by L A Pepper
“Ahh, that’s where you’re wrong. I may be a Boucher, but I reject what it means to be a Boucher. I’ve already set it in motion. The Good Friend Foundation is no longer affiliated in any way to the Boucher family. I’m actually surprised, being a Boucher as you are, that when you were hacking my computer in my office, you didn’t bother to find out any information. The file for my exit plan was right there. It wasn’t even hidden.”
The room went silent. “So you know.”
“Yes. I know. I am disappointed, but not surprised. But good has been done. I’ve removed nearly a billion dollars from the control of the Bouchers. I can happily leave you behind.”
“You’re a fool, just like your mother.”
“I probably am. She’s the one who warned me about you, from when I was very young. She taught me to judge a person by what they did, not what they said, to look below the surface to see the truth of their character. And when I looked below your surface, I saw a criminal.”
“You are your mother’s son. Luckily, I have two more who are worth twice as much as you are. Take him.”
There was a scuffle. My heart was in my throat, knowing I could do nothing.
“How can you consider yourself a father? How can you be a man like this?” Jordan’s voice was harsh, angry.
“You don’t know what it means to be a man, Jordan. I let your mother have you because you were the youngest and you liked books and school. I figured there was time to raise you up, but you never came up to snuff. You never acted like a real man who understands the way the world works. Instead, you have this fantasy of doing good and being good. I mean, you couldn’t even be a doctor I could use. A surgeon or some sort of high-class specialist. You had to work with children. What kind of man works with children?”
“A good man,” I said aloud in the car, wanting to defend him. Wanting to love him.
“Check him for weapons.”
Jordan laughed. “Weapons, Dad? I heal people. I don’t hurt people.”
After a minute, “What is this?”
“That’s a phone,” Jordan came back, angry and sarcastic.
“No, this!” he snapped.
“I– I don’t know.”
“Are you bugging me? Are you working with someone?”
“I– didn’t…”
“Let me guess,” Mr. Boucher said, his words dripping with malice. Then there was a loud smash and nothing but static.
“Oh no. Oh no.” They’d found my bug. I’d put Jordan into danger again.
I reached for my phone and my gun simultaneously but before I could get them, my window smashed in an explosion of glass and sound. I was dragged out of the car.
A hulking man who smelled like garlic and wore a cheap pinstripe suit pressed me to the concrete with a knee in my back as he patted me down for weapons, his hands creeping into places he shouldn’t touch.
“What are you doing here?” the man growled.
He’d found my gun. The car was littered with surveillance items. He opened my wallet and there was my investigator’s license. I figured the jig was up, but not the whole jig. So I might as well come clean.
Half clean.
“I’m a private investigator hired to get evidence of Regis Boucher’s philandering.”
“Philandering?” he asked, astonished.
“Cheating.”
“I know what it means,” he hissed and dragged me to my feet. “Mr. Boucher will want to talk to you. Maybe he’ll go easy on you. You’re his type.”
I knew that.
That was how I’d gotten into this whole mess in the first place.
Chapter Twelve: Jordan
My father’s goons held me immobile while they searched me. I submitted, knowing there was no use struggling. Knowing I’d be better off staying calm. For all that my father was untrustworthy, I didn’t really believe he’d hurt me. He had too much pride, and I was part of it, because I was part of his legacy. How I composed myself, how I stood up to him, would be a reflection on him.
I couldn’t let him beat me, even when he had me physically at his mercy. Oddly, I found even more, I wanted to master him. I wanted to teach him a lesson, that he couldn’t control me. That I’d learned how to be a man by being the opposite of him, and I didn’t need to intimidate people or dismiss them to be a man.
“He’s clean, Mr. Boucher,” the goon said.
“I could have told you that. I’m a doctor, not a mobster. Something I wish you’d remember.” I could feel my eyelids at half-mast, as if nothing he said could hurt me. It couldn’t.
My dad grunted and held up the broken chip and wire set-up that had been tucked inside my phone case. “And this? What does a doctor need with this? Why would you come to meet me, to insult me the way you have, with a recording device? Are you not also spying on your father? Maybe you’re working with the feds to destroy me.”
