Empire of Lies

by Whitney G.

  He keeps the phone up to his ear, taking the small spiral staircase down to the other ballroom, to the hidden elevators where he can escape.

  “You’re missing the best part of the film,” I say. “The part when you say that you want me, gone-gone.”

  “I still do.” He hisses. “Now, more than ever.”

  I swallow, keeping calm like Michael taught me. Not showing any emotions, ignoring the heavy ache in my chest. “Because you honestly think that I was a liability to your stupid ass campaign? That murder was the best way for you to win?”

  “I wanted you gone because you’re a cunt just like your mother.” His words are slow and searing, the first ones that slip under my skin. “You only care about yourself, and you’re completely ungrateful for the lifestyle I’ve provided for you. You’re willing to embarrass me to no end, willing to cost me everything.”

  “I’ve never done anything to hurt you,” I say. “I hated you at times, but—”

  “What did you do to prevent the guy I hired from doing his damn job, huh?” He cuts me off. “Fuck him just like you’ve fucked all of the other customers in Club Swan?”

  “I never fucked any of those customers!” I can’t help but yell. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “What was it like, for you, then?” It’s not a question; he keeps talking. “Because I can tell you what it was like for me. Night after night, fielding calls from news reporters who wanted money to hide your filthy little secret from the papers and prevent it from embarrassing me.”

  “Is your ego that fragile? Is my personal life really that detrimental to yours?”

  “You cost me a five hundred-million-dollar deal last year, Meredith.” He hisses. “Disney walked away from my pending deal of a lifetime because one of their lead executives saw the daughter of a so-called ‘family-man’ twirling around, damn-near naked, onstage.”

  At least you’re saying ‘so-called’. “Maybe you should’ve asked him why he was at Club Swan in the first place,” I say. “Maybe you should’ve taken a hit out on him.”

  “I honestly considered it,” he says, smoothly as ever. “But then I realized just how much I’ve paid over the years to prevent you from dragging my reputation down the drain.”

  “I can guarantee that’s exactly where it’s heading right now...”

  He lets out a defiant laugh as he moves through the hallway, as he ignores those who are approaching him for autograph and picture requests—those who haven’t yet seen the film that’s playing in the ballroom.

  “I doubt anyone will believe that it’s anything more than a badly filmed simulation, the moment my team gets done with it,” he says.

  I don’t respond to that. I watch as he takes the grand staircase to the next level, as he slips into the room that leads to a private bank of elevators.

  “You didn’t think about that part, did you?” He shatters our brief silence. “That’s another unfortunate problem you’ve always had. Meredith. The failure of following through, and simply acting without thinking.”

  “I think you’ll be quite surprised at how well I thought this through, Dad.”

  “Then I think we can both agree that you shouldn’t call me by that name that anymore.:

  “I did it on purpose,” I say. “I just wanted to taste bile on my tongue one last time.”

  His arrogant laugh comes through the line again, and then he ends the call. I tap my screen and see him placing three calls to his executive advisor, his chief of lawyers and his public relations director. He’s leaving short, “I need you to meet me at the office now,” voicemails, but he has no idea that they’ll never receive his messages.

  Michael has rerouted them to a separate burner phone.

  Knowing exactly where he’s heading next, I make my way to the emergency stairwell and run down fifteen flights to the private garage.

  When I step onto the concrete floor, I’m met with a colorful array of luxury cars and the sound of my father shouting, “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  “Is the ‘push to start’ button not working?” I call out from the center of the garage. I pull a set of keys from my pocket as my father slowly steps out of the car. “I hate when that happens, and you have to rely on the keys.”

  “Okay, Meredith.” He slams the driver’s side door shut and glares at me. “What are you thinking about doing?” He shrugs. “You’ve shown your little video and attempted to shame me already. Are you going to murder me in cold blood now, in front of the goddamn garage cameras? With an invisible gun or something?”

  “The cameras aren’t on right now,” I say, pulling an unloaded beretta from my waist. “And this gun isn’t invisible.”

  His eyes widen, and he suddenly looks more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him before.

  “Wait, please,” he says, his voice soft and unconvincing. “I know you’re not going to believe me, but…I’ve been really messed up about what I did…On a personal level, I did cry, and I even called to see if they’d been gentle with you. On a business level, you have to understand what was at stake, but I’m more than willing to give you your inheritance now. No strings attached. I’ll cut the check for eighteen million right now if you just—” He tries to step closer, but I cock the gun—silencing his bullshit.

  “I’m going to give you two options,” I say, steadying my finger. “Option one, you go to prison for murder for hire, and you lose everything. Your money, your properties, all of your friends who will be ashamed to have ever known you. Option two, you still lose everything, but you’re taken someplace where no one gives a damn about what money you have—because you won’t have any left, and you’ll be miserable as hell and never seen or heard from again. You know, just a taste of what you gave to me.”

  He’s silent.

  “You should know that Page Six and The New York Times—along with every publication in this city, is currently receiving that video. They’ll also receive some dirty laundry about how you started your business, as well several emails that I’m sure you never intended anyone to see. You know, the ones about you not losing any sleep about me being gone, to Aunt Catherine.”

