Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Um. Okay.” Skye frowned, but at this point there would be no convincing Carolyn of anything but what was in her own head. She was set. “I’ll get cracking. I just need to go through my files. I want to make sure it’s accurate. We don’t want the King family suing us, you know.”

  Carolyn snorted as though that wasn’t even worth a comment. Then the junior editor spun about and swept back out of Skye’s cubicle as though she were a queen on her way to oversee a beheading. And perhaps that was exactly what was about to happen. Skye didn’t want to know.

  Sitting in her chair for a few minutes, Skye tried to calm down. Carolyn always made Skye feel as if her blood pressure was leaping up to dangerous levels. The woman was a disaster. She continually caused trouble. That was her thing. She reveled in it. She looked for it, made it up when she couldn’t find it honestly, and pretty much lived off the stuff.

  “It’s getting kind of tiring,” Skye murmured to her tablet as she linked into the newspaper’s network and began to search the database for old society page columns involving Tisha Olivares-King.

  It only took about five minutes to locate enough information to completely support any claims of impropriety that Jason King might want Skye to make. In fact, it could be argued that Tisha Olivares-King had been trying to get people to speculate about her relationship with Tex Johnson.

  “What was the woman thinking?” Skye gazed at a photograph that she had taken of a charity benefit dinner nearly three months before Mac King’s death. “She’s got her arm in his as though she’s screwing both of them!”

  In the photograph Tisha was strutting her stuff between Tex and her late husband. Her smile was enormous and Tex was actually on her right side. She was leaning into his side as though she preferred him. How interesting.

  Skye was not usually the kind of person to drum up drama. It wasn’t her thing, and yet right now the layout that she was putting together in her head was probably going to set the entire King family on their rich and privileged asses. Mostly because Tisha Olivares-King was such an easy target.

  It only took Skye a brief moment to find the photograph from the funeral that she had taken only a few days before. The picture was a very cozy moment between Tex and Tisha as the two of them embraced and held each other for much longer than was probably decent even for old family friends. In fact, Tex had held Tisha for the duration of the entire funeral as though he intended to sweep her off her feet when she fainted at the opportune moment.

  Skye stared at the pictures and wondered what was really going on. What was happening with these people and what were they hiding? She had been asked by Jason to poke around and make sure his mother was distracted by an uncomfortable trip to the limelight. But the honest truth was that Tisha kind of belonged in the limelight right now just because she’d obviously made some choices that were rather suspicious.

  Taking a deep breath, Skye began to write. She pounded out as many words as she dared on her keyboard. The story took only a moment to write. At least that’s how it felt. There was just so much information that Skye started to think it might take more than one issue to get it all in. Maybe that would make Carolyn happy. Skye could just make some kind of foreshadowing that she had more information she would impart to the readers in the next issue.

  A quick read through. There was some editing and cutting out the clunky parts. And soon enough Skye was staring down at a story she felt like she could actually put her name on. Except it wasn’t really her usual style. She felt kind of dirty. The woman was a grieving widow. No matter what had happened, she was still supposed to be off limits to a journalist wanting to splash a sensational story across the front page. The saddest part of that was the knowledge that in this day and age there were no boundaries at all when it came to that sort of thing.

  The news was not accountable for how much they tortured someone right after that person had lost a loved one. There were no parameters on how long was too long. If you had a skeleton in your closet and someone could dig around and pull it out at the most painfully awkward moment in your life, then they were allowed to do that. Whenever they wanted. And then they could post it on the internet and let it go viral so your shame and humiliation would be absolutely complete.

  “We live in a shitty, shitty world,” Skye whispered to herself as she attached her column and the photographs to an email and sent it on to Carolyn. “And I’m just as bad as the next person. I really am.”

  The only difference between her and the next guy was that fact that Jason King had been the one to make the first allegation. Somehow that was supposed to make her feel better. Somehow.

  Chapter Nine

  On Wednesday, eight o’clock in the morning at the King Security Solutions offices in downtown Dallas, the Dallas skyline was only a slightly beautiful sight considering the nasty fall heat, the haze of heat and smog hanging over the enormous city, and the disgusting amount of traffic clogging every available roadway. If Jason King had not been on a motorcycle he might have given up and gone home. Or perhaps he would have just driven his monster truck over all of the puny commuter hybrids in an effort to get to work on time for the first time in—well, ever.

  Jason whistled as he walked out of the elevator on the twentieth floor. He was still a bit hazy about exactly what was housed on the other nineteen floors of the building. They were all a part of the company, but Jason had very little idea what an actual server room looked like. And though he had filed plenty of invoices for enormous air conditioning and cooling units, he was still a bit confused as to why the building needed enough cooling power to freeze the entire state of Texas.

  But Jason knew someone who would know exactly what was happening. Devon. Devon was here. Somewhere. And that was Jason’s first stop of the morning. Out of the elevator and down the wide main hallway.

  The receptionist was not at her desk. Weird. It was eight. Right? Wasn’t that when things usually started happening? Was everyone still out because of the bereavement thing? That seemed a bit excessive. The funeral had been on Saturday. Orion had declared the company closed for Monday and Tuesday in order to allow for a reasonable amount of grieving. Mostly for the family. Now it was Wednesday and they should have been business as usual.