I gritted my teeth. I’d had no idea that I was carrying a listening device. Alex must have lied about having more bugs. I should have known she couldn’t be trusted. I feigned unconcern. I lifted a shoulder and let it drop. One thing my family knew how to do was pretend not to feel a thing when someone they loved betrayed them. Ahh, the legacy of the Bouchers.
He narrowed his eyes at me and stalked towards me. He hadn’t hit me since I was a boy. Not since we’d given up on each other. Not since I found myself elsewhere, anywhere he wasn’t. I kept myself away from him, went to boarding school, because it was the best, my mother had told him, but really it was to get away. And I’d never come back to him. I could tell he wanted to hit me. He loomed over me, a familiar menace that, far from cowing me, made me smile.
“What do you think is so funny?”
I raised my eyebrows in a quirk. “I don’t know, Dad, I was just wondering if you really think you can take me. I’ve learned quite a bit since I left you. And you’ve gotten quite a bit older. A little flabby about the waist, if you ask me. But if you’d like to try it, you can go ahead and give it a go. Take a swing. It might be fun. And I think your…associates might like to see you try.”
He didn’t know I’d been studying martial arts for a dozen years. But he’d always thought I was just a bookworm schoolboy, so maybe he’d enjoy finding out for himself.
He narrowed his eyes at my smile and looked me up and down, assessing me, perhaps for the first time, not as his disappointment of a son, but as a man. I looked like him. Tall with dark hair and those Boucher blue eyes and broad shoulders, but his frame was starting to run to fat. I knew that I was hard muscle underneath my shirt. I’d worked at it. Working out had always helped me manage my anger, something that my dad had obviously never tried. I was not the same kid from before.
He took a step back and straightened his shoulders as if he had never meant to try to physically intimidate me. I stood my ground and watched him as he reassessed me. Had I pleased him? It didn’t matter. My intent was not to please him. My intent was to break free of him and be rid of him once and for all.
The door opened and another goon came in. How many goons did my father have? Goon number three whispered into my dad’s ear and Dad cocked his head, his features turning saturnine. God, I hoped I did not age like him. The darkness in him just took him over and I didn’t want to be like that.
He turned to me, his smile back. An evil smile. “Maybe,” he said, his voice so full of controlled anger that he was biting his syllables off, “You’re working with someone else.”
I raised my eyebrows, admitting nothing.
“Your mother, perhaps?”
It made me laugh. “I am working with my mother to the extent that she wants me to give her grandchildren.” A thought of Alex shot through me. Her big brown eyes and the way she felt in my arms, warm and soft and real. It hurt to think of her. I let the pain fuel the anger. “And she’s not getting any of those any time soon.”
Dad looked down his nose at me. “Is that true now? Did that girlfriend of yours not do it for you?”
“I
don’t have a girlfriend,” I said, without any lie. Whatever had been between me and Alex was false. She wasn’t my girlfriend, even though I’d been thinking of her that way since about five minutes after she left my clinic that first time. Wishes weren’t the same as reality or my whole life would have been different.
He smiled. “All right then. Not your girlfriend. Your whore.”
I felt my blood turn to ice. “Pardon. What did you say?”
“I said,” he stepped up to me again and leaned towards my ear. “Your. Whore.”
I said nothing, but my entire body tensed.
His smile was far more relaxed now. “Oh,” he said. “Should I tell you about her? I’ve discovered quite a bit. That little piece from the coffee shop. Tell me, is she as hot as I thought she’d be in a strapless bra? Those tits are,” he leaned in again, “fantastic. And that ass? I’d like to pound into that. I bet she jiggles when you fuck her. Does she?”
The ice was gone. I was now filled with fury, with heat. Fire was pounding through my veins. I clenched my jaw and didn’t let him provoke me. It was a near thing.
He saw my reaction and smiled a half smile. “But she’s not just a piece of ass. Her name is Alexandra Martin and she’s a private investigator.”
