The Fire (Hurricane Book 4)

by R. J. Prescott

  As for me, I did everything I could to disappoint them. In contrast to John’s feng shui, minimalist monstrosity of a house, my eclectic flat was filled with textures, colours, and light. Sketches, paintings, drawings, and doodles were scattered haphazardly around potted plants and wild flower-filled jam jars. I’d refused Dad’s offer to help me find something “a bit more up market” and instead relished in the beauty of the fact that I was paying my own way. Standing on my own two feet without a penny of my family’s money, doing something I knew Mum would’ve loved. I illustrated children’s books, and every once in a while, I had the privilege of contributing to charity books that benefited Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. Maybe I wasn’t setting the world of business and commerce on fire, and I’d certainly never be making the society pages, but I was happy. Or at least I was until that cold September day when the phone rang and didn’t stop.

  Aunt Elizabeth had been the one to tell me that my father and brother had been on their way to a board meeting together, when they’d been involved in a tragic accident. Apparently, a truck jumping a red light had ploughed into the side of their town car, killing them almost instantly. For hours I’d sat there, too numb to shed a tear until I worked out how long it had been since Dad and I had spoken last. Honestly, I thought it hurt him to even look at me. He was kind and generous and spent every minute of every conversation we’d ever had trying to buy me things. But I was my mother through and through, and every moment we spent together made it harder for him to bear. The older I became, the more I reminded him of everything he’d lost. So, I embraced her memory while Dad and John did their best to forget it. I guess we all dealt with grief in our own way. But the distance between us didn’t make this moment any less painful. In fact, it felt like losing Mum all over again.

  The priest said one last short prayer over their graves, and the crowd of strangers I barely even knew scurried away like insects.

  “Sarah, if you’re going to be travelling in the family car with me, we need to leave now. It isn’t appropriate that we should be the last to arrive at the wake,” Aunt Elizabeth remarked.

  “Surely people won’t begrudge us a few minutes to say our goodbyes,” I reasoned.

  She sighed deeply, as though I was an obstinate child unnecessarily testing her patience.

  “Sarah, I understand that you’ve led somewhat of a cosseted life. Despite my advice, your father humoured your bohemian leanings and indulged you in all of your artistic nonsense. But I’m afraid you no longer have the luxury of selfishness. The time for that way of thinking is over. Like it or not, you are now the head of Tatem Shipping and you must act accordingly. A great number of the people here are shareholders. How do you think share prices will be affected if they see you as anything other than a strong leader? Of course, I will be able to school you in social etiquette, but you must stop pandering to your emotions for the sake of the company,” she said, stunning me speechless for a moment.

  Rather naively perhaps, I’d hoped that the younger version of myself had somehow villainised her. That she’d come over to offer me a hug, or some words of comfort in our shared grief. I was disappointed, but not surprised by the confrontation. Her manipulation and meddling had worked with my father, but she was about to learn that they wouldn’t work with me.

  “Aunt Elizabeth, I appreciate that you were close to my father, and that he regularly sought your advice on many matters, so please don’t think that I mean this disrespectfully, but I don’t really care how many shareholders are here or why they came. I don’t care about my outfit or my timekeeping or even my etiquette. Tomorrow I’ll do whatever needs to be done. Today, I’m saying goodbye to my family,” I replied.

  Turning my back, I walked closer to the graveside and closed my eyes as I inhaled the scent of fresh rain. Elizabeth snorted indignantly, but I could hear the sound of her footsteps as she walked away. Regardless of what happened, neither of us had the luxury of turning our back on one another permanently. She was a board member who held valuable company shares. If it was up to me, I’d liquidate the company tomorrow, but thousands of livelihoods depended on Tatem Shipping for employment. There was no way I was cut out to do this forever, but to a certain degree, she was right. Without a Tatem at the helm, share prices would plummet, and everyone from the little guy paying his mortgage to my richer than Onassis aunt would be ruined. So I made a deal with my conscience. I would stay for a few years until the stability of the company was assured, and then I’d wash my hands of the Tatem name for good. I looked out across the bleak, unforgiving beauty of the moors, the wind whipping away my tears before they could fall, and I felt nothing but despair. Because if the last few days had been anything to go by, the next few years would be interminable.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you Miss Tatem, but there’s a Mr Vasili Agheenco here to see you,” Victoria said. She’d been Dad’s secretary since he first started at the firm, and I was sure she felt his loss as much as I did. In the weeks that had passed since the funeral, I’d been drowning in everything I didn’t know. Bombarded with information I had no idea how to interpret and decisions I had no idea how to make. Each of the board members had their own vision of the company’s future and were little to no help at all. But in the middle of the quagmire, Victoria would appear with a cup of tea and a few desperately needed chocolate biscuits. I was pretty sure that she was shielding me from the worst of things. I was sailing alone in the dark, and without her I’d be rudderless. Yet, despite all of my pleading, she still wouldn’t call me by my first name.

