The sound of her screams of pleasure still reverberates in my head, having me wanting to take her all over again. I’m so bewildered by the woman beneath me, I can’t tell if that would be a good or bad thing.
It’s enough to fill me with rage, but I subdue it, knowing that would only lead to another form of internal chaos.
I underestimated her desire to keep the truth from me. I’m under no illusion that fucking her was all me taking without her giving at least a little bit. As enjoyable as it was, I realize it accomplished nothing.
Which means I have to show my hand.
One thing my grandfather taught me about the rules of poker is that sometimes defying the rules is the best choice. After all, it is a game of bluff.
And I finally seem to have taken Sloane by surprise for once.
“What?” She replies, staring up at me with her eyes wide once again.
A smile curls my mouth, knowing I have her right where I want her.
She quickly tries to replace the mask again, but now that it’s slipped, there’s no hiding the truth.
“Don’t bother trying to lie to me again. I’ve already fucked you so that ammunition is used up.” I squeeze a bit tighter and lean in closer. “All that’s left is my hand on your throat. It’s up to you how hard I squeeze. It’s on you if you want to die denying me the information you’d be stupid to think I don’t already have.”
Her eyes dart to the side in thought, and I actually enjoy watching her try to come up with some solution.
Maybe it’s because I actually admire her, or maybe it’s because I’d hate to see this woman go to waste when she’s already proved to be a worthy partner in bed, but I throw her a final bone.
“Jan Vorster? Gabriel Fouché?”
Her eyes come back to mine, her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Who?”
I squeeze tighter. “Now is not the time to keep playing games, Sloane. My patience is wearing thin.”
Her fingers claw at the hand that I realize is too tight for her to speak. I loosen it only a little.
“I don’t know who those men are,” she protests, her face contorted in frustration. “He wasn’t stupid enough to give me his name.”
That’s enough for me to release her, only enough for her to breathe normally. I keep my hand on her neck just for good measure.
“What do you mean? You don’t know who sent you here?”
She shakes her head, no.
“Then tell me what you do know. What does he look like? What specifically did he ask of you?”
She hesitates, and I see her eyes beginning to work as she tries yet again to come up with some alternative solution.
Damnable woman!
I squeeze just enough to remind her that she is already caught in the trap, and I’m the only one with the power to release her.
“If I tell you, he’ll kill me.”
“If you tell me what, who will kill you? Describe him to me.”
She slowly raises her eyes to me. After a pause and a sigh, she gives me a frank look. “Can I at least sit up and get decent?”
“No. Not until I’m satisfied.”
She scowls at me.
“He was a white man. Cold blue eyes. He had an accent, South African, I think.”
“That’s Jan Vorster,” I confirm, releasing her neck just a bit.
“You know him?” She asks, her gaze surprisingly accusatory.
“The question is, how do you know him?”
“He—” she hesitates again. At first, I assume it’s to come up with another lie, and I feel my hand itching to squeeze again. Then, I see the mixture of fear and pure hatred in her gaze as she looks away. It’s vanished when she turns back to me.
“He had me kidnapped, right near my apartment in New York. They took me and my bro—” Her eyes flash to me with panic before she continues. “He took me to some isolated place. It looked like a building under construction.”
I feel my blood begin to boil. Sloane is mine, even if she doesn’t know it yet. The fact that Jan or any of his men would dare lay a hand on her, let alone kidnap her, sends a rage through me that has me threatening to go crazy all over again.
I release her throat and pull back.
Sloane stares up at me with cautious eyes, no doubt wondering if this is me giving her permission to make herself decent.
My eyes scan her well-fucked body, the clothes in rags around her hips. It tempers the inferno in me with a different kind of heat.
Instead, I rise up off the bed. It’s only when I’m standing that I realize my dick is still hanging out. I stuff myself back into my pants and walk over to one of the armchairs near the bed without bothering to put my shirt back on.
Sloane rustles the sheets, and by the time I’ve sat down, she has them wrapped around her like an impromptu ballgown.
I lean in, my elbows placed on my wide-spread legs. I give her a hard look before continuing, just in case she has any ideas of me going easy on her now that my hand isn’t around her throat,
“Tell me what he wanted you to do.”
This time she doesn’t hesitate. I suspect it has less to do with the fight going out in her and more to do with not giving a shit about Jan Vorster.
“He wants me to find out why you’ve been selling off assets for the past year. He wants to know what you’re planning to do with the money you seem to be hoarding.”
“That sounds an awful lot like you’re aiding and abetting insider trading.”
“Does it?” She retorts in a sarcastically sweet tone.
I feel a grin spread my lips, despite what she’s just admitted. If anything, I like her even more.
“How did you manage to get involved with this? I’m pretty sure your career as an attorney would be over if this little plan was discovered.”
“Not to mention going to jail,” she snaps.
“Well?”
She works her mouth a bit, as though tasting the truth and trying to decide if it’s worth revealing. With another sigh, she sinks against the headboard and stretches her legs out, crossing her heeled feet at the ankles.
“My brother Theo is…a genius,” she shrugs as though there is no other word for it. “His brain is like a calculator, and he likes creating software, or really algorithms? I don’t know. He tried explaining it, and it was completely over my head.
“Anyway, a friend of his from college is always trying to loop him into these schemes to make quick money. Usually, it’s small-time, like gambling or timing the market or something. This time, this so-called friend of his got him to steal money from the company he works at.”
“How?” I ask with genuine curiosity.
She laughs in a way that’s half-rueful, half-admiring. “You know that old Superman movie? The one with Richard Prior? Or I guess a more modern example would be Office Space. The films where they shave off the half-cents from the company profits, and when added up, they amount to a substantial amount? All without the bean counters noticing?”
