“Last warning,” he repeats. “Or you’ll be punished.”
“I’m… I’m not sure I understand,” I stammer.
Keeping his arm out, he leans just his head closer to me, so close I can smell the expensive cologne wafting from somewhere around his jaw. “Don’t let it happen again, doll. Or I won’t hesitate to make you pay.”
No fitting answer comes to mind. I mean, does this rich guy understand that I’m a student, scraping by to get an education, and that my parents are working class farmers, practically destitute by his standards? Still, his threat has an effect on me. I make a promise to myself that the second I get back to Vivian’s, the balcony doors are going on lockdown. I don’t care what I have to use—chain-link fencing, padlocks, chicken coop wire mesh.
Whatever it takes to avoid the wrath of Jackson Knight.
5
Jackson
She’s tempting fate being here.
I want to tell her that, but have to keep the thought to myself as I stare down at her barely legal naked body under that half-open bathrobe. Bare feet, vulnerable and gorgeous. Does she even know what she’s doing to me, standing there, her hair dripping wet, her body scented like honey and sweet innocence, and those bright guilt-ridden eyes pleading for me to pardon the fact that she’s trespassing on my property?
Moving my arm out of her way, I let her in and close the door behind me.
“Follow me.” I slide my phone from my pocket and pull up the concierge desk number in my contact list. “Have a seat,” I tell her when we pass through the living room, and her dog jumps into her lap when she sits down.
Her timing is impeccably bad, considering that my brother, Jace, is waiting for me in my study. Leaving them alone here is the only option. Jace is probably about to charge through my place and demand that I drop everything to focus on his reason for being here. I make a quick call downstairs, and the person who answers at the concierge desk assures me they’ll send someone up with keys to let Dahlia into Vivian’s place. After I hang up, I step into the study.
Jace gives me a hard look as I return to the study. “We have a fucking problem.”
“What?”
“Mont Blanc Holdings isn’t everything it’s been selling itself to be. It’s more.”
“What do you mean, more? Isn’t more better?”
He passes me his smartphone. “Sometimes more can be worse. Like in this case. Remember that forensic investigator Dylan told me to hire so we can look into them more closely? Check out what he found.”
I scroll through the report on Jace’s phone, but nothing makes sense. “What the fuck am I supposed to be reading here?”
“Mont Blanc is one of the only hedge fund firms I know of that own two non-financial subsidiaries, except they’re both buried behind three layers of shell corporations. Pantheon Research and Triple Shield Security Group. Take a wild guess on what they do.”
“Security is my guess for Triple Shield. Not sure about Pantheon.”
“Get this. Pantheon is a pharmaceutical company, specializing in generic radiation therapy treatments and medications.”
“You don’t mean for—”
“Cancer treatments,” he finishes the sentence for me, because he knows how much of a hang-up I’ve had about the big C since it stole any chance of having a mother past seventeen years of age.
“I don’t get it. Why would Mont Blanc have a hundred percent ownership of a company like that?”
Jace doesn’t get a chance to answer. The doorbell rings.
“Hang on,” I tell him. “I’ll get rid of the girl.”
Jace leans forward in his seat. “What girl? You’ve got someone here? How the fuck can you think about pussy at a time like this?”
I get up and start walking toward the door closest to the foyer. “Will you shut the hell up? That’s not how it is. I’ll explain in a minute.”
Dahlia is already answering the front door when I get out into the hallway. Cradling her dog in her arms, she looks back at me, gives me a hesitant nod, and leaves with the bellman.
“Okay they’re gone,” I tell Jace, who’s standing at the far end of the foyer, checking out Dahlia.
“They? There were more than one of them?”
“Fuck no. That was the neighbor’s pet sitter, all right? Vivian’s goddamned pack of hounds can’t seem to stay on their side of the fucking terrace. Just forget about it. I want to know how Mont Blanc would want to get their hands in the day-to-day operations of a pharmaceutical company.”
Jace accepts my explanation about Dahlia, and re-focuses on our acquisition deal. “Probably the same reason they own Triple Shield Security.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t fucking know.” He leans forward in the armchair and crosses his legs, supporting his head of sandy brown hair with one arm at his temple as he thinks. “The fact that they own Triple Shield is even more of a mystery. This security firm has a bunch of government defense contracts. Weapons development, geospatial technologies, even an outfit that trains private militia in Eastern Europe, Central Africa, and some parts of the Middle East.”
“That makes no fucking sense,” I say. This new information is all coming from left field. Shock and confusion don’t begin to describe what I’m thinking about right now.
“Exactly. What the hell is a hedge fund company doing dabbling in cancer drug manufacturing? How in the fuck can it be in any part of a weapons or military supply chain? Triple Shield is practically supplying private armies internationally. It doesn’t even make sense. We can’t acquire a firm that’s coloring outside the lines.”
“Jace, fuck, that’s not even coloring outside the lines. They threw out the box of crayons and the canvas, and are shooting fucking paintball guns on the SECs doorstep. Are you sure this forensics guy got his intel right?”
“Positive.”
“Fuck.” I can’t wrap my head around this news. “Does Dad know?”
“Not yet. I’ll loop him in. And Gerald too.” He stretches his arm out toward me. “Give me back my phone. I’ll tell Gerald to meet me at Dad’s place. We’ll put an end to this. Tonight.”
“Hang on, Jace,” I mutter as I hand over his phone. The mention of Gerald’s name plays on my already distraught thoughts. “That consulting firm Gerald used to run…didn’t it have a whole section devoted to security consulting for the US government?”
He nods with the recollection as he scrolls through his phone, probably looking for Gerald’s name in his contact list. “It did. And the law firm he’s used for years manages pharmaceutical and medical research companies.”
“I don’t know if I like the coincidence.”
Jace stares over at me, almost in disbelief as he connects the dots. “Shit. You can’t be thinking—”
“It has to be. Gerald or someone in his consulting firm must know about these Mont Blanc subsidiaries.”
“Are you out of your mind? What you’re suggesting is… it’s fucked up.”
“Why would you put it past him? If Gerald knows and is still pushing the acquisition, there’s only one reason he’d do that.”