Mr. CEO

by Willow Winters

  “I'll always love you,” Jackson whispers as he gathers me. “There is nothing we should be quite so grateful for as the last line of the poem that goes, 'When your own heart asks.'”

  “When you own heart asks...” I repeat, the quote from Hagakure echoing in my thoughts as I come back to reality. My body aches, unfulfilled desire aching in my loins and my nipples tight in my sports bra. I sit up, shaking my head again. A fantasy lover, never to be found in the real world. And what's this bullshit about a future? About love? My life is going to be measured in terms of days and hours once I unleash the next broadside against Peter DeLaCoeur.

  But I can't deny the depression that was threatening me is pushed back a bit, and I feel a lighter. I'm shaken, though... Jackson? And what about my fantasy... is it true? Did I love him? Do I love him?

  I get up off my meditation mat and blow out the candle, heading for my food area. I feel good enough to make some dinner, and then maybe I can get back to work on verifying some of Peter's criminal connections. I'm hacking a casino, the same one that I released the security camera footage from. Unfortunately, their security server is different from their financial server, and the security on it is more closely held.

  Still, before I sit down at my computer, I think back to my fantasy. Jackson? Really? But...

  A knock comes at my door, and I look up. It's familiar, even if I've heard it only once before.

  “Kat! Open up, please! It's me!”

  I go over and check my peephole, even though I'm already reaching for the lock. He's outside, and in the dim light of my security light, he looks panicked. “Kat... Katrina! Open up!”

  I pull the bolt and open the door, Jackson stepping back enough to let the door open enough for him to get inside. As soon as he’s able, he pushes past me and I close the door. “What's this about, Jackson?”

  Jackson shifts from side to side, his eyes flicking around the shadowed space of my loft. “Kat, you need to run. Peter's angry, and I don't know if I can keep you safe any longer.”

  “Talk.”

  Chapter 12

  Jackson

  Looking at Katrina in the dim light, the first urge I have is to pull her to me, to hold her and protect her. I resist the urge only by pushing past her and reminding myself of the task at hand. I don’t want to be the man whose mind cares about nothing but sex.

  “What do you mean, keep me safe?” she asks after her one-word command. She locks the door, and I notice that this time, she didn't have her pistol with her when she answered the door. Why?

  “Where's your pistol?” I ask, still looking around. “And is that all you have?”

  “It's all I've needed,” Kat says in a relaxed voice, going over to her computer desk and taking the pistol out. “I've been doing maintenance on it today.”

  “Yeah well, I hope it's in perfect condition,” I say, wanting to sit down but not knowing where. The loft is nearly black inside, with only the light from Kat's monitor illuminating anything. “Jesus Katrina, can you turn on a light?”

  Katrina makes her way past me and hits a switch, illuminating what looks like, of all things, a line of white Christmas lights that stretches around her living area and over her bed. “That's new.”

  “I used other lights last time. I picked these up because I can run them off a couple of double A batteries if I want,” she says, sitting down in her desk chair. “I have enough costs with just keeping my computer going. So what did you mean, Jackson? You didn't show up panicked at my door telling me Peter's going to be coming after me just to see my home lights.”

  I try to find a place to sit down, finally giving up and pointing to her bed. “May I?”

  “Go ahead. But get to talking, Jackson.”

  I can barely call this a bed, it's so thin and uncomfortable. I think I might be more comfortable sitting on the floor as I adjust myself. “You know, you don't have to bitch at me about it, Kat. I'm serious when I said I'm here for the right reasons. Peter saw your most recent hit on him. Your friends in the online media need to watch themselves also, but Peter knows that he can't hit at them easily or invisibly. He hits you, though... hell, Kat, you don't even exist. Nathan took a week to find you, and he's one of the best in the city at it. And Peter went through the roof at this one. You touched a nerve that he isn't going to let go of.”

