by May Archer
Cain drifted forward to lean against the back of a chair across from the desk. “What does that have to do with— “
“Don’t interrupt,” the senator told him with a glare. He took another drag of the cigarette, and Damon noticed that his hand wasn’t quite steady. “Levi knew his tech would work. Christ, that man was convincing. And confident. I don’t know if you remember that, Cain, but he was so confident in everything he did. Sebastian is a bit like that,” he mused. “Must come with the genius.” He sighed again. “The banks wouldn’t lend us money, we were in debt up to our eyes, but we didn’t have enough for the demo we needed. We were desperate.”
Oh, fuck. Damon sighed as the facts clicked into place in his mind. Just where would three broke not-quite-kids get the money they needed for a start up?
Cain looked back and forth from Damon to his father. “Explain it to me, because I’m not getting it. What did you do?”
Shaw’s lip twitched in a parody of a smile. “We went to an unconventional money source. A man by the name of Ilya Stornovich was happy to lend us money… in exchange for a little help from time to time. A little programming job here, design plans there. Side-jobs we called them. Jon hated it - he was squeamish from the beginning, but that’s a lawyer for you, eh? Black and white, a firm line between right and wrong. He didn’t have a head for business, so eventually we stopped telling him. But Levi, he understood that sometimes you have to nudge the line a little if you want to get ahead.”
He flicked his cigarette over the ashtray before taking another drag. “But then, a few years in, Levi started getting cold feet too. This is the last one,” Shaw said in a sing-song voice, shaking his head. “No more after this, Emmett. We don’t know what they’re using this tech for. I want to be a man my sons can be proud of. Christ. Like I didn’t? Like I wouldn’t have slept easier at night if the Russians didn’t know my name, or the names of my kids? But it wasn’t about wrong and right at that point. It was about keeping my head above water.” He turned to look at Cain. “It was about keeping my family safe.”
Damon stepped forward, needing to be closer to Cain. Shaw was starting to make a fucked-up sort of sense, and all of a sudden, up was down and down was up.
“See, the problem was, the Russians liked us just a little too much. By then, old man Ilya had ceded power to his son, Adam, a bastard in every sense of the word. He wanted to be more than just a moneylender, a leg breaker, a broker for technology like his father had been. He wanted to build himself an empire, get his family a seat at the table in the criminal world.
“We’d repaid our loans a hundred, maybe a thousand, times over, of course. Levi, Jon, and I had become an overnight success story. Jon bought his first hundred-thousand-dollar sports car, which back in those days was saying something. People were writing articles about Levi.” He laughed. “He was on the Hot Hundred Most Powerful Millionaires list for this magazine one time. I gave him shit about that daily. Hourly, for a while.” His smile faded. “But none of it mattered, because the game with the Russians was no longer about what they could do for us, but what they could do to us. Ruin us in business, for sure, but worse… hurt our families.”
He stubbed out his cigarette with violence and promptly lit another.
“Levi had the brilliant idea that he’d start making tech that failed. He’d leave out one crucial line of code, mess up some small mechanism. Maybe then they’d be less eager to use us, right? They’d just forget we’d ever existed.” He shook his head. “Remember the time Sebastian Seaver ended up in a car accident, Cain? Rear-ended by that hit and run driver who was never found?”
Cain nodded slowly. “Broke his collarbone.”
“Yes, he did. And thank Christ he was driving his dad’s Volvo at the time and not riding in that little Boxster Drew McMann drove.”
“Jesus,” Damon breathed, and the senator raised an eyebrow in his direction.
“You can think what you like of me as a father, as a person, Mr. Fitzpatrick. But if you think I was going to take a chance on having something like that happen to my children, or my wife, then you don’t know me at all.”
“Things kept on as they had been for a while after that, but then Levi balked again.” Shaw took an angry drag and picked at something on his lip. “We started this company to do things our own way, Emmett. I’m not becoming a slave to the goddamn Russians.” He stared at the desk, like he was seeing visions of the past in the shining mahogany. His jaw ticked to the side. “And that was about the time Adam Stornovich decided he needed a foothold in American politics.” He shrugged.