I didn’t blink.
“Hmm,” he said. “So you knew that. Did you also know that your mother hired her to investigate my, ahem, what was the word? Philandering.”
“Is there some reason why I should care about that?”
He tapped his hand against his thigh. “Perhaps. If you’re working with your mother to steal my money.”
I scoffed. “You still think everything is about your money. I have my own money. I don’t need yours. I lived for ten years without help from you.”
“And yet you came running back, tail between your legs to get your hands on the money in that good boy foundation.”
“Yes, well, that money isn’t for me, is it? It belongs to the people now.” I was very, very pleased that I had managed to do that and to foil his plans.
He narrowed his eyes and began pacing around me. “What I wanted to know was why the little slut started panting around you? If she’s trying to catch me cheating, then what does she want...with you?”
“Are we done here. Dad?” I spat the word. “I have to get home and start packing for my cross country move.”
He glared at me. “No. We’re not done. I think this is a mystery that we need to get to the bottom of. Shall we ask her, do you think?”
I tried not to give anything away. “Ask who?”
“The little slut.”
“What?”
His smile was snakelike. He nodded to one of the goons and the hulking man in the cheap suit left the room, bringing Alex back with him, her hands behind her back. He shoved her around by her elbow, none too gently, and when he brought her to stand in front of my father, he did it so she’d lose her balance and fall into him. He grabbed her ass before she yanked away from him and stood glaring at everyone. “You’re all a big bag of dicks,” she spat, and despite my anger at her and my horror at seeing her here in danger, I thought she was wonderful.
Her eyes met mine and softened. “Are you okay?” she asked.”Did they hurt you?” Soft and concerned. Dammit. She didn’t get to be soft and concerned about me. She’d lied and betrayed me. I scowled at her.
She was dressed head to toe in black, with her hair in a mussed ponytail, half falling out. It looked like they roughed her up a little and I didn’t like that. Otherwise, she looked like she thought she was going to climb up walls and break in windows like a cat burglar. Idiot.
“Am I okay?” I could barely breathe. I was furious. It made me dizzy. I didn’t know who I was angrier at, Alex or my father. My fury swung back and forth between the two. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that.” Of course I wasn’t okay. And neither was she. What was she thinking? Tracking me? Following me? Getting caught? Everything was one hundred times worse.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Contrite.
I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with this. Not right now.
“You know,” my father said, his eyes going back and forth between us, watching our reactions, testing them out. “Now that I look at her, I can see that calling her a little slut was wrong of me.”
I cocked my eyebrow at him, biting my tongue to keep from cursing him out.
“She’s not little at all. I think the more proper term would be ‘fat whore.’”
Without any conscious control on my part, I lashed out and punched my father in the jaw. He fell to the floor and stared at me before breaking into laughter. His goons grabbed me and held me back. One at each arm. I didn’t resist. I shouldn’t have done it. I’d shown my hand.
“No, no, no,” he said. Waving a hand at the goons. “It’s a game he and I play, isn’t it, son? Who can knock the other on his ass. He’s never gotten a point in before.” He stood and dusted himself off. When he smiled he bared his teeth like a snarl. “I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to do it, Jordan. Look at that. You do have balls. I’m proud of you.”
To think of all the years when I wanted him to be proud of me, before I learned that his respect was misplaced, and he only ever believed in the wrong things.
“But it’s not me you should be angry at.” My father was not a frail man. He usually let other people do the bullying, but he was powerful. He liked to fight. He liked to hit. I could see he was in the mood to do it and I didn’t like his attention on Alex.
He walked towards her and my tension rose. I wanted to tell him to get away from her, but I couldn’t let him know that I cared; he would use her against me. He would hurt her to hurt me. I had to get her out of there. I had to get her safe. “Shall we ask the whore–” he looked at me with a half smile, the bastard. “Excuse me. Shall we ask Alexandra why, when she was hired to investigate me, she ended up with my son instead?”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Maybe I like young beefcake, not old, stringy meat.” She practically sneered. It was great. I wanted to cheer her.