  “I don't want him letting go,” Katrina says, her voice intense again. “I want him to latch on so that I can drag him into the light of day with it, then drive a stake through his fucking heart like a vampire.”

  “Yeah well, I don't want to see you dead because of it!” I yell back, then settle back on the bed. “For fuck's sake, I know you don't care, but I care if you live through this or not.”

  “And yourself?” Katrina asks, but this time, there's a bit of softness in her voice. “And what's with Peter?”

  “He threw a tantrum today... Jesus, how I ever thought that man could have been my father. Throwing things, then he tells Nathan to hunt you down and cut your throat in front of me, because I dared to say that your little act may not have been from you. Then afterward, he tells me that if I ever contradict him in public again, he'll have my throat cut. So I went and talked to Nathan.”

  “And what did Staff Sergeant Black say about it?” Kat asks, something I didn't know. She notices my surprise, and smirks. “I know all about him, remember? Give me five minutes, and I could have his last commanding officer's home phone number.”

  I sigh, then half-laugh. She's still a step ahead of me, but I have to get through to her. “He says that he won't come after you. But he also knows that Peter is going to send someone else after you if he doesn't produce results. And he has to look like he's doing something, or else he's going to end up just as dead as Peter wants you to be. There's more than one way to kill someone in New Orleans.”

  Kat nods, then leans forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “You look more awake than you were before, at least. You understand the stakes of this battle. Either I take him down, or I die. I may die either way.”

  “I don't want that, Katrina!” I repeat vehemently. “I want you to live!”

  “Why? Why give a damn about me?”

  Her quiet question, barely above a whisper, cuts me off, and I look at her again. Her hair is totally black in the dim light from the Christmas LEDs, but those eyes of hers... like two tears in the middle of that perfect face. “Because you were one of the only decent things in my childhood, Kat. We met when we were both six, and even then, I knew my mother hated me. She kept telling me how I'd ruined her figure, how it was my fault that Peter was the way he was. I didn't understand it at the time, but I did the math later... Peter was already having an affair with Andrea's mother before I was even born. I didn't understand it at the time, and thought it was all my fault.”

  “It never was,” Kat says, getting off her chair and sitting on the other end of the bed. She crosses her legs, kind of yoga style, or maybe in a meditation pose. “But go on.”

  “From the beginning, you were my best friend... hell, for a lot of it, my only friend. Andrea didn't even speak English at first when she came to the house, and she and I have never got along all that well, at least until the past few days. We never did really, although I remember that you two sometimes played together. But most of the time you and I played together. I looked forward every day when you would pull up in that Ford Crown Vic that your dad drove, because it meant a whole afternoon or a full day if it was a Saturday where I felt like a normal kid, and not the son of...”

  “Of what?” Katrina asks softly.

  “Of a human snake,” I say after a moment. “Even when I was little, I think I knew about my... about Peter at some level. When everyone else was able to bring their parents to school for those silly days, he was never able to go. Then there were all the other signs... the sports cars, the clothes, the constant pretty girls who kept coming to the house. The son of a bitch didn't even worry about trying to hide his cheating even, although
he's gotten worse as Andrea and I have gotten older. And through it all, I was the one blamed by Mom, and more or less ignored by Peter. To him, I was just an... an accessory, I guess. Something to check off the box, saying he'd done what needed to be done to complete his bucket list on life.”

  “But with me, you felt different?”

  I nod, smiling for the first time in what feels like all day. “Yeah. We clicked from the beginning, Katrina. I mean sure, you and I have our differences. Even back then we had those. But you liked so many of the things I liked, and every time you and I got together... it was magic to me. You know, I'd trade all the groupies, all the cars and the drugs and the parties for another chance to sit down with you and complete that stupid Corvette that I threw out later?”

  “So why didn't you try and find me?” Katrina asks, and I can hear the hurt in her voice. “I spent six years in foster care, and a lot of that was hell. Even with Virginia, there was a lot of hell I went through.”

