Annihilate Me 2: Omnibus (Complete Vols. 1-3, Annihilate Me 2)

by Christina Ross

  “In fact, it is.”

  “Tank will testify to that.”

  “And he no longer works for Wenn, Alex. He works personally for you. So once again, you’ve got a credibility issue.” He waved a hand dismissively in front of his face. “But that’s your problem—and so is this. There’s something else that you need to prove, Alex.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you were standing in my condominium. After all, I assume you realize that you can buy one of Trump’s condos fully furnished, which is what Meredith and I did. And as many others did before us and after us. Each one of the units comes with the same design, more or less, and I’m sure there are fully-furnished condos that look just like mine that are ready to show to prospective buyers. Perhaps you took your actress friend to one of them, and asked the Realtor for a moment to look around the place alone so you could shoot your little movie. So, once again, I hope you have a way of proving to all of us that the condo we’re about to see is indeed mine.”

  “Would you please turn on the TV?” Alex asked again. “Then you’ll need to move to the side, Stephen. Otherwise, you’ll block the screen.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to do that,” he said in a way that was so relaxed, so fully controlled, I had to wonder if Alex would ever get beneath his skin. Rowe reached for the remote in front of him, turned on the television, and then rolled his chair aside.

  “Can everyone see now?” he asked. “Yes? Good. Because God knows, I’d hate for anyone to miss this.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  When Alex connected his phone to the television, everything on his iPhone’s screen was mirrored on the television’s seventy-inch screen. He chose the video he’d shot of Janice and pressed ‘play’ while holding his phone horizontally at the television so that everyone could view the video in widescreen.

  And suddenly there was Janice Jones, looking horrified at the phone after Alex had pulled it from his pants pocket. Alex hit ‘pause’ and stopped on her shocked, wide-eyed expression. Then he addressed the group before going any further.

  “That would be Janice,” he said. “As you can see by the look on her face, she had no idea that I was taping her voice from my pants pocket.” He looked at each member of the group with the exception of Rowe. “There’s something you need to know before we go forward. I knew that to get anything out of Jones, I would have to offer her a financial incentive. I understand how that might look, but Jones is in love with Rowe and she also is financially dependent on him. Rowe has taken care of all of Jones’ expenses since they first became a couple. Since she no longer works as a stripper, she no longer has an income. Because of that, I needed to make sure that she knew that, with the money I was about to offer her, she could walk away from him a free woman and start her life over without any fears of being cast to the streets.”

  “Are you telling us that you went there to bribe her?” Diana Crane said.

  “No. What I’m telling you is that I went there to get the truth out of her.”

  “But with a price in mind for that truth.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And how much did the ‘truth’ cost you, Alex?”

  “I offered her twenty-million dollars, though it needs to go on the record that Jones ultimately declined that money.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know why. We had plans to meet this morning so she could hand over the information she’d amassed on Rowe over the years in exchange for the first payment of ten million dollars. But she skipped out on me. She never showed.” He looked straight at Stephen. “For reasons I can only speculate about, I haven’t heard from her.”

  “Regardless of whether she took you up on your offer or not,” said Diana, “there’s a chance that whatever else she says in this video of yours might just be because she wanted your money, and nothing more. Let’s be honest here. For that kind of money, if someone thought they were going to come away with millions, most people would say just about anything.”

  “To be frank, I didn’t see another way, Diana. As I said, she is wholly dependent on Stephen. Part of the reason she’s with him is for his money.”

  “Maybe so—if any of this is true. But even you must see how this throws everything she’s about to say on that video into question. If the press got wind of your intention to pay her for her ‘truth’, I have to agree with what Stephen said earlier. You’ve got a credibility problem. And not just with him, but also with me.”

  “And also with me,” Mike Fine said. “With money involved, what are we to make of this recording? How much stake should we put into whatever Jones says now that we know that there was money at stake for her? I’m afraid that, because you bribed her, Alex, you have done more damage to your own credibility and to hers than you have to Stephen’s. And then there’s Wenn to consider. Our stock is just now stabilizing. What will happen if anyone finds out that you were willing to pay this woman a princely sum in exchange for what might only be an unseemly show of theatrics?”

  “When I originally called this meeting, it wasn’t this video that I planned to show to any of you,” Alex said, trying to right a ship that was sinking fast beneath him. We were losing this, and we both knew it. I could feel it in my bones, hear it in my husband’s voice, and see it in the faces of those around us.

  And yet Alex pressed on.

  “In her possession, Janice Jones has hundreds of emails and texts Rowe sent to her over the course of their two-year affair. Both the emails and the texts can directly be tied to his personal accounts. Rowe also wrote her love letters, as she did him, which he answered. He went so far as to buy her an apartment in New York, the purchase of which, Janice says, she can prove was indeed made by him. Worse for Stephen is that she has photographs of them together, though only a few—and only when Rowe was unaware that they were being taken because he had a strict no-photo agreement with Janice. He told her that until they were married, there could never be any photographs taken of them together. Janice respected that until about six months ago, when it was becoming increasingly clear that Stephen had no plans to leave Meredith for her. So, one night, after they had sex and Rowe dozed off in bed, Janice took a handful of revealing photos of them together. She’s not a stupid woman. As much as she loves him, she knew her time with him might be limited, and that without a financial safety net, she had to protect herself going forward. So she posed naked beside him in bed, and took a handful of selfies that she could bank on should she need to. And there’s more.”