  “Does he have an appointment? I wasn’t expecting to meet with anyone this afternoon,” I replied. Hoped was more like. I didn’t think I could take one more meeting with an over-opinionated director or nervous stockholder.

  “No. He doesn’t have an appointment,” she replied nervously. “But Mr Agheenco doesn’t make them. He didn’t come in often, but when he did, your father would always see him.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I asked anxiously. Victoria was completely unflappable. Her edginess about this guy made me feel uneasy.

  “To be honest, there’s something about him that scares me. When he came by, your father would send me out on some meaningless errand, and by the time I’d get back he was gone. I tried to talk to him about it a few times, but he would always change the subject. I don’t know what it is about him, but he seems so…uncivilised,” she explained.

  I sighed deeply and contemplated what to do. I couldn’t imagine Dad having continued associations with someone dangerous, but her reaction made me uncomfortable. I could try and postpone, but with things being as unstable as they were, I didn’t want to risk offending a potential client.

  “It’s all right, Victoria, I’ll see him. But would you mind staying in your office while he’s here?” I asked, and she nodded as she left. Hers was a connecting room that led from the end of a hallway into Dad’s. Tatem Shipping had modern offices in a number of cities, but Dad had kept the London head office in the original, listed, turn of the century building in which his grandfather had founded the company. The many rooms and anterooms didn’t lend themselves to modern, open-plan office working, but I agreed with his decision. In a world that was dreary and humdrum, this antiquated building had character.

  A sharp knock at the door preceded Victoria with my visitor.

  “Miss Tatem, this is Mr Agheenco,” Victoria said, holding the door open. Rather rudely, he waved his hand to dismiss her, and wearing a small frown, she closed the door with a quiet click. Knowing she was close by to call security if needed made me feel a little easier, but only when I was in his presence did I understand why she’d been so unnerved.

  “I have heard a great deal about you, Miss Tatem, but nobody told me how beautiful you were,” he remarked. Dressed sharply in what looked to be an expensive tailored suit, his salt and peppered hair neatly trimmed, there was nothing outwardly to suggest that he was anything other than a respectable business man. His impec
cable English, even heavily laced as it was with an obvious Russian accent, suggested that he’d been well-educated. He had a slight build and was perhaps only around five foot ten, but it was his eyes that made him so terrifying. Cold, empty eyes that undressed me from across the room. Without invitation, he sat himself in a leather chair and made himself comfortable in a way he’d clearly done before.

  “Thank you for the compliment,” I replied politely. “How is it I can help you today?”

  Surprising me, he barked out a laugh.

  “Straight to the point, just like your father. I like that. And not one for flattery either. I see I will need to work harder to fall into your good graces,” he said, leering at me as though “good graces” was code for bed.

  “You sound as though you shared a close association with my father. Do you mind if I ask the nature of your relationship?” I asked, taking a seat behind Dad’s desk. For weeks I’d sat bowed over the aged, worn oak, trying to connect with a man I barely knew. He was gone and never coming back, but regardless, the furnishings around me all felt like his. Perhaps the time would come to make the office a little more my own, but I doubted it.

  He steepled his fingers and stared at me for longer than was comfortable. Trying to conceal my anxiety, I looked him in the eyes with as much steel as I could muster and waited for his response. His appearance lent him an air of civility, but it was a paper-thin veneer that did little to conceal his contempt. Given his behaviour so far, I imagined his distain was less of a personal loathing and more a dislike of women in general.

  “You have found yourself at the helm of one of your country’s oldest family-owned shipping companies, but how much do you really know about it?” he asked, finally.

  “If you’re looking for some history as to the background of the company, our website is a wealth of information. My family has been dedicated to the business of shipping for generations. It’s what draws new clients and investors to the company every year, and it’s our impeccable levels of service that keep them,” I replied, having memorised the shit from a pamphlet in an attempt to navigate my way through trade meetings and negotiations with potential new clients.

  “You know next to nothing about this company, because that is the way your father intended it. The truth is that Tatem Shipping is a failing enterprise and has been since your country joined the European Union.”

  “I’m sorry to have to contradict you, Mr Agheenco, but the quarterly accounts tell a very different story. Our profits last year are a matter of public record, as are the many years before that, and I’m reassured that they all say the same thing. Joining the European Union opened up a number of opportunities for trade partnerships, and inevitably, those partnerships expanded into shipping. Joining the Union was a turning point for the growth of our business,” I disputed. The truth was that I was woefully out of my depth already. The bullshit I was feeding him, whilst true, was part of the crash course in Tatem Shipping I’d been given by advisors to the board in a vain attempt to bring me up to speed.

  “To a degree, that is true. But before that occurred, your firm found itself mired in European shipping laws and red tape, the likes of which it had never seen. After four generations and two world wars, your father, the great Charles Tatem, was on the verge of allowing his family’s legacy to crumble. With a pretty wife and two young children, his heart was not in it as you say, but his pride would not see the company destroyed, so when my organisation approached him about an arrangement mutually beneficial to both parties, he was very amenable to the idea,” he explained, as he continue to peruse me, somewhat condescendingly.

