge. The man hadn't had a decent girlfriend since the death of her mother over two decades ago.

  However, she knew that since he was the only one who had access to the Long Island residence, he would probably hide anything he didn't want seen there. “Ok, thanks. I'll tell him to check the Long Island account then.”

  “You do that, Ms. Mathers.”

  Score. That must be where all the information was.

  However, she was in lower Manhattan, and it would take hours to get up there. Plus, that was assuming she could worm her way into the estate to gain access.

  She knew she should sit at her desk like a good little girl and make sure she was at Samson's every beck and call. Instead, the mystery of the Uphone patent galvanized her into action. Grabbing her jacket, she rose from her desk and ducked into the executive office, fixing her expression into one of pure innocence.

  “Mr. Causewell, there's been a request for some information that I have to step out of the office to get. I'll be a few hours. Do you need anything?”

  The man eyed her for a moment with an inscrutable expression before his mouth and eyes softened. He still felt some measure of sympathy or pity for her situation, and that, thankfully, made him easy to manipulate.

  “Sure, no problem.” He even gave her a small smile. “If you could just bring me back a sandwich from the deli on the corner, I'd appreciate it.”

  Pig.

  Charlotte didn't let any of her inner dialogue escape. She merely grinned her way through the encounter before hurrying from the building.

  Chapter Four

  Within an hour, she was on the LIRR bound for Long Island, praying that she had the wits to break into her father's estate.

  Something was wrong. A patent that had been transferred to a private server? There was absolutely no reason for it. Patents, by their very existence, were supposed to be available for the public to see. Why would her father be hiding one?

  The ride to Long Island took far longer than she would have liked—over an hour. When the taxi she'd employed reached the estate, she carefully recited her convoluted excuse: Her father was in the hospital, but he needed some confidential papers. She knew she wasn't typically allowed in, but she'd been made a gopher by her demotion.

  To her surprise, the guards seemed to accept her story, and she went on without a hitch.

  The house was just as large and ostentatious as she remembered, situated on its own peninsula jutting off the island. There was about a kilometer of private beach, though the ocean was far too rough to swim in. Charlotte only shook her head at the indulgence, especially since Emerson Mathers didn't even know how to swim.

  After some wrangling, she was allowed into his private office. The room was surprisingly neat, but then again, she was sure some exotic maid he was banging came to the house every week. Since she didn't need actual papers, she merely sought out the computer. Sitting in front of the state of the art modified Web glass, she contemplated furiously what his password could be.

  Her birthdate? No, her father would never be so trite. Her mother's? Nor was he that sentimental. Over the course of an hour, Charlotte rejected more than ten possibilities, relying on what she knew of the sel
fish, conniving man. Then, finally, when she stumbled upon the obvious solution, she demeaned herself for not thinking of it sooner.

  The total number of bank accounts he had, written out in script.

  Fifteen.

  The moment she entered the word, she was given unlimited access to all the files on the server. It didn't take long for her to find the file labeled: Patents. In it was the original patent for the Uphone; but, to Charlotte's shock, there were two copies. One was signed and dated for April 1993, citing Mathers Incorporated as the patron. However, there was another that was incomplete. It was dated June 1992, and the patron was Lester R. Marscomb.

  The original patent hadn't gone through.

  And, while Charlotte didn't know any Lester, she immediately recognized David's last name.

  Her father had blocked a patent cited to David's father? But why? If his design was the original one, wouldn't he have submitted his paperwork first? A chill worked its way down her spine as Charlotte remembered her father telling her he never had the mind for tech, even though the original designs for the Uphone were supposed to have been his.

  What if he'd been lying? What if someone else had designed the Uphone and he'd been the one to steal the patent?

  Her heart in her throat, Charlotte entered a system wide search for Lester Marscomb. The amount of information she turned up was astonishing.

  First and foremost, there was the man's paperwork for the single year he'd worked for the company. He'd been even more masterful than his son when it came to designs. He’d submitted over thirty projects to be approved. Currently, Mathers circulated about sixty percent of them.

  There was an entire file delegated to patents that had first been applied for by the individual man, blocked, and then registered to Mathers Incorporated. As Charlotte read on, her heart grew heavier and heavier. There were records of the man's termination, citing confrontation with company policies when it was obvious that he'd just wanted to be recognized for his own work.