by Mandy Harbin
“That, and he was kiting. I thought he was trying to screw over F and B, not bilk investors.” If William was stealing from clients, Mason was in much deeper than he’d realized. It went way beyond bogus expenses and delaying transactions. “I know he’s dirty enough to skirt the law, but what you’re suggesting is in another realm.” If there was any truth to this and word got out, it would destroy the company. Hell, even if it wasn’t true but suspicions came to light, it would be almost as damaging. All of Mason’s work would be for nothing.
The man laughed. “So murder isn’t a big stretch, but stealing millions is?”
Mason swallowed and tried to slow his frantic thoughts. “Okay. For the sake of argument, let’s say this is true. That Carl was working something big, and William was the brainpower behind it. Why would he order me to kill the man working with Carl if he’s that man?”
“I never said Carl was working on this. He’s just a pawn in William’s game. But if he has you believe Carl was involved and has you searching for someone else, it’ll throw you off his trail. Not to mention, make you focus on something where his name isn’t directly attached. He knows Carl is gone, and now he has you chasing a ghost.” There was a pause, and Mason was momentarily speechless while he waited. “We need you to confirm this, of course. ”
“Damn it! I didn’t sign up for this.” Oh no, this definitely changed things. A fucking lot. “How the hell am I going to get him to admit anything?” If William was even slightly smart, he’d have covered all his tracks.
“We’ll leave that up to you. We can’t take him out without knowing what he did or how involved he is.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
“Sorry. You have a job to do, and so do I.”
The phone went dead, and Mason threw it on his desk. How the hell did this get so big so fast? If he was being honest, he wasn’t too surprised about William being involved in something bigger than tampering with a small hedge fund, but it sure as hell didn’t make things easy for Mason.
When he’d found excessive billing on the fund William controlled, he’d thought he could dig up more wrongdoing and take it to the executives. He couldn’t go with something that’d just get the man a slap on the wrist. William was Edward Baxter’s son, for crying out loud. It’d take more than what he’d uncovered to push William out the door and leave his position free and clear for Mason. If William had orchestrated a major Ponzi scheme, losing his job would be the least of his worries. The man would be facing serious jail time.
Jesus, if William was stealing millions of dollars from investors and using one of the company’s most prestigious funds to do it, Mason knew he’d stumbled upon something huge. William was going down, but Mason had to be careful not to let the jerk take the company down with him.
Problem was Mason didn’t know how huge this scheme was, how deep it went...or who he’d be able to trust.
Chapter Eight
This was all kinds of fucked up.
It’d taken Mason hours to wrap his head around the latest development, and it had been a bitter pill to swallow. Years building a name for himself at this company, fighting his way up the corporate ladder, could all be obliterated. It wasn’t just the knowledge many people could be in on the wrongdoing, but that said illegal activity could bring down the entire fucking organization. If they were talking just a few million dollars and a few people, then Fieldstein and Baxter could pay investors back out of profits, even be able to pay fines while the key players were thrown in jail. But if this had been going on a while, the amount stolen could be astronomical. Not to mention what a scandal of this caliber would do to the company’s image.
It would cease to exist.
Mason had big aspirations, always had. When he’d stumbled upon William’s skimming money off the top of the fund he’d managed, Mason saw it as an opportunity knock out his competition and move up to the highest position he’d envisioned ever reaching at his firm. But he had no idea it could lead him down this path of professional destruction. Now everything he’d worked for could be gone, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he would be the one wielding the wrecking ball to crush his dreams. It was career suicide, and he knew it.
“There he is,” Rafe bellowed from across the empty club when Mason walked in. “Where’ve you been hiding?”
“Jesus, not you, too. Jedrek already chewed my ass out for being M.I.A.” Mason lightly punched Rafe’s shoulder when he reached him. Thank God he had the club. No matter how fucked up things got at the firm, he could seek solace here.
Rafe chuckled. “Doubt that, man. Jedrek doesn’t know how to get riled up. He’s the silent, brooding type.” He reached behind the bar and grabbed a beer. “Wanna drink?”
Mason shook his head. “I’m doing a scene with Shelby again tonight.”
Rafe’s eyebrows shot up. “So she’s coming back for more?” he asked as he popped open his beer. He took a swig while Mason watched and mentally gauged if he had enough time to drink one, too. He deserved one after the shitty day he’d had.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Mr. Brooding himself is going to assist me tonight.”
Rafe’s grumbling sound wasn’t missed. “You gonna let him have some fun? I got cock blocked.”
“Get me a beer,” he muttered as he sat at the edge of the bar. Fuck it. He had time for one. Rafe grabbed a cold one, popped the top, and handed it to Mason. He stared before replying, “No. It’s her rule, man, not mine.” Though he was thrilled with her self-imposed guidelines. He took a long pull from his beer and relished the burn. If he didn’t have the scene tonight, he’d be partaking in a lot more than just one.
“And as her practicing Dom, you get to decide what’s best for her.” It felt like a challenge, and Mason wasn’t up for playing games. Not this kind of game anyway.
