Lies, Lies, Lies

by David A Max

  That evening Carlito snuck to Gina’s room to see her. “I’m going back to California,” Gina told Carlito.

  “What do you mean, you are going back to California?” Carlito asked.

  “Kevin just told me to go back to my company and promised me money,” Gina said excitedly, “please come with me, I am rich now and I can take care of both of us. You keep going back to Andreiá and you know how much I love you,” Gina said as she held Carlito’s face, “this is our opportunity to be together,” Gina said staring into Carlito’s eyes.

  Carlito sighed, “I can’t just leave, the last time we tried running away, do you remember what Kevin did? That was a scary warning, we have to look for a way to make it work, until Kevin tells me to leave,” Carlito said as he shook his head.

  “Maybe I can talk to Kevin,” Gina wondered.

  “You should know if Kevin wanted me to go he would have asked me,” Kevin always has a plan,” Carlito replied.

  A couple of days later Carlito was helping Gina pack her things, Gina held Carlito and wept, “This is hard, so hard,” Gina said as tears dropped from her eyes, “I will come and see you regularly,” she said, “once I get back and see everything my vice president has been doing I can settle down and come and see you.”

  “Don’t cry, any chance I get to leave here I will come and see you too,” Carlito said.

  Gina landed in California. On her way home from the airport she looked out the car window, ‘I have missed California, there is no place like home,’ she thought to herself.

  The next morning Gina was back at work, she walked into Talan Holdings, ‘It’s good to be back,’ she thought to herself, and immediately she stepped into the office there was a big celebration, with a big flyer that said ‘ Welcome back Boss’. Her staff were all excited to have her back at work, she waved and thanked all of them, her secretary brought out a cake with ‘welcome back’ written on it, she smiled and cut the cake. “Speech, speech,” they all shouted, and she used her hand to signal that they should quieten down.

  “I had to take a much needed break but towards the end of my break I got us money to expand and five hundred million dollars to invest,” Gina said. Her staff shouted for joy, “That is wonderful!” Gina shook their hands and went into her office.

  Michael Earice, the Vice President of Talan Holdings who had been running the office for months, walked into Gina’s office. “How was the break?” Michael asked Gina.

  “I needed it, not having been on a break in years,” Gina answered.

  “I didn’t expect you to be gone for that long, so when you called me that you were coming back I was excited, this place needs you,” Michael said.

  “Things came up but I also knew I left it in capable hands, that’s why I employed you,” Gina smiled. Michael updated Gina on what they had been doing.

  After work Gina drove to her gated house in Southern California. She had missed her four-bed five-bath home with its large lounge area, swimming pool and all the amenities, although she could not compare it to the mansion she had been living in in France; but it was her own, she paid her monthly mortgage on the property and she planned to complete her mortgage payment soon. She bought the property for $1,200,000 and the value of the property had gone up since she bought it eight years ago. Her business was doing well and she could even afford a bigger house but she loved this particular house. She walked round the house and saw her dead husband’s pictures, she gently removed all his pictures. She sat down in her lounge and thought about Carlito, ‘How I wish he was here and we were living together, then everything would have been perfect,’ Gina thought.

  After about a week Kevin transferred the fifteen million dollars he promised Gina into her account and also made five hundred million dollars available for her to invest for him, but Kevin said he would tell her what companies’ shares she could buy when the time was right. Although Gina disagreed initially, she tried to convince Kevin that she knew the right companies to choose for him but Kevin insisted that he was going to make the decisions.

  Gina was back at work and had fifteen million dollars in her account; she put ten million dollars aside for the business and kept five million dollars for her future in case everything went bad. Gina was happy things were in place and she was getting her life back together, the only thing she wanted and could not have at this point in her life was Carlito.