He looked at Damon and his eyes flared. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I wanted power, and I got it. I’m one of the most powerful men in the whole goddamn country!” He looked away again as he continued. “But Levi wanted something different. Fucking asshole decided he’d blackmail them back.” He was angry, Damon realized, profoundly so. At himself, maybe, and maybe at Levi Seaver, too.
He stabbed out his cigarette, and for a second Damon thought the man might be sick. He looked nauseated, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “You can imagine how that went. You can imagine what they demanded of me. And you can imagine what they held over my head.”
Cain made a wounded noise deep in his throat.
“And you can imagine what happened when they believed Jack would talk.”
Shaw shuddered, and Christ Almighty, Damon could almost understand how this man had become what he was. A regular guy - a little too cocky, a little too young – who’d gotten in over his head, and suddenly found he was owned by people who wouldn’t take no for an answer, people who threatened his family. And he felt guilty for it.
None of this changed the essential facts, of course. Emmett Shaw had blood on his hands. He was a manipulator, a con man, an asshole. But as Damon had been reminding Cain for days, it wasn’t that simple. Relationships weren’t that simple. People weren’t that simple.
He found himself feeling reluctant sympathy for this guy. It should have been impossible.
“So, here’s where we find ourselves,” Shaw said, spreading his hands on the desk. “I am a man with many secrets. If I come forward about them, I die. Or worse, my family does. So, I’m not going to do that. Not for anyone, Mr. Fitzpatrick, and sure as hell not for you.” He sat back in his chair and gave Damon a knowing grin. “But that’s alright. Because it’s not really justice you want, is it?”
Damon frowned. “Yeah, it sure as hell is.”
Shaw shook his head, smiling. “No. You just want your life back. You want to be made whole again. You want to reclaim your identity, your job, your family.”
Cain turned a questioning glance on Damon, who swallowed hard. Was that what he wanted? It was a part of it, certainly, maybe even most of it. But he wanted justice for Cam and Bas, too. He wanted to know that no one else would be harmed because of the senator.
“You want to keep your loved ones safe,” Shaw persisted. “Just like I do. And we’re really not so different, you and me. We’re too old to believe we can get everything we want, and we’re willing to negotiate. We’re willing to make the hard choices, to protect the most essential things, even when it means sacrificing others.”
The senator reached back into the middle drawer of the desk, like he was accessing that secret compartment Damon and Cain hadn’t thought to look for. “What if I were to tell you that I have, right here, a list of account numbers that show Jack Peabody being paid an extortionate amount of money just prior to the Seavers’ plane crash? Combined with Jack’s cell phone records, which show him having conversations with various known criminals at around the same time, I think you could certainly make a case that you weren’t responsible for the crash at all, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Hell, I’d believe you.”
Damon and Cain exchanged a look. Cain looked excited, like maybe it could all be over just that easily.
Damon knew better. This was the carrot, but there was a stick coming, too.
“And wha
t would I have to do to get those papers?” Damon demanded.
“Hardly anything, and that’s the truth. Nobody else is going to die if I can help it,” the senator said grimly.
Damon folded his arms over his chest. Hardly anything and nothing were vastly different, and Damon suspected he was about to find out just how different they were.
“I’m going to give you this documentation, and in exchange, you’re going to forget everything you think you know from these files.” Shaw nodded at the files on the desk. “I’m telling you - and you can believe it or not, but it’s the truth - you won’t get anywhere by investigating them, anyway.”
Damon looked at the papers in the senator’s hand. He had no way of knowing exactly what was on those papers, but then again, the senator had no way of knowing whether he’d keep his promise not to investigate the companies on those invoices. What Shaw was proposing was a standoff that would leave Damon better off than he’d been before. But…
“And my sister? My brother? The Seavers? How do I know we won’t all have targets painted on us the second I leave here?”