  “At first, I was just told you were gone,” I answer. “Later, when I found out that your parents had been killed, I was told you were sent to live with your grandparents in Vermont. Since I didn't know anything about your grandparents, and I didn't know how much my parents lied to me on a constant basis... I believed it. But without you in my life, without that normalcy... I realize now that I've become too much like my father. I may have all my hair still, and there's a lot less fat around my waist, but in too many other ways, I've walked down his path. Except for one.”

  “Which is?”

  “I don't want you to die, Katrina. You were my friend, and since seeing you...” I stop, unable to finish what I want to say. “I don't want you hurt. You talk about going through a decade of hell, and I don't doubt it. But I've been through my own kind of hell for my entire life, especially when my best friend and the only girl I... liked was taken from me. But if I have to, I'd rather go through that again than have you hurt.”

  I look down at my shoes, noting that I'm still wearing the same muddy and stained loafers I'd put on this morning, in fact, I'm wearing the same stuff that I wore for my walk with Nathan. It's filthy, and for the first time in years, I don't really care.

  Katrina surprises me by reaching out and putting a hand on my arm, and I look up, into her glittering eyes. “I believe you,” she says softly. “Jackson... you were the only thing I missed from my old life once I accepted that my parents were dead. But I'm not going to stop, and I'm not going to run. If Peter wants to send his men after me... it's going to cost him a lot to get my head on a stick.”

  “You sound a lot like Nathan,” I mutter, but I can feel her hand through my shirt, and I want her so damn bad. I want to feel her fingers on my skin again, not on my shirt. I want to kiss those lips, to see those tear-colored eyes change to what I know they can be, a clear blue like the Caribbean. I want to hold her and tell her that the pain can go away, for both of us. I want all of that, but I don't move. The hurt and distrust is still too much inside her, I can tell.

  “He's misguided, but somewhat honorable still,” Katrina says. “You can learn something from him, if you study him closely enough.”

  “There are other things, other people I'd rather learn from, even if he is interesting,” I reply, letting go of my pain some and covering her hand with mine. “Katrina, I want you safe... but if not, I want to be part of your life.”

  Kat's about to answer, when her computer beeps and she looks over, breaking the tension between us. She pulls her hand free and goes over, pulling up a window. She's quiet for a few minutes as she reads and types, then leans back, her face slack. “Oh my God.”

  Chapter 13

  Kat

  I can feel Jackson's eyes burning into me as he tells me that he wants me to be part of his life. I'm lost in those eyes, and the honesty of what he just revealed to me. It's nothing that I didn't already know, I've spent nearly ten years learning everything I could about the way Peter DeLaCoeur and the way he's run his business and family, but to me, it sounded like it was the first time Jackson has ever said it out loud. The way he just opened up, and the weight that drops off his shoulders as he tells me about the pain of growing up in his life... it touches me.

  So when his hand covers mine, I feel myself being pulled toward him by his eyes, and I want to lean in toward him. I want to tell him how just hours ago, I was dreaming about him, and about the fact that since he's come back into my life, I feel like there's a chance at a future.

  My computer beeps, saving me. I take my hand off Jackson's arm and get off the bed, trying to keep the trembling out of my knees as I cover the short distance. I sit down in my chair gratefully, and see that Andrea has messaged me.

  BS- You there?

  CDG- I have a visitor. Your brother.

  BS- Half-brother. He's making strides, but he's got a way to go before he's my full brother.

  CDG- Your choice. What's up?

  BS- You know you're not the only one researching Peter's past, right?

  CDG- I figured as much. What, did you learn something helpful?

  BS- Yes, but it's not something I want to release to the press.

  CDG- What?

  BS- Can you receive a file?

  CDG- Yes. Format?

  BS- Encrypted document.

  CDG- Send it.

  I get a file transfer notice and analyze it quickly. I know Jackson's sitting behind me, but he's being quiet, probably still absorbing everything that we've said to each other over the past few minutes. The file transfers quickly, and I give it another scan before dropping it into a virtual box.