He glared at Rafe. “And as her Dom, I respect her boundaries, as I would with any sub. So would you. You know the drill, man. Quit trying to bait me.”
Rafe swore under his breath before taking another drink. “Sorry. You’re right. Been a helluva week. The alcohol shipment was short. On Tuesday, Nick knocked over a whole rack of beer mugs, breaking half of them, so I had to order more and get one of the other partners to sign since you weren’t around to approve the expense. Plus, one of the bouncers got knocked out last night by a jealous ex. Thank God he’s okay and not the suing type. I need a vacation.”
Mason groaned. “Damn. I’m sorry. You should’ve called me. I’d have been here anyway if my boss hadn’t put me on something that needed to be dealt with. But I’d have come running if you needed me.”
“Don’t sweat it. We all know that prick has been shitting on you.” He leaned over and tapped his bottle against Mason’s. “It’s all good.”
If only Rafe knew how wrong he was. Nothing was good, but Mason didn’t have the time to dwell on it right now. Tonight, he had Shelby to focus on. Tomorrow, he could go back to accepting his impending doom. He stood and grabbed his bottle. “C’mon. I’ve got a couple of hours before Shelby will be here. You can fill me in on the mugs and everything else you’ve spent money on this week, so I can update the accounting system.”
Rafe chuckled as he walked around the bar. “Told you we didn’t need to hire an accountant. You know just how an auditor thinks.”
“How many times do I have to keep telling you it’s not the same thing?” he asked incredulously.
“Quit your bitching and come use those Ivy League skills to balance our accounts.”
Mason followed him toward the closed-off area where their offices were, all the while thinking it was good thing he paid attention to his accounting classes in college. After the debacle at Fieldstein and Baxter, he just might need those damn skills to fall back on after all.
God, I hate accounting.
God, I hate accounting. Shelby shoved the mouse away from her, rolled her chair away from her desk, and laced her fingers above her head as she exhaled slowly while staring at the computer screen. How
any person in his right mind would seek out a career crunching numbers was beyond her. She did her best to remember not throwing away receipts, so she could give them to her tax preparer every year, and half the time failed miserably at that. At least she could print out her checking and credit card statements. If it wasn’t for online banking she’d be totally screwed, and that was just dealing with personal finances. She’d rather stab her eyes out than look at business finances.
There was never an eye-poking-out device when she needed one.
Staring at F and B’s quarterly and annual financial reports was seriously making her brain hurt. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles might as well be Greek. Strike that, it’d probably make more sense to her if it was in a different language. At least then she’d be in her own element. Business reporting was a beast in and of itself. A big scary, scaly beast with bloody fangs. She was a letters person, not numbers. Just one more example that her intellectual contribution hadn’t been priority when selecting her for this assignment.
She released her hands and shook them, trying to release the tension from her fingers. She had to be missing something. She’d logged onto the SEC’s website and pulled several years’ worth of statements. From what she could see, everything seemed to be in order, but she was no expert. Heck, she wasn’t even a novice. After she nudged back toward her desk, she picked up her phone and dialed Darrell’s extension.
“Tobin,” he answered.
“Hey, Darrell. It’s me.”
“I know,” he said with a chuckle. Shelby heard papers rustling in the background. “Didn’t know if you’d have me on speaker with an audience. Can’t have the boss man hearing me call you ‘little bit’ now, can I?”
“True.” She smiled despite herself. Darrell had always watched out for her and had a knack for improving her mood with just idle chatter. “So I’ve been looking over some F and B financial statements—”
“Damn, girl. That’s no light reading.”
“Tell me about it. Something’s off. I know it is, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“That’s Jerome Parker’s job. SEC has been scouring all those business filings—shit,” he breathed.
“What?”
“Been through this file four times now and can’t find the damn police report from when William Baxter got pulled over for speeding two years ago in Miami.” He took a deep breath. “Sorry. You were saying?”
Shelby giggled. “Actually you were saying how it’s Parker’s job to analyze the financial reports, not mine.”
“Oh, right, right. We were brought in to get info out of Showalter. Jerome and his team have been all over those reports. Hell, the SEC maintains that stuff. They know what they’re looking for. They need us to investigate what they don’t already have access to.”
She groaned. “I know. I just think it wouldn’t hurt if fresh eyes looked at them. Maybe they’d provide a clue for us that the SEC wouldn’t pick up on. I mean, why are you looking for an old ticket of Baxter’s when it doesn’t have anything to do with the firm?”
Darrell harrumphed. “You tell me.”
But she could tell from his tone that he already knew where she was going with this…and that was to prove her point. “Because you’re looking for a clue, just like I am.”
“Yeah. There’s a judge in Miami-Dade that the IRS is investigating for tax evasion. I’m trying to see if there’s a link between him and Baxter. If maybe he paid him off.”
“Exactly. You’re investigating this case just like I am.”
“How did you get so good at this?” he asked, and she could clearly hear the smile in his voice.
“I learned from the best.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
She chuckled. “Just being honest.”
Darrell took a deep breath. “Call Carson. He may have a master’s in system design from M.I.T., but he also majored in business at the undergrad level. He’s a wiz at forensic accounting. If anybody on our team can help you, he can.”