  “So that is how you knew my father. You were a client of his?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said, cryptically. “The relaxation of the borders in Europe meant the opening of a whole new market for my import business. But, given that my companies are all Russian, our shipments were still heavily targeted by customs officers and Border Force. To overcome this problem, our merchandise was concealed within legitimate shipping containers, all of which had the correct paperwork, and was extracted at the other end.”

  “So you’re a smuggler?” I asked, rather naively, making him chuckle.

  “If you want to romanticise the arrangement, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

  “And what exactly is your merchandise?”

  He narrowed his beady eyes and stared at me calculatedly. “You should think very carefully before you ask questions like that. For many years, your father was happy in his ignorance. He had a good life with your mother, and I was making him very rich. You too could have the same life, but now you are asking to open Pandora’s box, which you will never be able to close. If you choose to know, I will tell you, but make no mistake, you will have to live with the consequences.”

  “Thank you for your concern, Mr Agheenco, but I’m quite sure that I want to know.”

  “Very well, Miss Tatem,” he said, with a smirk. “But please remember that it was your choice to sour what could have been an amicable relationship for us both. You wanted details and particulars, so here we are. For nearly ten years, Tatum Shipping has successfully transported a great many things from my country. In the early days, it was tobacco and alcohol. When the market demanded it, the nature of our shipments changed, and we found it much more profitable to bring stockpiles of weapons from the former Soviet Union into Eastern Europe,” he explained, casually picking invisible lint off his suit as though he wasn’t making the bottom fall out of my world. “While this is still our main source of income, we also move drugs, human cargo, endangered animals, and anything else that will bring a profit.”

  “Human cargo? You mean to tell me that my family has been helping you traffic women and children?” I whispered, barely able to contain the bile from creeping up my throat.

  “You Westerners are so narrow-minded,” he replied, with a smile, obviously amused by my horror. “You breed cattle your entire lives, horses, cows, pigs, sheep. They are born purely for the purpose of their use. You raise them, crammed together in tiny pens, then slaughter them when you need to. But when the cattle walk on two legs instead of four, your sensibilities are offended. You complain when you hear that these people are being used for forced labour, but you will happily buy goods at the lowest price on the market. These days everyone wants cheap, and they don’t care about the human cost as long as they don’t have to hear about it. Our transit links supply surrogate mothers, arranged marriages, organ donation, cheap labour, and yes, sexual labour as well. You may want to vilify my organisation, but what we do is simply supply and demand.”

  “You can’t seriously expect me to believe that my dad and brother turned a blind eye to this? That nobody else on the board knows about this!” I protested.

  “Why would they know? Shipments are made through legitimate shell companies, and the cargo manifests are all in order,” he responded, smoothly.

  “What about customs officials? Surely these containers are searched. It really can’t be that easy to do what you’re suggesting.”

  “Containers are randomly checked, but in the event that we can’t conceal the freight, an official can always be bribed or intimidated. We do own the ports after all. But you are right in a sense. It isn’t nearly as easy or straightforward as I’m suggesting. A venture of the size at which we operate takes planning and cooperation. It’s an undertaking that’s been mutually beneficial to my associates and the Tatem family for quite some time.”

  “I’d like you to leave,” I said, shaking as I stood. “If Tatem Shipping has somehow been involved with this, there is no way Dad or John knew about this. Your association with my family is over. Please don’t come here again.”

  He sighed as though I were a petulant child who needed scolding as he fastened the buttons on his suit jacket.

  “Miss Tatem, without my business, there simply is no Tatem Shipping.”

  “If that’s true, then so be it. I’m not prepared to give up years of
my life to saving a company that traffics in human misery. I’d rather see it go under,” I sneered. Moving to walk past him, I hoped to show him the door. Too late I realised that turning my back on him was a mistake. Before I could even register what was happening, he grabbed hold of my throat and slammed me hard against the wall. The force of the blow to the back of my head had me seeing stars, but worse still, he squeezed so hard that I couldn’t breathe.

  “You seem to be under the misapprehension that I am asking you to continue our arrangement. There is no choice for you to make here. There is no doing the right thing. Quite simply all I ask is that you continue to play the part of the dutiful heiress. You will be the figurehead for the company, keeping those stockholders happy and the share prices stable. I will be sending in some of my own employees to work alongside your executives, making sure that business continues as usual, and you will sign anything that they put in front of you. In return, you’ll lead a life of wealth and privilege,” he said.

  I clawed at his hand, gasping for any breath of oxygen that would keep me conscious.

  “Do yourself a favour, Sarah. Don’t make the same mistake your father did. He started listening to your brother and grew himself a conscience. Now he is no longer a problem, and if you defy me, you won’t be either,” he warned. Pulling me forward slightly, he slammed my head against the wall once more before dropping me to the floor. I coughed and spluttered between filling my lungs with air.