“Hmm.” He looked between me and Alex. “Mouthy. I can’t decide if it’s sexy or rude.” I refused to look at her, I kept my eyes focused on my father. I didn’t want him to know how it killed me that his goon had his hands on her, that he was pulling her arms back, tight, for being a smart ass. “But I don’t think that’s why you stopped trying to get me and turned to my son. No. I don’t think that’s it.” He shook his head thoughtfully. I could see the wheels turning in his head. I didn’t like it when he began to think and strategize. It was always something ugly that he came up with. “Hired to get evidence on my cheating…winds up dating my son…” He stopped pacing and looked up at her. His eyes were sharp and bright. “When did the feds offer you the deal?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He laughed one short bark of laughter. “The feds have been after me forever, and they can’t get at me, because my organization is too tight. I choose my associates too well.”
“Listen, Mr. Boucher. You can clearly see I’m no fed. I’m a small-time private investigator who plays the bait for honeytraps.” She laughed and gestured to herself. “And I’m your type.”
He looked her up and down. “Not tonight you’re not. You should have put more care into your appearance.”
She shrugged. “I dress for the job.”
I loved her smirk. How cool she was facing my father. It reminded me of the night I met her, dressed “for the job” in that white dress and those stiletto heels, with the creepy slimeball men all over her. The way she dispatched them one by one, cooly and unemotionally. It hadn’t been the makeup and glamor that had made me approach her, it had been the way she’d faced all those creeps down in their own territory, without ever losing her dignity. It had been the way she muttered at her phone while never dropping the appearance of being the elegant woman in control.
I was drawn to Alex because of who she was under the mask. I’d s
een it that first night. She’d let me in. And when I met her again with her daughter, there she was, the real her, even though she tried to keep her walls up, keep me at a distance.
But she hadn’t been able to. She’d shown me who she really was. She was bright and funny and vibrant and brave and honest.
She’d lied to me about the investigations. I almost understood that. It wasn’t about us at all. It was about taking down my father. It had to be done. I even supported her doing it. But she had opened up her heart to me. She had given me her soul. And I’d given her mine.
In this dark, grimy warehouse, I felt all the colors of the sunset. And it was because of Alex. Dammit. We had to get out of here.
“So does this look work for my son?” My father sneered the words, like it couldn’t possibly. Gave a little chuckle. Oh, he was having so much fun tonight, catching me, exposing me, breaking me. Or so he thought.
“Yeah, it kind of does,” I admitted. She whipped her head around to look at me, shock on her face for a second, and a flash of desperate hope, before her eyes went back to blank. Cool and unaffected. Dressed for the job.
My father was disgusted, His elegant face showed disdain for my crudity. “I will never understand you, Jordan. Even your mother would never put up with this. She has never been anything but perfectly presented, no matter the situation.”
“Maybe because she had to pretend to like you, Boucher. Because I’m pretty sure she hates you, or she wouldn’t have hired me to catch you.”
His eyes narrowed. He didn’t like what Mom had done. Of course he didn’t. Betrayed. She’d betrayed him. That’s what he got for treating us all like we were enemies. For teaching us that everyone was a potential betrayer. He turned it back around to me. “Yes. You would know about pretending to like someone, wouldn’t you, honeypot? You pretended to like my son to get information, didn’t you?”
She pressed her lips together. The mask went up.
He turned on me. “How does it feel to be betrayed, Jordan?”
It suddenly occurred to me that it was my mother’s actions that had hurt him the most. He was hurt. In pain. He himself had a weakness. He felt betrayed, even though he’d always told us to expect it. He never expected it from her. Me stealing my foundation was nothing to him, a bit of clever manipulation on my part. He probably liked me better for being as sneaky as he was. But my mother? That was where his fury came from. And I understood it, because I felt the fury that comes from someone you love betraying you. I’d felt it when I found out about Alex spying on me. But now it had settled where it always belonged. On my father. The man who should have loved us, but instead, cared more about his maneuverings and money and power and used it to hurt us all.
