Fraud: A Stepbrother Romance

by Stephanie Brother

  That Derek showed up had been an enormously fortuitous opportunity that was missed by Tanner’s impulsiveness.

  He had to be punished, but carefully.

  Tanner was a very dangerous man, and even though King had no doubt’s about his loyalty to him, he was also very careful.

  Plus, he’d been fucking Peg. There was that. And now, probably Floori as well.

  King was not a man who forgave, ever.

  He pressed a button on his phone.

  “Get me Floori,” he said into the mouthpiece.

  He turned around, looking at the mess he’d made of the escort he’d hired. The girl’s sightless eyes stared at the ceiling, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. Her whole face was glistening with King’s issue. Semen coated her right eye in a whitish film. She no longer minded, he thought, grinning.

  King had the cord he’d used to strangle her wrapped tightly around his scrotum. His flaccid penis oozed a tiny drop of cum.

  He absently wiped it off, waiting for Floori to answer.

  Ah, well, he thought, looking at the dead woman.

  It was just another mess for “Floori the Fixer” to add to his list, on top of his problem with George Tanner.

  Chapter 15

  MEGAN

  The days and nights at the Fontainebleau Hotel dragged into a week and then a month.

  It was the happiest time of my life, and I spent the days trying to unravel the mystery of King’s financial empire.

  When Derek was able to meet with me at the hotel, we’d make love.

  I loved slowly enjoying his body, but one time I just grabbed him as soon as he was in the door, and stripped off his jeans down far enough to get to his marvelous cock.

  I sucked him off right there, as he leaned against the wall.

  He came, and I pulled his spurting dick out of my mouth and sprayed his hot cum all over my face, lips and tits, rubbing it all over with his cock, and licking the creamy semen.

  It tasted so wonderful!

  Derek was surprised by my need, and later we made a more relaxed form of love.

  The days went on, and I was getting a bit antsy, cooped up in the hotel.

  Still, there was nothing to be done about it until the Alpha Team collected enough evidence to get King.

  *****

  I decided I needed to check up on Nigel, so I used the privacy feature on my cell phone and called the doggie hotel where he was staying.

  “How is your trip?” asked the manager.

  “Oh, you know. Lots of excitement, and plenty of bugs!” I said, feeling a bit naughty about my lie.

  “Nigel misses you, but he’s doing fine. Would you like to talk to him?” she said.

  I spent ten minutes making goofy noises for Nigel. I could hear him panting and yipping, and the manager told me he was happy to hear my voice.

  When I hung up, I felt bad for Nigel.

  He deserved a better owner, and I promised that when this was over, I would make sure he never left again.

  *****

  One morning, I got a call from an attorney that I knew handled estates.

  “Miss Megan Greene, I presume?” said the voice on the phone.

  “Yes, it is I, may I ask who is calling?” I said.

  “This is William Rogers, and I am the attorney representing the estate of the late Margaret Greene. I understand she was your stepmother. I have some information regarding the disposition of her estate. Do you have time to come by my offices?” he said.

  I thought for a moment.

  Why would Peg’s attorney have any information at all for me? I didn’t know about any arrangements that Peg might have made regarding her money or assets, having concluded from her last interaction with the woman that we had no need of contacting each other ever again.

  All of my father’s estate had been settled.

  I couldn’t think of any legal reasons that Peg may have left any instructions for her attorney that would concern me.

  “May I ask for some more specifics?” I said.

  “Unfortunately Ms. Green,” said Mr. Rogers, “your physical presence is required for identification purposes as well as for me to present you with certain items.”

  I could hear him smile over the phone as he said the next sentence.

  “Certain key items,” he said, emphasizing the word key.

  “I have some pressing matters to which I must attend today Mr. Rogers,” I said. “I must apologize but I am completely slammed today with work.”

  “Would tomorrow morning be convenient for you, Mr. Rogers?” I asked.

  “That would be fine Ms. Green. I will see you then. Say, ten o’clock sharp?” he asked.

  “That’s fine. I’ll see you then,” I said.

  “Can you please give me directions?”

  We spoke for a few more moments while we ironed out some minor details.

  Then, he hung up.

  What on earth could this be about? I wondered.

  *****

  The next morning, I went to the attorney’s office.

  I had the concierge bring me a car, and dressed inconspicuously.

  I work dark shades and a hat that hid my features well.

  The attorney’s offices were in a very posh location, in downtown Fort Lauderdale, off of Las Olas Boulevard, along the river.

  I parked my car and strolled along the shops and restaurants that lined the river.

  It was a beautiful Florida day.

  The sun was shining, and it wasn’t us oppressively hot or as humid as could be expected, for this time of year.

  I walked into the office, and was greeted by a receptionist.

  She was pretty, but seemed a bit vapid.

  She was doing her nails, and chewing bubble gum when I introduced myself.

  She put down her file, and turned to her computer, and clicked a few keys.

  “Name?” asked the girl.

  “My name is Megan Greene, as I mentioned,” I said. “I’m here to see Mr. Rogers.”