  The recessed lighting in the sign etched into the huge wall just behind the receptionist’s enormous counter-height desk was on. The King Security Solutions, Inc sign was fairly imposing in its own way. It had always amused Jason that the logo involved a wolf’s head howling into the ether. Nobody ever seemed to guess why the King family liked wolves so much. And of course, if someone had told them, the average citizen would have been completely freaked out.

  The office décor was tasteful and neutral. Lots of navy and sandy browns. The carpet was plush. The walls were hung with both black and white and color photographs that had been taken on their hunting land. There were even some very old black and whites of the original King family homestead about sixty miles or so outside Dallas.

  Jason stopped to stare at these for a good long while. It was so quiet in this place it was almost like a tomb. Eight o’clock. Did everyone actually get here at nine? Maybe. Jason had never bothered to show up until between eleven and noon. He always figured that there was no point since he would be leaving for lunch anyway. So he just had his lunch hour before he went to work because that seemed far more logical to him.

  A sudden noise caused Jason to turn around. That was when he spotted the light. A soft white glow coming from his brother Devon’s office door. There were voices inside the office. Low ones. The kind of voices that people used when they didn’t want to be noticed. How odd. Maybe Devon was doing something naughty at work!

  Jason crept down the hall. He inhaled deeply to try and use all of his senses in order to get his bearings. It was most definitely Devon. His brother’s stink was about as familiar to Jason as his own. But there was someone else in the office with Devon. A female. How odd.

  The closer Jason got to the office the more he f
elt as if he were intruding. The sensation struck him as strange, but he could not shake it. So when he was perhaps five or six feet from the office door Jason chuffed out a sigh and called out to his brother. “Hey Devon! Are you in there? Where is everyone? I thought work started at eight!”

  “Nine,” came the reply. “What are you doing here at all?”

  The strange question threw Jason off altogether and he stopped thinking about who else might be in the office with Devon. Obviously he wasn’t having a torrid love affair if he was talking to Jason out in the hallway because that would have been tacky.

  “What do you mean why am I here at all?” Jason strode through his brother’s doorway. “I work here!”

  Devon was behind his desk. There were stacks of paperwork on almost every available surface except the one directly in front of him. Devon was apparently working his way through stack after stack in an effort to—well, Jason couldn’t actually be sure what his brother was doing.

  The female wasn’t really a female at all. She was apparently part of the cleaning crew. The woman was short and stout with brown hair pulled back into a bun and almost no eye contact. She was wearing a dark blue set of coveralls that were probably what was mostly responsible for the strange scent. Her gaze never wavered from the shelves that she was dusting. She didn’t even seem to notice Jason.

  Devon glanced over at her as though he realized that Jason had finally noticed the woman. Then Devon looked away and did not mention her at all. Apparently she was just that unimportant. Strange. It wasn’t really like his brother to be rude like that. But then Jason didn’t know the rules about the cleaning crew either. And why did that matter right now anyway?

  “Orion told me that Mother has ordered you to be anywhere but around the office,” Devon explained to Jason.

  Jason snorted. That figured. The witch was trying to keep Jason on a short leash by taking away his ability to earn a real salary and making him dependent on her for his income. When the brothers worked real hours they clocked in and out like a regular employee and then they were paid by the accounting department directly to avoid any look of impropriety that might come from getting a fake salary or just working for free because the estate was paying their bills.

  “Zane told me I could come to work,” Jason fired back at Devon. “He suggested I use my time to get more familiar with the company because it’s mine just as much as it belongs to any of you.”

  “Is that right?” Devon murmured. He had a very strange expression on his face. His hands were on the edge of his desk. Then he finally glanced at the cleaning crew lady.

  As if the woman realized she was totally intruding, her dark blue suited self seemed to just duck out the office door. She let it close with a soft snick and then she was gone and Devon and Jason were alone. The two of them stared at each other for several moments before Devon finally spoke.

  “I don’t have any problem with you being here and learning the business,” Devon explained very calmly. “I think you’re right. You do own just as much of this company as we do and I for one would appreciate you helping out a little more than you have been.”

  Jason felt a but coming on. “So what’s the hang up then? You don’t think I’m capable?”

  “No. I think you’re completely capable, but I also know that you’re a bit distracted by your very firm belief that our mother has done something inappropriate and deserves to be punished or some other such nonsense.”

  “That’s not what I said!” Jason snapped. “Who claimed I said she should be punished? That’s preposterous!”

  “I see.” Devon pursed his lips and glowered like a champ. “Then please explain what your problem is.”

  “My problem is that I think our father was probably not the victim of a hunting accident. Do you honestly believe that, Devon? You knew Dad. You knew that he wasn’t the sort of man to take stupid chances. He wasn’t the kind of person to be stupid in general. So how did some coyote hunting turn fatal? And why all of a sudden is our mother determined to force us to pretend that we are not shifters? Why is she so determined to pretend that we’re just average guys? She wants us to forget. Never shift again. Never run on the land. Never do anything other than lead human lives.”