Shelby was glad she wasn’t talking to Darrell in person because she was unable to suppress the twisted face she made at the mention of Carson’s name. The man was a flirt, and she didn’t like walking right into his advances. Carson was harmless, but she didn’t have the energy to put up with him right now. “Okay. Thanks. Good luck fishing out that speeding ticket.”
“Thanks, little bit.”
After disconnecting the call, Shelby stared at the computer screen for several more minutes. If the numbers jumped off the monitor and started doing the Hokey Pokey, it still wouldn’t be any more exciting. Gah. Energetic or not, she’d have to call her other teammate, and if she didn’t do it soon, she’d have to call her hairdresser to fix the bald spots formed by ripping gobs of her hair out. Without giving it much more thought, she grabbed the receiver and hit Carson’s extension.
“Well, hello there, Shelby.” He obviously didn’t care if she had her phone on speaker.
Rather than dragging this out, Shelby quickly ran through her spiel before asking, “So can you look at the reports?”
“What’s in it for me?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a dick. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Only because you said dick.”
“One of these days, you’re either going to be up to your eyeballs in sexual harassment suits or missing you balls altogether because you messed with the wrong woman.” She picked up a pencil and tapped it on her desk.
“Give me forty-eight hours, and I’ll let you know what I find,” he said more seriously, and hung up.
She glanced at the clock. It was almost quitting time, but since she was working overtime tonight as a legal streetwalker, she was going to leave now. Taking a calming breath, she stood and gathered her things. She couldn’t let Carson, or anybody else, get into her head. She needed it ready for what was to come.
Right now, she had to focus on making sure she found the perfect thing to wear to make herself presentable to Mason. On her way out, she briefly considered stopping and visiting with Viola, but she was chatting with Rick. Shelby had already brought her team up to speed on tonight, so she had no desire to get into another conversation with her boss. She slipped out of the building and got into her car. The radio blared a sexy song, and she quickly turned it off before merging onto the road. She didn’t need external forces affecting her mood. No, Shelby needed her head in the game.
Yeah, because letting a possible criminal have his way with your body is just fun and games.
Her thoughts trailed back and forth on the drive home. Tonight, Mason was going to tie her up somehow. She didn’t understand the necessity of it since she’d technically been restrained last week, but he was the master here. Literally.
By the time she got home, she’d scolded herself half a dozen times through her wayward thoughts. It didn’t matter why Mason chose the scenes he’d picked out. What mattered was gaining information from him on F and B and determining how guilty he was in tampering with the Culpeper Hedge Fund. She had to focus on her mission.
With renewed energy, she headed straight for the bathroom to shower. When she opened the cabinet to get a towel, she froze at the sight before her.
Massage oils. One thing she’d learned from that previous assignment was some people liked to talk when getting their bodies rubbed down. She smiled as she stared at the bag of FBI issued essential oils. She’d loved learning the art of Chinese massage as it related to Traditional Chinese Medicine. She’d been good at it, too.
Mason believed her story, and no one said it couldn’t be used as more than just a cover for this mission. She smiled, thinking of practicing her skills on him. There was no reason why she couldn’t bring her supplies with her tonight and try her talent out on the big, bad Dom. Maybe his tongue would loosen as fast as his muscles did.
She pulled it out to see if she still had all of the supplies and a tiny scrap of material fell to the floor.
The ridiculou
sly tiny uniform from the parlor.
God, she’d hated wearing that thing on the assignment. It had felt both slutty and culturally insensitive, but it was what all the workers—regardless of nationality—had worn if they’d been assigned to provide extra services for men. She picked it up and caressed it as she contemplating donning it again, and the thought of wearing this for Mason caused a nervous thrill to course through her, her body humming with possibilities. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t worn this in front of strangers. He’d already seen her in much less. She never thought she’d have to wear this again for work, but here she was, practically giggling at the irony as she jumped into the shower.
This would either go well or smack her in the face. Only one way to find out.
Chapter Nine
When Shelby reached the front door of Scene, she paused as she heard the muffled music filtering through the walls of the club. Her nerves kicked up a notch at actually going through with this. Not just the scene with Mason, but with her clothes. She hoisted the shoulder strap of her bag, looked down at her dress, and tugged at the hem before pushing in.
She could do this. She would. Whatever it took to get this assignment rolling.
No longer hindered by walls, the music thumped as unabashed as some of the subs who were dancing to it. God, didn’t these people have jobs? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever gone to a club in the middle of the week. No way would she be able to party all night and be able to focus first thing in the morning. She couldn’t even give them the excuse of youth…she was only in her mid-twenties. Plenty young enough by society’s standards to be sowing her wild oats.
Maybe she was in a way.
She bit her lip but then immediately stopped, remembering the cherry-red lip color. Oh yeah, she’d gone all out all right. Not only was she in a short-as-sin dress, but she had her hair twisted up in sticks. Her red lips accentuated her heavy eyeliner. But her legs? She’d left them uncovered. In fact, she bent over, kicked off her slippers, and stored them in her bag. Tonight, she was going barefoot.