  Oblivious to my tone, the girl tapped on the touchscreen of her phone for a few seconds and then looked at me.

  “Mr. Rogers will see you now,” she said.

  “It’s the third door on the left, and you may sit anywhere you wish in that conference room.”

  I walked to the door, as indicated.

  When I saw the room, I gasped at the opulence on display.

  Marbled floors with a granite table, and huge leather backed chairs spoke of enormous amounts of money that had been spent to great effect.

  I felt it was very ostentatious, and was taken aback for a moment.

  While I’m no stranger to money, I typically find this manner of wealth display vulgar and crass.

  “I see you don’t approve of my decor, Ms. Green,” said William Rogers, as he entered the room.

  “Not at all Mr. Rogers,” I lied.

  “Megan Greene, pleased to meet you,” I said as I extended my hand.

  “Ms. Greene, please sit down. I have only a few things to review with you, and it shouldn’t take long,” he said.

  We sat and he straightened himself up and leaned towards me.

  “But first, a mere formality,” he said.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “May I please see your identification?” asked Mr. Rogers.

  I fumbled in my purse for a few moments, until I found my driver’s license, and presented it to Mr. Rogers.

  He looked at it and frowned slightly, and then set it on the immaculate surface of the granite table.

  “Might you have your passport with you, or another form of government issued identification, preferably with a photo?” he asked.

  I took a moment to look at William Rogers.

  He was an older man with graying short cropped hair, dressed impeccably in a double-breasted herringbone pattern suit.

  He wore very expensive looking shoes, and a huge golden watch which was possibly a Cartier.

  His eyes were deep brown, hoo
ded, and piercing. His mannerisms were very calculated and deterministic.

  I looked through my purse, and came up with my passport.

  I handed it over to Mr. Rogers, who gave it a cursory glance and then snapped it shut. He placed it next to my driver’s license on the table.

  “May I see your left wrist please?” asked Rogers.

  “What on earth for?” I said.

  “Humor me, please?” he said.

  He grinned, and I could tell he was amused, but also there was a serious look in his eyes, almost as if he knew something that made him a bit uncomfortable.

  I extended my left arm and pulled back the sleeve of my blouse, showing him my wrist. He took my arm lightly in his hand and gently rotated the wrist back and forth so that he could see both sides.

  “Excellent!” he said.

  “Well, I guess you can see that I am not a drug abuser,” I said dryly.

  Rogers chuckled.

  “My dear girl,” he said, “I wanted to be sure that it was indeed you. You see, your stepmother Peg left very explicit instructions as to how to identify you. I note that you do indeed have a small pockmarked scar on the inside of your left wrist. Do you remember how you got that scar?” he asked.

  Now, it was my turn to feel uncomfortable.

  “Yes,” I said dully. “Peg did that.”

  I remembered when Peg had struck out at me blindly, one afternoon.

  I had been complaining about Blaise, when she snapped.

  She threw an ashtray against the wall. It shattered like a bomb, striking me with glass fragments.

  One of them stuck in my wrist, and it put a small, deep cut in my skin.

  It required three stitches.

  Peg apologized, later, and had gotten me an ice cream float.

  She told me that it was only an accident. She made sure to get me to promise not to tell my Dad what had happened.

  “Miss Green, your stepmother was not very fond of you,” said Mr. Rogers. “I am sure you don’t find that very surprising, given your history with her.”

  “I’m not sure that’s any of your business, Mr. Rogers,” I said.

  “Nonetheless, I have something here for you, that Mrs. Greene wanted you to have,” he said.

  His eyes watched me closely.

  I tried to hide my emotions, but it was not easy to think of Peg, after that memory, as being benevolent to me.

  He reached into his inner coat pocket and extracted an envelope.

  He placed it carefully on the smooth, shiny surface of the granite table, and slowly slid it across to me.

  I picked it up.

  “Open it, please,” he said. “I must confirm that you are in possession of the contents before you may leave.”

  “Oh, really?” I said.

  He just sat there, looking at me, and making me feel like I was in grade school, with the Principal.

  I slipped a nail into the crease, and ran it down the paper.

  It opened.

  I upended it, and a key fell out.

  I saw there was a business card in the envelope, and fished it out.

  “Excellent,” said Mr. Rogers. “Thank you, Ms. Greene, we are finished here.”

  With that, he stood and walked out of the room.

  The nerve! I thought.

  I looked at the key.

  It appeared to be to a safety deposit box.

  The business card said “First Centennial Bank” with an address that was only two buildings away.

  I walked out of the conference room, through the lobby, and across the street.

  Then, I went into the bank.

  A half hour later, I knew I had all the ammunition I needed to put that slimy bastard Robert King away for the rest of his miserable life.

  *****

  When I had discovered all the evidence that Peg had left in her bank box, I almost had a heart attack.

  Peg had managed, over the years, to collect documents, computer files, and digital photos of a number of illicit transactions that involved Robert King. There were two external hard drives and four sheets of neatly typed notes, plus a hand-written note that Peg had written to me. I guess she thought this was her insurance in case King had any ideas.