  CDG- Encrypt code?

  BS- My full name.

  CDG- English or Japanese?

  BS- English. I'll be in touch after you read it. Goodbye.

  Andrea Julia DeLaCoeur... the file unlocks, and a document along with a subfolder pulls up, unzipping and opening for me. I read quickly, and realize what Andrea meant. “Oh my God.”

  Jackson's next to me in an instant, looking at me closely. “Kat... Katrina? What is it?”

  I point, unable to speak. Jackson looks at the window, his lips moving silently as he reads, something he did even as a kid.

  Samuel Grammercy, detective lieutenant, New Orleans Police Department. Thirty-eight years old at the time of his death, no suspects ever identified in his death by car bombing.

  Michael Ball, forty-eight years old, bartender. Alcohol server's license states that he works in the Miami area.

  The pictures aren't great, all taken from public sources, but there's enough there to verify what Andrea's document tells me.

  “They're alive,” Jackson says after he finishes clicking through the files. “They... they never were blown up. How?”

  “I don't know,” I whisper, finally finding my voice. “But Jackson... I remember. I remember the fire, the boom, I remember it all. How is that possible?”

  Jackson shakes his head. “I don't know either,” he says. “Katrina, can you trust this information? Who sent it to you?”

  “Someone I can believe,” I reply, not sure why I won't tell Jackson the truth about his half-sister. I just don't think Andrea would want it yet. “But I need to verify this.”

  Jackson gives me a look. “Katrina, this changes everything. I'm not saying it makes Peter any less of an animal, or any less of a threat to you. But you've spent nearly half your life vowing revenge for something that may never have happened. And if your father’s in Miami... you're going to need help.”

  “Whose?” I ask, shaking my head. “Darcy... but she's got a family now. Virginia's taking care of two new foster kids herself now, she can't help me... I'm alone.”

  “No you're not,” Jackson says, kneeling down next to me and taking my hand. “Kat, you've got me. I already told you that I was going to try and deflect Peter off you... now we've got something else to do.”

  “You mean it?” I ask, giving his hand a quick squeeze. “It's going to involve money, deception, and lying to Peter. You'd be sig
ning your own death warrant if he finds out.”

  Jackson nods, then smirks. “Nathan told me this morning that I need to stand up. Be a man, he said. Maybe this is just my way of doing it.”

  I nod, then smile. “I like that. Okay, so we work together on this. But I don't have a lot of details. Miami's a big city, and there are a lot of bars there. All I have is a name for him.”

  “Then we find out together,” Jackson says with a smile. “After all, who'd think that Prince Douchebag would actually be trying to do something worthwhile with his time? I mean, besides reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad.”

  “Good book. Myopic, but a decent book,” I comment to Jackson's surprise. “You'll find as we spend time together I know more than just martial arts, hacking, and seduction.”

  “Okay. So where can I start first?” he asks. “This isn't something I have any experience with, so I'm going to be putting myself in your hands.”

  “First... I need to know more. I need verification, and there's only one person who can do that for me that I know of.”

  “Who?”

  “Nathan Black.”

  Jackson shakes his head emphatically at first, but then the shakes slow as something dawns on him. “He told me... he told me that he didn't kill your father.”

  “Not that he didn't set the car bomb. So find out what happened. Meanwhile, I'm going to go to some of my other sources, help narrow down the Miami end of things.”

  Jackson thinks for a moment, and I understand. He suspects how dangerous Nathan Black is, but I know exactly how dangerous he is. On the other hand, Jackson knows more about Nathan's state of mind than I do right now, which is why I'm asking him to talk to Nathan directly. It's still dangerous, however.

  Finally, he hums, then grins. “Deal. How do you want me to pass along what I know? I mean, coming here all the time is great for me, but puts you in more danger, right?”

  I nod, then hold out my hand. “Phone.”