  “Meredith...” He shakes his head, looking far more upset about the tarnishing of his reputation than anything else I’ve said. “You didn’t…”

  “Yes, I fucking did,” I say. “And actually, this is a two for one deal, so you may want to choose your option carefully.” I step back, and Michael appears—walking behind me.

  He opens the back of a white sprinter van, revealing a gagged and bound Aunt Catherine. Dried and cracked mascara stain her cheeks, and her pupils are bloodshot red from hours of crying.

  She suddenly looks up, taking in the sights of both me and Michael, and she still looks stunned as fuck.

  “She’ll be joining you wherever you go,” I say.

  My dad swallows hard as sweat forms on his brow. There’s a pained look in his eyes, but there isn’t any remorse. He knows he’s lost this game. That there’s no chance for a comeback.

  Michael takes the gun from me, sliding it into his waistband. “You may want to make that decision within the next ten seconds, Thatchwood,” he says, pulling out his phone. “The police are about to be on their way.”

  “Option two,” he says, looking at me. “Option two…”

  “Interesting choice.” Michael taps his phone screen a few times, and a yellow cab pulls out from one of the far parking spaces.

  Trevor, dressed in a hoodie that covers his face, steps out of the driver’s seat and pops the trunk open. He doesn’t wait for my dad to catch his drift. He pulls out his own gun and forces him to get inside.

  He and Michael gently carry my aunt to the backseat—wrapping her in a rug before shutting the door.

  The moment Trevor returns to the car and pulls away, the elevator doors on the far end of the hall open. A group of policemen runs into the garage, searching for the man who will now be “gone-gone” from my life forever.

  I don’t shed a single t
ear.

  Michael

  Now

  Thatchwood Victory Party Rocked by ‘Murder for Hire’ Scandal

  Leonardo Thatchwood Flees the Country after Bombshell Video Surfaces; Interpol Issues Arrest Warrant

  The ‘Thatchwood Story’ Optioned for DocuSeries with Netflix: “Craziest [Shit] We’ve Ever Purchased!”

  Meredith Thatchwood Requests Privacy; Asks That the Press Print Her Name as “Meredith Anderson”

  Meredith Anderson Takes Control of Thatchwood’s $4B Trust and Claims $18M Inheritance

  Today is the first time in forever that the mainstream media’s headlines haven’t made me want to question the so-called journalists who write them. Then again, these are only the first five alerts that popped up on my phone today, and I know that there will be thousands more by this afternoon.

  Meredith’s father and his twisted ways are dominating the news cycle in a way I’ve never seen before. It’s beyond the typical “shock and outrage until we’re onto the next big story” pattern. It’s full-blown hysteria.

  The story is being discussed on all the cable news networks–for hours at a time. Publishers have announced ten books (so far) to be written by first-rate crime authors who want to delve deeper into the story, and local reporters have used every waking moment to catch Meredith in action, to ask her questions.

  Even though she’s repeatedly denied their requests, their thirst for the story of “Billionaire Tries to Have Daughter Murdered” is too addictive for them to care. And even though she’s more than satisfied with the thought of him being abandoned in a third-world country that lacks internet and electricity, she’s still coping with how far he was willing to go to get rid of her.

  It’s why we’ve been holed up in my upstate condo for the past week and a half. We don’t discuss the news or the headlines—we only glance at them here or there. Instead, we spend our hours senselessly fucking and making up for all the time we lost when she was captive in the mansion, the weeks when she was alone in Mexico.

  Setting down my phone, I look down at the chessboard between us—noticing where Meredith has moved her last piece. A badly timed maneuver for her rook.

  Smiling, I move my knight forward. “Checkmate.”

  “For the thirtieth time in a row…” She shakes her head. “It wouldn’t kill you to let me win every once in a while.”

  “I didn’t let you win the first time.”

  “And you’re still not over it.”

  “After I beat you seventy more times, I will be.” I set the board up for another round. “I think that should be enough.”

  She laughs, but then her smile slowly fades. “Speaking of enough…I don’t think I want to go back to the real world anytime soon,” she says. “I don’t think hiding out here forever is good either. I think we need to talk about what’s next.”

  I say nothing. We’ve deliberately avoided discussing any hard plans for the future. There are still loose threads that need to be tied, arrangements to be made to get her to her mother, and a long, drawn-out conversation that I’d rather not have regarding what we’ll do whenever we’re not in bed.

  If I’ll still get to run the business with Trevor…

  “Feel free to start talking,” she says. “I know how much you’ve been longing to get to this part.”

  I roll my eyes and set the pawns in their place. “What type of ‘happily ever after’ do you want, Meredith? Name the book and the author, and I’ll try to give it to you.”

  “You’ll give me the book or the romance?”

  “I’ll let you know after I read it,” I say, standing up and moving next to her. “I don’t want to promise something I won’t deliver, but I’ll do my best to make you happy.”

  “The hero in this book cries in the end.”

  “Then you can hang that shit up right now.”