Shaw pursed his lips. “They’ll be in no danger from me or anyone I’m involved with. We have nothing to gain from the Seavers or any of them, apart from ensuring you stick to the agreement. After all, if anything were to happen to any of them, no doubt you’d go to the authorities and spill everything you thought you knew. It would make life very sticky for me, and I’d much rather avoid that.”
Damon nodded slowly and stepped forward, hand outstretched for the papers. “Alright. Okay. I can agr— “
“Not so fast,” the senator said. He leaned back in his chair, and his gaze danced from Cain to Damon and back again. “One more condition.”
Fuck. “What?” he growled.
“This charming little love affair you’re having with my son? It’s over. Now. Before you have a chance to leak anything to the press.”
The shock of it hit him like cold water, and it shouldn’t have been so surprising, he should have expected some bullshit like this, but he hadn’t. He’d been lulled into sympathy for this man, and he’d been a fool.
“Fuck you,” Damon said clearly. “That’s not a thing I’m going to negotiate. Cain isn’t a bargaining chip.”
Shaw smiled, but shook his head slowly. “Bravo, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Bravo. That was an inspiring performance.” He turned to look at Cain, and shrugged. “I don’t blame you for falling for it, son. He’s extremely convincing.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cain demanded, looking from Damon to his father.
“You two. This… thing you’ve got going on. Let me guess - it started conveniently right around the time Mr. Fitzpatrick realized he’d need leverage over me? So, he gets you to agree that I’m an evil mastermind, so you’ll help him on his little witch hunt.” He waved a hand around the office, at the papers strewn everywhere. “And if there’s nothing to find here, no matter. Of course Mr. Fitzpatrick knows how much of a scandal it would be for me if my son were to be outed in the newspapers. It would only be a matter of time, Cain, before you two were seen in public. Then I’d lose face, lose financial backing, lose my Senate seat, and Mr. Fitzpatrick’s revenge plan would be complete. Did I miss anything?” he asked Damon.
“Everything. You missed everything.” My God. It seemed as if the man really believed what he was saying. What a fucked-up bastard.
“You’re wrong,” Cain said staunchly. “What’s between Damon and me is…”
“Oh, Cain,” Shaw shook his head sadly. “There’s nothing between you and him. Nothing except him wanting to get his life back, and you being his best shot at getting what he wants.”
“No!” Damon shot back. “Cain and I, our relationship has nothing to do with this.” He turned to Cain, who looked stunned and maybe just a little bit worried. “You know that, don’t you? Cain?”
Not after the previous night, not after all that had been said and done between them. There could be no doubt anymore, could there?
Cain didn’t look convinced, and that was its own form of heartbreak right there.
“Cain, you have to believe that I would never…”
“Oh, you would,” Shaw said, supremely confident. “You certainly would. You’re using him, and you’re not the first.” He looked at Cain. “I know you’ve never forgiven me for the way things ended with that boy back in high school. Puppy love is strong, and you were more than willing to believe I’m the manipulative parent keeping you from your one true love.” He sighed. “That’s not how it happened, Cain.”
“Oh, no? How did it happen then?” Cain demanded. “How did it happen, if it wasn’t you threatening to get rid of Jesse’s scholarship, to ruin his life? How is it currently happening, if it’s not you threatening to take it all away unless I stay in line?”
“I never threatened you. I reminded you about Jesse because your judgment is singularly terrible when it comes to romance. You get stars in your eyes and you miss what’s really happening. Jesse knew the score, Cain. He knew you had money, had connections. He was using you. I made him a similar offer to the one I’m making Mr. Fitzpatrick here. I’d give him what he wanted - his tuition paid for, the employment contacts he wanted when he graduated. And in exchange, all he had to do was walk away from you, pretend you’d never happened.” Shaw shook his head sadly. “He didn’t hesitate. And neither will Mr. Fitzpatrick.”
Cain made that same shocked, wounded noise he’d made before, and he stared at Damon, misery clear in his eyes.
“Especially,” the senator continued, “if I told you that there was no way I could guarantee Mr. Fitzpatrick’s sister’s safety, or his brother’s, if you don’t agree to my terms.”