  The notes were thorough, and as I read them, I suddenly had to stop.

  A few tears fell, as I took in the enormity of her effort to do right by me.

  In the notes, she apologized for her past behavior.

  She was being used by Robert King, and her son, Blaise, who had manipulated her into a fraudulent scheme to bilk millions from the socialites in Palm Beach.

  Worse still, she had tried to get away, and I surmised that she was trying to reach me that day at Bayside.

  I stifled a sob, when I read that she knew that Blaise had tried to rape me when I was a teenager, and that Derek had beat Blaise up because of it.

  She told me that Blaise threatened to kill the both of us if she didn’t make sure we never saw each other again.

  When Derek had announced he was going into the Navy, it was a huge relief to her.

  My leaving for college removed the final lever Blaise had over her, until he came to her one day with Robert King in tow.

  He asked her to sign over her interest in the armor manufacturing company, so that he could take it over and serve as the CEO.

  Sam Parker told her that my Dad would have wanted her to do this, and that she would never have to worry about money ever again.

  Robert King promised he would have her move in with him, and she could do as she pleased,

  Peg admitted that she’d had affairs with Parker and King, while married to my father.

  It was not a shock, but it made me sad nonetheless.

  Poor Dad.

  *****

  King and Sam Parker had taken Peg’s shares and bought out the others in the armor business.

  That was when King tried to involve her in a new scheme to defraud a number of the charitable socialites in the Palm Beaches, primarily by setting up an imaginary fund in Peg’s name. All of the documentation was written with her as the chief principal of the organization.

  She had the title of Chairman of the Board in the official corporate papers.

  However, King had a Registered Agent out of Delaware, with another corporate contact in Wyoming. These were shell corporations, and Peg had detailed how money from some unknown source had traveled through her corporation. King had billed her for services rendered, and the amounts were staggering.

  While most of this probably would have passed legal muster, there were three items that threw it into sharp relief.

  The first was a set of computer files that, when I had looked at them, were records that detailed King’s involvement in the Silk Road heroin business. There were userids and passwords for a number of accounts, as well as backups of advertisements from Silk Road for his business selling heroin and other opiates.

  Blaise had apparently been in charge of running the websites, and assuring that the bitcoins were received and credited to the Silk Road accounts.

  These records indicated that the money flowed in the form of bitcoins, that were untraceable, into Peg’s charitable trust.

  Then, the bitcoins went to the Cayman Islands, where they were converted into diamonds and other precious stones.

  These were then couriered to a bank in Monaco, where they were sold for dollars. These were then ‘donated’ back into the charity, and the corporation paid King from that.

  Another thing I discovered, (that probably would have made Derek face-palm), was that the seaplanes that Alpha One had been following were smuggling the diamonds, using hidden compartments in the floats!

  The last thing was the most devastating and important. It was a raw video of Sam Parker’s death.

  When I watched it, I cried, but it was because I was relieved.

  On the video, it was clear that Derek had tried to prevent Parker from falling over. The angle and resolution were perfect.

 
; This would prove Derek’s innocence!

  I had to get this to Judge Turner, before Derek was indicted.

  *****

  “Derek!” I yelled into the phone.

  “Hey, sweetheart! I’m down at the Ocean Reef Club and I can’t really talk right now. Is it very important?” he asked.

  I could tell he was in the middle of something involving the SEAL team.

  “You’ve got to get back here! Judge Turner needs to see what Peg had in her safe deposit box!” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “Derek! There’s a video of Sam Parker falling overboard! King was going to use it to get me to help him kill Peg! But, I saw an edited version, and Peg had a copy of the raw video! You can see that you’re trying to keep Sam from going over, and then King and Tanner made it look like you pushed him!” I was talking a mile a minute, hoping he’d be able to come right away.

  “Slow down!” he said.

  “Derek, honey, we have enough evidence to blow King away and put him and Tanner into prison for life!” I said, triumphantly.

  “I had the contents of her box moved to another safe place, and made copies, but we have to get this to Ike!” I shouted.

  “When can you get here?” I asked.

  Derek muted the phone, and a few minutes later he spoke to me.

  “Megan, I can be there tonight. Try to set up a meeting with Turner in the morning. I’ve got to go, and I love you!” he said.

  He hung up.

  My heart suddenly felt like it would explode!

  Derek had just told me he loved me!

  *****

  CORAL GABLES

  “Mr. King,” said George Tanner.

  He was standing on the edge of a beautifully manicured lawn, that surrounded an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

  At one end of the pool was a waterfall, and at the other a bar.

  A young woman sat at the bar, sipping a Mai Tai, totally nude. Her wet, blonde hair stuck to her neck and back.

  Her pert breasts bounced in the waves being made by another woman who was swimming laps.

  “Yes, George, what is it now?” replied Robert King.

  King was floating on a vinyl raft, in his indoor pool. He had a glass of the finest single malt Scotch in one hand, and a cigar in the other.

  He was being fellated by a caramel colored girl, expertly. His cock disappeared into her eager mouth, and then reappeared like some kind of magic trick.