  Laughing, she leans against me. “I don’t think you’ll ever be good at romance. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “But since you brought it up, I think my ‘happily ever after’ will have to look a lot different from anything I’ve ever read, if I’m going to be happy.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Before she can say another word, my phone buzzes in my pocket. A phone call from Trevor.

  “Hold that thought.” I hold the phone up to my ear. “Yes?”

  “I have a basic D-27 job that just came in,” Trevor says. “New Orleans. Possibly Las Vegas as well. Let me know by tonight if you’re interested.”

  “What happened to stepping back for a while?”

  “I did. From the ‘hit’ part. The other jobs are still very much up for the taking.” There’s a smile in his voice. “I’ll send you the fee via text. Let me know if I need to get someone else.” He ends the call, and out of habit, I grab my laptop from the drawer, ready to start researching the target. Within seconds, I’m mentally prepared to spend the rest of today’s hours doing what I honestly miss.

  Shit.

  “So?” I ask Meredith, pushing away those urges. “Should we start shopping for the white picket fences? Want to meet a realtor and find a bland and boring home in the suburbs? Throw in a few puppies, just for fuck’s sake?”

  She looks into my eyes, ignoring my question. “Was that Trevor who just called?”

  “It was. Why?”

  “What’s the job?”

  “There is no job…”

  “If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t have grabbed your laptop like that.” She narrows her eyes at me. “You almost forgot I was here. Just that quickly.”

  I raise my eyebrow, decide not to deny it. “It’s a D-27.”

  She leans forward, waiting for an explanation, but I don’t give it to her.

  My personal list is finished, I have billions in the bank, and I don’t need to swim in the underbelly of New York’s ecosystem anymore. I can focus on making Meredith happy with me, continue cementing our relationship so I won’t lose her again.

  I really am becoming a fucking sap…

  “What suburb, Meredith?” I ask. “I need to know exactly what you want.”

  “I want you to tell me what a D-27 job is. That’s what I want.”

  “Fine.” I give in. “It’s a very basic threat job in New Orleans, possibly Las Vegas as well. Hypothetically, if I were to take it, I would follow the target for a few days. Then I’d get him alone and make it known that he owes the wrong people money. I’d make it clear that he has a few days to pay it, and if he doesn’t, he’ll be handled by someone else.”

  “That’s it? No violence?”

  “None at all,” I say. “D-27s don’t typically escalate that far. They’re not bad people, they’re just greedy as hell, and they usually steal from the poor.”

  “So, they’re pay-day loan executives and banker type of guys?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Hmmm.” She taps her lip. “How much does someone pay you for something as simple as that?”

  “It varies.” I tap my phone and open the text message from Trevor. “This one is two million dollars. It’s a lot less than usual.”

  Her eyes widen, so I start to text Trevor that I’m not interested.

  “I want to go with you on this job.” She grabs my hand before I can hit send. “I want to help you do it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” she says, looking dead-ass serious. “I don’t want to live a boring, bland life in the suburbs and I don’t want a typical happily ever after. And I know you don’t either… I want to live in your world.”

  I blink, completely stunned again by the way her mind works.

  I shouldn’t entertain this idea at all, but from the look in her eyes—that familiar, longing and intrigue when she first found out what I did for a living, I know that she’s not bluffing. She wants this.

  She wants me as I am.

  “My world isn’t a pretty place,” I say. “It gets darker the deeper you go, and once you step in and wor
k with my type of people, you’ll never be the same. You’ll start reading people like you read books—looking in between the lines for their lies and their secrets, and you’ll start to realize that they’re never who they say they are. It might ruin you.”

  “On the first night we met, I told you I was already ruined…” She pauses. “I meant that.”

  I smile, but I don’t say anything else.

  “I don’t think you could leave your world if you tried anyway.” She starts talking again. “I definitely can’t see you trading it in for Wall Street or a nine to five.”

  “You’re wrong,” I say, cupping her face in my hands, feeling the beta-male shit seconds away from slipping from my lips. “I’d do it if it was the only way to keep you.”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “I promise that.” I run my fingers through her hair. “I would give it all up for you. If that’s what you want.”

  “I don’t,” she says. “I want you to share it with me. I want to keep building our legacy.”

  “Our legacy?” I smile, pressing my lips against hers. “I wasn’t aware that’s what we were doing.”

  “Well, now you know.”

  “You are aware that this means you’ll be pursuing a life of illegal crime, right?”

  “Yes,” she says, nodding. “I also know that if we ever get caught, you’ll do all the prison time and leave me out of it.”

  “I will…” I laugh and move down to the floor, pulling her on top of me. “After we fuck, let’s get to work…”

  End of Episode #3

  Epilogue

  Michael

  Now that you’ve reached the end of this story, you can see that I wasn’t lying about the lack of a warm and fuzzy “happily ever after.” There were no grand displays of love, long monologues for no reason, or any soft and soothing chats about the hero wanting to become a better person.

  Sure, I ended up in love with the “beautiful, feisty heroine,” but that’s a known spoiler for any fucking romance story. Even a twisted one.