  Gina decided to join a local gym in her area, she had gained some weight in Kevin’s house, because they were served by maids all through her stay and she actually did not do any exercise. One evening at the gym, a young good looking well-built man approached Gina, “Hello, my name’s Jason. I noticed you come to the gym every day, you look good I must say,” Jason complimented Gina.

  “Excuse me, aren’t you a little too young? I’m forty years old,” Gina said.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Jason said and left. Gina smiled and shook her head.

  Gina left the gym and was about to get into her car, when she saw a good looking tall man standing by her car, “Excuse me,” Gina said, “I want to get into my car.”

  “Sorry,” the man said, “you have a nice car.”

  Gina was driving a new BMW seven series, “Thank you,” Gina said.

  The man moved back so Gina could get into her car, “I was actually waiting for you,” the man said, “I notice you use the gym and I have seen you drive out several times.” Gina stared at him. “Sorry, I’m Fred, Fred Dibnah.”

  “I’m Gina Davies.”

  “Can I get your number so I can give you a call later? I don’t want to delay you,” Fred said. Gina smiled and gave him her card and she drove off.

  Fred called Gina that night and the conversation on the phone was perfect, she felt young again, “I want to take you for dinner tomorrow night,” Fred asked.

  “That will be nice,” Gina said, and they kept talking until very late in the night.

  The next day at work Kevin called Gina, “Please invest all the five hundred million dollars into Great Trains. Great Trains manages a lot of trains in the United States both commercial and freight trains, but I want you to short sell the shares,” Kevin said. Short selling means you buy the share price of a company and make money when the company share price starts to fall.

  Gina was shocked, “Why would you tell me to short sell? Great Trains fundamentals shows the company is doing well and the share price is supposed to trend up not down.”

  “Do what I have told you to do,” Kevin said and he dropped the phone. Gina had no choice than to carry out Kevin’s orders.

  That evening Fred drove to Gina’s house. Gina came out and Fred opened the car door for her, “Thank you, you have a nice car,” Gina said, Fred was driving the new Mercedes S class. They had a lovely time, the dinner and conversation was just right, it was a delightful night and they both enjoyed themselves. Fred drove Gina back home, he opened the car door for her and walked her to the door, he gave her a goodnight kiss and he left. As he drove off, Gina wished he’d stayed with her for the night, because she liked him a lot.

  Three days later, Gina called Kevin from work, “You have lost three million dollars already, the company you bought is doing well, not bad as you predicted,” Gina warned, sounding worried. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just money, just make sure you don’t touch it,” Kevin replied.

  Two days later Fred and Gina went out on a date and Fred took Gina back to his house. It was a private gated house with six en-suite bedrooms, seven baths, a living area with high ceiling, play room, elevator, wine cellar, it had it all. They sat down and drank wine, “So tell me why you are all alone in this big house?” Gina asked Fred.

  “Well, I’m recently divorced and I just turned forty-five and we never had kids, that’s why I am all alone,” Fred replied. That night Gina slept over at Fred’s house, and as she kissed him in the bedroom for a few seconds she thought she was kissing Carlito before she came back to her senses a little later.

  Two weeks later
Gina called Kevin, “I’m checking your investment into Great Trains; your prediction is wrong the share price keeps going up, you have lost seven million dollars as we speak. I think we need to change strategy,” Gina said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kevin said, “just leave it.”

  The next morning Gina woke up and was getting ready to go to work, she switched on the television and there was breaking news on all the channels; Great Trains was on all headlines, six of their trains had derailed that morning, a number of passengers were injured, their trains couldn’t run for the rest of the day, their share price slumped and had lost a lot of value. Gina rushed to work, and immediately she got there Kevin called her, “You can sell all my shares now.” Kevin had just made three hundred and fifty million dollars profit. Gina was shocked, as she quickly sold the shares and took the profit, Gina’s company also just made a hefty commission, ‘how did Kevin know this was going to happen?’ Gina thought to herself. The rest of her staff rushed to congratulate her, “We just made a ton of money,” although sympathetic to Great Trains, but the profit was so much.