God. He made it sound so reasonable, so obvious. Damon could not believe how handily he’d been manipulated by this man.
“The answer is still no.” No way in hell would he trust Chelsea or Cort’s safety to this monster. No way would he ever allow this man control over any aspect of his life.
Shaw smiled. “And what if I told you Cain would be cut off forever if you refuse?”
At that, Damon hesitated. “Cut off how?”
“Financially, socially. In every way.”
At this, Damon hesitated. The senator was not a master manipulator for nothing. Lose Cain, or see Cain hurt by losing his family? No matter how much tension there was between Cain and his parents, how could Damon make a decision that would sever that tie?
He was pretty sure Shaw was bluffing, but he couldn’t take that risk. He looked at Cain’s ravaged face, and knew that whatever happened, it had to be Cain’s choice.
“I’m not going to make the same mistakes you’ve made,” Damon told Shaw. “I’m not going to decide for him.” He tugged on Cain’s arm. “I’m not Jesse, and I’m not walking away unless you tell me to.”
“You have to,” Cain whispered, pulling his arm away. “Don’t be crazy, you have to.” You, not we. Shocking how badly that one word could hurt. And Cain wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“No, I don’t. We don’t.” He put his hand on Cain’s chin, tilting his head up, and forced himself to continue. “Unless that’s your choice. And Cain, I understand, if that’s the case. Your family...”
Cain did look at him then, eyes wide with horror. “Not because of me. God, no. But your sister! Molly.”
Damon inhaled, his relief more profound than he could have imagined. “Let me worry about that, Cain. We can worry about that together.”
Cain looked away again, focusing on his father. Disgust and anger were plain on his face. “I want to hear about how you’ll protect his sister.”
Shaw smiled, convinced he’d won. “As I told you,” he spread his empty palms. “As long as Mr. Fitzpatrick obeys the terms of the deal, no one has any interest in harming his sister or anyone connected to him.”
“So no one will be shooting at him anymore?”
“Shooting at him?” Shaw’s eyes narrowed. “No one’s been shoot
ing at him.”
Cain laughed, pulling up his short sleeve once again to show his bandaged arm. “I beg to differ. Sunday morning, outside a fucking pancake restaurant, your goons shot up the parking lot. Almost killed a little girl.”
Shaw blinked. “My goons?”
“Your friends, then. Your business associates? I’m not quite sure what the polite term for the hitmen on your payroll would be,” Cain said, cold and calm.
“No one authorized any kind of attack on you, Cain. I didn’t even know where you were until…” Shaw turned pale, swallowed, his eyes wide.
“Until when?” Cain’s eyes narrowed. “When did you know where we were?”
Shaw licked his lips. “When my associates informed me.”
“Have they been watching me?”
“For your safety, I…”
Cain snorted. “For my safety, of course. What have you been doing for my safety?”
“We have your cell phone traced,” the senator said. “Whenever it pings a cell tower.”
“We?”
“My… associates,” he repeated.
“Well, that’s fucking awesome,” Damon said, heart racing, mind sputtering. “Your associates traced us to that fucking motel in Pennsylvania, and then they came to kill us. They tracked us here. Did they follow us when we dropped off Chelsea?”
Cain looked stricken. “Damon, I am so…”
Damon grabbed Cain by the shoulders and shook him, hard, forcing him to meet his eyes. “I swear to God, Cain, if you apologize for something that had nothing to do with you…”
Cain squeezed his eyes shut.
“Do you hear me, Cain?” Damon shook him again, and Cain nodded, but tears tracked down from his closed eyes. Damon grabbed him behind the neck, pulling Cain’s face into his shoulder.
He looked at Shaw over his son’s head. “What have you done?”
Shaw shook his head. “You’re wrong. You’re lying.”
“I’m lying? Your son has a gunshot wound in his arm, for Christ’s sake.”
“Cain is supposed to be protected.” Shaw tossed the papers down and pushed himself back from the desk, all his confidence gone. “Cain is… Cain is to remain safe. That’s non-negotiable.”