  Diana stopped him. “For someone who wants to take down Stephen Rowe, all of that certainly sounds as if it would do the job, Alex. But unless you are in the position of showing us hard, physical proof of everything you just mentioned, the lot of it is unsubstantiated and has no bearing in this room. I won’t listen to any more of this.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to, Diana, if only for Wenn’s sake, because here is where Rowe really screwed up. Janice Jones secretly taped both she and Rowe having a foursome with two other men.”

  “So, now I have a sex tape,” Rowe said. “This is bullshit. Enough of it already.”

  “It’s the truth, Stephen. You might not know about the tape, but I know of it. What everyone else needs to consider is that, if Janice decides to bring this information to the press on her own, it will be toxic to Wenn. It will cripple us. I need all of you to think long and hard about the ramifications of what she could do to us, because it will be devastating if Rowe is still serving as CEO and chairman of the board when that happens. Look, for whatever reason, Jones decided to withhold what she promised me. I called her countless times today, but she refused to return my calls. And I have to ask myself why. Why would she leave twenty-million dollars sitting on the table? I think it’s because she spoke to Stephen, told him about our encounter, and said that if he didn’t leave Meredith now, she would take me up on my offer and go forward with all of it. Somehow, in the interim, Stephen worked his magic and was able to s
hut her down—at least for now.”

  “I’m done with this,” Rowe said, bristling with anger. “You are actively slandering me in front of the board. In front of people I respect—and who respect me. I think you’ve become a liability to Wenn at this point. And because of that, I’m prepared to go to a vote right now to dismiss you from the board.”

  Alex leveled him with a look, and then fast-forwarded to a critical point in the video and hit ‘play.’

  “You wouldn’t believe what I have on him,” Jones blurted at the screen. “I was saving it for myself should I ever need to use it against him. So that he would be forced to divorce that bitch of a wife of his. So he would be forced to marry me.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Onscreen, she seemed to waver for a moment before she spoke.

  “I won’t ask again, Janice—your money is hanging in the balance.”

  “Fine,” she said. And then she repeated, almost word for word, everything Alex had just told the board that she had in her possession. She did so with such passion and anger, you could literally feel the rage coming off her through the screen. I looked around at the board, and saw that they were glued to what she was saying. As for Rowe, he was visibly trying not to react to it.

  “You know that you’ll need to prove all of that to me before I hand over my money to you, right?” Alex said to Jones.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Good. And by the way—it will be ten million up front, and ten million more for the follow through I have in store for you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll tell you in time. But first I need to know whether you can prove it.”

  “I can prove it,” she said. “All of it. That’s not an issue. But if you don’t come through with that money, Wenn, and I mean all of it, I’ll come after you for illegally taping me. For trying to bribe me. For flying out here to harass me. Everything you’ve done to me is caught on that phone. So here’s the deal—if you do plan to use that recording against Stephen, it’s not only him or me who should feel cornered here. It’s also you because you’ve broken the law.”

  Alex stopped the recording and looked at the board. “You can go to a vote and release me from the board, but you’d be wrong in doing so,” he said. “The problem here is Stephen Rowe—not me. If any of you think that even a trace of what I’ve just presented to you is true, then you must consider what it would do to Wenn if Rowe is still sitting in that chair should Janice Jones decide to come forward with all that she claims she has in her possession. Is that a risk you want to take? You decide. But if any part of you believes that she’s a ticking time bomb, as I do, then you also must believe that it will one day affect Wenn just as much as it will damage Rowe.

  “All of you know me,” Alex continued. “I hope, at this point, that most of you know that I would never stoop so low to stage anything that was untrue. But I do believe that Jones’ claims are true. And Wenn’s reputation must be protected. To answer the question that all of you are thinking right now, yes, I do want to reclaim my positions as CEO and chairman of the board. That’s a given. But if you do vote on anything today, vote on the odds that Janice Jones is alive and well—and that, at any point, she could become a major liability for this company. My advice is to get rid of Rowe now so when and if Jones’ bomb does go off, he’s nowhere near Wenn when it explodes.”

  “So, we go to a vote,” Rowe said, sliding his chair back in front of the table. “As chairman of the board and CEO of Wenn Enterprises—and in light of what has just occurred at today’s meeting—I am calling for Alexander Wenn’s immediate dismissal from the board. He has done nothing to prove his case against me. In fact, he’s only made himself look like a fool. God only knows how he will continue to embarrass Wenn should we keep him on the board. Those in favor of his removal, say ‘aye.’ Those opposed, say ‘no.’ I’ll begin the vote with an aye,” he said.

  “Aye,” Diana Crane said without hesitation.

  Mike Fine looked at Alex for a moment, and he seemed to falter, but then he appeared to make a hard decision, and said, “Aye.”

  “No,” Alex countered.