  Gina went home happy but also weary. That night Gina and Fred went to a hotel bar for drinks, they both were listening to music and dancing, when a lady walked up to Fred, “What are you doing here?” the woman asked Fred, “and who is she?”

  Fred pulled Gina away and ignored the woman, “Who was that?” Gina asked.

  “She’s an ex-girlfriend, whenever she sees me, she tries to make a scene, please ignore her,” Fred replied. The rest of the night was fun except for Fred’s ex-girlfriend who kept staring at them all night.

  Three days later Kevin called Gina, “I want you to invest seven hundred million out of the money into a company called Rewit.”

  Gina was sceptical, “Rewit needs to do a merger with Falcon so that they can start making big profits again; right now Rewit is not making a lot of profit unless the merger with Falcon goes ahead, which the CEO of Falcon has vowed to stop, I’m afraid we might not make a profit if we buy Rewit,” Gina explained to Kevin.

  “Just do what I told you to do,” Kevin said.

  ‘What is going to happen? A miracle can’t happen twice,’ Gina thought and shook her head; but she bought the shares as directed by Kevin.

  That afternoon Gina went on a lunch date with Fred. He took her to a park, and he had prepared a picnic; he laid a cloth on the grass and had a basket full of sandwiches and drinks, he also had a bottle of wine. Fred poured Gina a glass of wine, they both ate and drank and talked for a while, then a little girl not more than ten years old walked up to them, “Hello Mr Dibnah, I haven’t seen Macy in school, when is she coming back to school?” the little girl asked.

  “She’ll be back soon,” Fred said, “Where is your mummy?” the little girl pointed at her mum, and her mum waved, Fred waved back and told her to go and meet her mum.

  “Who is Macy?” Gina asked.

  “She’s my niece, and I drop her at school at times, that must be her school mate,” Fred replied.

  “Why do you drop your niece at school?” Gina asked.

  “My brother lives close by, so whenever he is in a hurry I help him out.”

  “That’s nice,” Gina said. “I have to go now, I have to go back to the office,” Gina said.

  “I know that, I have to go back to my office too,” Fred laughed as they both got up to leave.

  That afternoon in Gina’s office, she checked to see how Rewit was performing; the share price was stable and there was nothing unusual about the share price. ‘I knew it, how can Kevin expect something drastic will happen again like the first time, at least he is not losing money,’ Gina thought to herself.

  A week later, Gina was at work when one of her investment managers ran into her office, “The merger has been finalised with Rewit and Falcon.” Gina quickly turned her television on to watch the business news; Rewit shares had shot up through the roof. Kevin just made so much money. Her office phone rang and it was Kevin, “You can sell my Rewit shares now,” he told Gina. Gina quickly the shares, her company also made a lot of money on commission, this was the most money they had ever made in about a month. ‘Kevin definitely knows something we don’t know,’ Gina thought to herself.

  That evening Fred picked Gina up and they both went for drinks, it was a long weekend because of the public holiday. “I have a number of things planned for us this weekend, I want us to enjoy our long weekend,” Fred said as he drove.

  “That will be nice, so where are we going now?” Gina asked.

  “After the drinks I want us to stop at my house,” Fred said smiling.

  “Why?” Gina smiled.

  “Because I haven’t seen you in a couple of days,” Fred laughed as they drove to his house.

  Fred carried her straight to the bedroom, and put Gina on the bed and kissed her. “Let me have a quick clean up,” Fred said.

  Gina relaxed and removed her earrings; she opened a side drawer and was about to put her earrings there when she saw a picture, it was a picture of a lady and a little girl. She removed the picture and under the picture was a birthday card, Gina opened the birthday card and it read, ‘Happy birthday to my loving husband from your wife and daughter, Macy.’ Gina held her head and dropped the card, she picked up the card again, she wanted to be sure about what she saw, she threw the card down put on her shoes and ran out of the room.