  Devon sighed and looked weary. “That’s what she’s comfortable with, Jason. You need to try and see this from her perspective. I’m not saying that she’s right, but this is the only thing she knows. She doesn’t think that being a shifter is a healthy way to live.”

  “And Tex? What is her relationship to him?” Jason demanded of his brother. “You’re here at the office all the time. You’re the one who sees Tex. Can we trust him? Or was he hunting with our father that day and is covering it up?”

  Devon held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll admit it’s suspicious. Okay? You’re right. Unless Dad was hunting with a human, he would have been doing it in his wolf form. But we can’t go saying that to the authorities, now, can we?”

  Dammit. Devon was right. There was no way for Jason to go stomping into the police station claiming that his father had been murdered and he knew that Mac King would never be hunting out there by himself in a human body! The police would lock Jason up in the nearest mental ward and throw away the key.

  “Where is he?”

  Devon had been about to say something else, but Orion’s voice stopped him cold. Instead, Devon narrowed his gaze at Jason and frowned. “Why do I get the feeling that Orion is talking about you?”

  “I have no clue.” Jason suppressed the smirk that wanted to settle on his lips. There was no doubt in his mind that Orion was here because of Jason and that it had something to do with a certain society column in a certain Dallas newspaper. “Maybe Orion is just surprised that I’m here on time.”

  “We start work at nine, by the way,” Devon said distractedly.

  Moments later Orion came storming into Devon’s office. He pointed right at Jason. “You are an ass!”

  “Me?” Jason put his hand on his chest and did his best to look innocent. “I can’t imagine what you’re referring to.”

  “I’m referring to this!” Orion threw down the morning paper on Devon’s desk so that the three of them could see it.

  “The bank robbery?” Jason said with feigned innocence. “Do you honestly think I’m doing bank heists now? That would be ridiculous. I think we would be absolutely cheating if we did any sort of bank heist. Don’t you? It would be totally like using our wolf shifting abilities for all the wrong reasons.”

  Devon was busy reading the society column that Orion had put down on the desktop. There were two photographs. Actually Jason had to give Skye credit for the pictures. One of them had been taken at the funeral just that past weekend. The other was from months ago and featured Mac King as well as Tex. The thing was, the photos supported the theories laid out in the column and they managed it without a single untruth.

  “Wow,” Devon muttered. “Our mother is a total whore, you know that?”

  Jason was actually surprised by Devon’s matter-of-fact digestion of the points laid out in the column. “Yeah, unfortunately.”

  “What?” Orion sputtered. “Are you kidding me right now? You’re calling our mother a whore?”

  “Come on, Orion,” Devon growled. He pointed to the photo. “That was our father’s funeral.”

  “He was offering her comfort!” Orion protested. “That’s totally acceptable and even gentlemanly behavior.”

  “Until it’s just not,” Devon argued. He tilted his head to look at the picture from a new angle. “Do you realize what it looked like to every person there? Our father died under suspicious circumstances and suddenly our mother is super chummy with his best friend and business partner? Hmm. And now this lovely reporter is just pointing out to her readership that our mother has been awfully chummy with Tex Johnson for a lot longer than they probably realize.”

  “This lady—who is it?” Orion muttered as he searched for the byline. “This Skye person has no right
to accuse our mother of anything!”

  “She actually didn’t,” Jason said quickly. “Look at the article. She’s asking questions. She’s suggesting that her readers ask questions because there are some pieces of this puzzle that just don’t fit.”

  “Or fit a little too easily,” Devon added darkly. Then Devon pointed at Orion. “And if I were you I’d stop yelling at Jason and go yell at Mother. She’s the one out there strutting around on Tex’s arm like some black widow.”

  “Dammit!” Orion glared at Jason. “I know you’re behind this.”

  “Me?” Jason was a bit surprised. Yes. He was behind this, but why would Orion think that? “Why me? Why can’t it be that the reporter is just concerned and doing this on her own? While I’m flattered that you think I have all of this influence over people in the city to do things that will deliberately piss off my family, you need to stop giving me so much credit.”

  Jason swallowed back his unease as he realized that his words were actually having a profound effect on Orion. The oldest King brother looked guilty. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be rude to you like that or assume that you’re the evil orchestrator of this situation. I’ll just go have a chat with the reporter and be done with it.”

  “You can’t.” Thank goodness it was Devon who had said that and not Jason. Jason would have been a bit conspicuous. “The woman hasn’t told any lies. She hasn’t libeled us. She hasn’t libeled our mother or called her anything negative. She’s exercising freedom of the press. One could make the argument that if our family didn’t want to wind up in the news, we should have behaved a little less conspicuously in public.”

  Orion was sputtering, but there was no place to go with it. Finally he closed his mouth, turned around, and walked out of Devon’s office. At the last second he spun about and glared at Jason. “I don’t want to see you around here. You got me?”

  “Whatever,” Jason said with deliberate casualness. “I think I can stay out of your way no problem. But you have a nice day.”