  And then all eyes turned to Jonathan Rubinstein and Tom Brown, the old guard who always had championed Alex. Would they have his back now? Frankly, it didn’t even matter. What everyone already knew was that Stephen Rowe had won. If both Jonathan and Tom said ‘no,’ the vote would be tied, and as chairman of the board, Rowe would have the power to make the final decision, which would be for Alex’s immediate dismissal.

  My heart sank at the thought—we’d lost. I looked at Alex, and saw by the defeated expression on his face that he also knew it. I glanced at Jonathan and Tom, and knew that they also knew what was to come. And so, in the end, they spoke out of their love and respect for Alex, even if neither could help him now.

  “No,” Jonathan said.

  “No,” Tom agreed.

  “So, it’s a tie, which leaves me with the final decision,” Rowe said, and when he said it, I could feel his victory coming off him in bright waves of triumph. He’d pulled it off. He’d not only stolen Alex’s seat, but he was about to remove him completely from the board, something that the press would run with in ways that would shame Alex to his core. I just glared at Rowe.

  And because I couldn’t help myself, I had no choice but to do something about it before he came forward with his final decision.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  “You’ve got some fucking nerve,” I said to him.

  “Oh, look—the class act speaks…”

  I turned my head sharply toward Diana and Mike. “And so do you two. How dare either of you question Alex’s word? Alex personally brought you onto his board of directors because he has a deep respect for each of you, and yet you treat him like this? You treat him as if he’s a liar? You really think that he didn’t take the time to investigate this before he came forward with information he felt you needed to know? Do you think this is some kind of joke to him? You owe him an explanation for the way you chose to vote—and you owe that to him now.”

  “Your husband came in here with nothing concrete against Stephen,” Diana said. “If he had, and if all of it turned out to be true, we likely would have reacted differently. But he didn’t. Everything we just saw and heard is questionable at best. You and Alex came in here today to put Stephen on trial, but with what? A recording that gave us nothing to work with? How in the hell do you expect us to behave in the absence of real proof? How did you expect us to vote when you’ve given us nothing substantiated to vote on?”

  “You vote with your gut,” I said. “Alex has been driving this company to new heights ever since he took it over, and under the most trying of circumstances, I might add. Would you have been able to do the same? I doubt it. He fought against every odd that was against him to make Wenn the success it is today—and yet you dismiss him as if his word means nothing. Shame on you. And believe me when I say this—all of you will rue the day when the truth about that lying son of a bitch and his relationship with Janice Jones is unleashed. He has duped you, Diana, and also you, Mike. Both of you have just been suckerpunched by him.”

  “Leave!” Rowe shouted at me. “Get out of here!”

  I turned and narrowed my focus on him. “You’d love to make me leave, wouldn’t you, Stephen—if only to keep my mouth shut. You’ve been aching to throw me out of your life ever since you knew that I’d learned the truth about your sordid indiscretions and called you out on them on that dance floor. If you want me removed, call security and have them do it.”

  “Done,” he said. “And by the way, you’re fired, Jennifer. You no longer work for Wenn. You’re finished here.” He reached for the phone beside him and picked up the receiver. “Get ready to pack your bags, bitch, because you’re gone.”

  “What did you just call my wife?” Alex said.

  “A bitch. Even though the word that best suits her is ‘cunt’. Certainly you should know th
at by now, Alex. So, own it. She’s your problem now.”

  Before Alex could do anything stupid, I pushed him aside, and moved quickly around the desk before he could stop me, passing the board members, who either shrank away from me or looked aghast at me as I approached Rowe. When I stopped in front of him, I slapped him so hard across his face, the phone flew out of his hand and fell to the floor. When he looked up at me in horror, I slapped him again with the back of my hand, and watched his face reel to the right.

  “Help!” he shouted.

  “The first slap was for calling me a bitch,” I said. “The second one was for calling me a cunt.” I leaned over him and lowered my voice. “You want to hit me back, don’t you, Stephen? Yeah, I thought so—you do. I can see it in your eyes. I bet you like to rough up women, don’t you? But as much as you want to do that to me, here’s something to consider before you try. If you do put your hands on me, I swear to God that I will kick you so hard in the balls, you’ll have to explain to Janice and to Meredith why you no longer have a pair.”

  Before he could respond to that, there was a loud knock at the door, followed by a sharp, unexpected burst of motion as Blackwell slammed into the room. She looked unnerved to me, flustered and on fire. She excused herself for coming in unannounced, but when she saw me standing over Rowe, she stopped short, and I could tell by the shocked expression on her face that she knew that he and I had just had a physical altercation. Rowe was, after all, holding the left side of his face with the palm of his hand. And his right cheek was bright red with my hand print.

  “Whatever is going on between you two right now needs to stop,” she said to us. “Jennifer, get away from him. Somebody turn on the television. Put it on CNN. I just received a call from Bob in PR. Wenn is right now under attack.”

  She looked at the television behind Rowe, where Janice Jones’ face was still frozen on the screen, her lips curled back in ribbons of anger. When nobody moved to turn on the television, she snapped at the room. “Would somebody please get that slut off the screen and turn it on CNN? Wenn is going down as I speak, and it’s all because of you,” she said to Rowe. “You did this. You put us in this situation.”