  Fred came out of the bathroom and saw that Gina was gone; he looked at the bed and he saw the card, “No!” Fred shouted and he ran after Gina.

  Gina quickly called a taxi from her phone; Fred ran outside to meet Gina where she was waiting for her taxi, “Gina, let me explain, it’s not what you think.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Gina said, “you are married with a kid, you have been lying all along,” she shouted at Fred.

  “No, it’s not like that,” Fred tried to calm her down, but her taxi pulled up and she jumped into the taxi and left. Fred held his head and walked back inside the house.

  A couple of days later, Carlito called Gina, “How are you?” Gina asked.

  “I’m fine, how is California?” Carlito asked.

  “It’s fine, I have been calling you for some time now Carlito, and you haven’t answered or called me back?” Gina wondered.

  “Kevin has been sending me and Andreiá on a different kind of assignment, not what we did regularly.”

  “What kinds of assignments?” Gina asked.

  “He gave us some new potion to drink, the voodoo stuff he does, and we appeared on a train line; he told us all we had to do was wave in front of the train signals and they would change from red to green and green to red. He told us we had to change six train signals before the trains got there. I don’t know why he wanted us to change the signals but we did; we appeared in front of a train signal, waved in front of it and disappeared, and we did it six times after that we appeared back in the mansion.

  “The next thing that was strange was that me and Andreiá appeared in a man’s room, and were told to choke him but not kill him and tell him to do the merger the next day or we would appear to him the next day and we would kill him; and we disappeared in front of him, it was strange to us because we weren’t meant to collect his key.”

  Gina was stunned and could not speak for a few minutes. ‘So Kevin has been using voodoo to manipulate the stock market,’ Gina thought to herself. “Carlito, please let me call you back,” Gina said, she was still in shock, Kevin was capable of anything.

  That evening Gina lay down on her bed, and was thinking about all the things that had happened in the last couple of days; she believed Fred was married, and how Kevin was manipulating the stock market, and there was no evidence to suggest he was actually doing anything, ‘is this what the powerful men in this country do to make money, they are part of some secret society,’ Gina was lost in thought. She got up and sat by her window, looking outside in her compound thinking of what to do next, when she suddenly noticed a movement outside. She ope
ned her curtains and the person ran away. Gina quickly shut the curtains, sat down and pondered, ‘The man that just ran away looked like Fred from behind, what was Fred doing here, was he stalking me?’ Gina sat and wondered.

  The next day Kevin called Gina, “I want you to sell 45% stake of my shares in Gent Visa once they file their IPO and it’s going to happen a week from now.”

  “Is Gent Visa share price going to shoot up?” Gina asked.

  “Just do what I have told you to do,” Kevin told her.

  One week later, Gina was in her office waiting for Gent Visa to go public and immediately it did the share price went up gradually and, by midday, the business news announced that four billionaires had bought billions worth of shares of Gent Visa. The share price shot up, and by the end of the day it had gone up more than a 150% of its initial listing price. Gina sold 45% of Kevin’s stake and he made a lot of money. Two days later the four billionaires sold the majority of their shares in the company. Gina was amazed at what was going on, Kevin had made $1.6 billion in just over a month from three companies and her company made big commissions. ‘There is going to be a lot of bonus this year,’ Gina thought to herself.

  The next day the FBI came knocking on her office door, “We have some questions to ask you regarding your business and the trades you have carried out in the last one and a half months.”

  Gina was invited to the FBI office to answer some questions; “Your company bought a large number of shares in a company called Great Trains, according to our records, the company was doing very well when you decided to short-sell, how could you predict that six trains would derail in one day?”

  “I had a hunch that the company might have problems soon,” Gina replied.

  “The FBI agents looked at her; “Okay, what of Rewit, how did you know the merger was going to go ahead even after the CEO of Falcon came out publicly that it wasn’t going to happen?”