I wrinkle my brow. “Both of those scenarios are unlikely in this day and age. The bean counters have programs that count every penny down to a tenth of a cent, if not smaller. They couldn’t have gotten away with it.”
She twists her lips into a smile. “They could the way Theo did it. His program, started up at the end of the fiscal workday, shaving off those few cents. The money was used for trading in overseas markets, while Corporate America was fast asleep. By the start of business the next day, the principle is replaced, and all records of the transaction erased, with no one the wiser.”
“And what would have happened if he’d lost money trading?”
She gives me a patronizing smile. “You don’t know my brother. They made ten million dollars over the course of six months.”
No wonder the Pirate was after him. Hell, I should look into hiring him when this is all said and done.
“But someone did find out.”
She shrugs as though to point out that her being here is e
vidence of that.
“How did they get from the ten-million stolen dollars to using you?”
“At first, they just wanted the money.” She hiccups a sarcastic laugh. “Sure enough, left to his own devices, Linus had blown most of it on some other scheme. Theo, for some stupid reason, threw out my name, thinking maybe I had enough to cover it.” She shakes her head and looks up to the side in anger muttering some curse in his name. “Obviously, I don’t have ten million just lying around, which they found out not long after they took me.”
Once again, my blood begins to boil, especially when Sloane begins to tremble. My instinct is to go over and comfort her, but I’m sure it would have the opposite effect.
“What else did they do?” I ask in a dark voice.
“There was mostly just yelling at first; several men just dragged me into that building. They tied me to a chair and waved guns in my face, trying to frighten me. I had no idea what was going on. Then I saw Linus and Theo. They’d beaten Linus up some. Theo just looked scared. I’ve never been so terrified in my life.”
She shudders.
“When Jan, I guess his name is, finally came in and announced himself, it was like a switch had been flipped. Everyone went silent. I think even his own men were wary of him. Those eyes…” She shudders again. “He talked in this eerily calm voice, first asking about the money. When I made it clear I didn’t have that kind of money lying around, I thought for sure he’d just kill us all. Then, out of the blue, he asked what would make Theo think I had that much. I suggested it was because of what I did for a living, which, for some reason, renewed Jan’s interest in me.”
Sloane laughs then wipes her nose, and I realize that there are tears in her eyes. I swallow hard to temper my emotions, listening to every detail of her story.
“When he first suggested I may be able to pay off the money another way I thought…” she exhales suddenly as though the shock of it is hitting her all over again.
Now, I do stand up. Her eyes go wide until she sees me walk toward the master bathroom. I grab the entire box of tissues and bring it out for her. She eyes it warily—which I’m mildly amused by—before taking it and wiping both her eyes and nose.
“Well, you can imagine what I thought at first,” she says with a bitter frown. “Then he suggested this, that I come here and try to figure out what you are up to. Because that makes so much more sense.” She rolls her eyes. “I was even stupid enough to point out how nonsensical it was. If it was about the money, they could have just used Theo’s brain. I mean, so what if I did find out what you were up to? Unless it’s a publicly-traded company which they could buy stock in ahead of time or short if they know it’s going under, there’s no point. I mean, I certainly wasn’t going to question him…not after how they—” she stops, swallowing hard. “Anyway, they gave me forty days to do this, which I also didn’t understand.”
I give her a wry grin. “Gabriel is very Catholic, at least on paper.”
Her brow rises, as though realizing how completely irrelevant that is before she continues.
“At any rate, his man, Jan, was relentless, suggested I do ‘whatever I had to’ to get close to you, close enough to learn what I could.” She scowls at me with disgust, even after what just happened on this very bed.
“It was almost like it was…personal. Like he’d finally found some hidden treasure in me that he could put to better use.”
I consider her for a moment, allowing her to once again wipe her face before responding.
“That’s because it is personal.”
Sloane’s face wrinkles in confusion. “It is?”
“I know Jan…and his boss Gabriel Fouché.”
Now her eyes blink rapidly, as though her brain is trying to process this. “How?”
“Gabriel Fouché is the man who hired someone to kill my mother.” I stop to give her a focused look, analyzing her reaction to my next bit of news.
“And you should know that Jan Vorster is most likely the man who just recently killed Linus Caldwell.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sloane
I knew something shocking was coming based solely on the way Magnus was staring at me. What I hadn’t expected was a pure gut punch.
I literally exhale every ounce of breath inside me.
“Theo!” I gasp when my lungs manage to function again.
I scramble off the bed, dragging my sheets behind me in search of a phone.
“Theo is fine,” Magnus says in a calm voice that my brain doesn’t even register.
I’m still sliding across the covers. My weak legs wobble on the stiletto heels of my shoes, and I fall to the floor. I’m too crazed to even think about getting back up, instead, crawling across the carpet.
“Sloane!” Magnus’s voice is sharp but not loud.
Still, it manages to snatch my attention from the grip of panic it was lost in. I turn to stare at him, suddenly angry that he would dare interfere with me trying to call my brother to make sure he’s okay.
To make sure he’s still alive.
“Theo is fine,” he says in a steady voice.
“How do you know?”
“Because I have people watching him, making sure he is safe. If anything had happened, I’d be the first to know.”
My mind works this out, fitting it into everything else I’ve learned tonight. “How long have you known?”
“About you or Linus?”
“Everything,” I spit.
Instead of answering, he stands up and walks over to me. I shrink away, but he still reaches down to gently grab me by the arm and lift me up. He walks me over to the chair opposite from where he was sitting and sets me down. I sink into it, retying the knot holding the sheets up around me. I watch as he walks over to the bar to pour both of us a drink, something amber-hued and hopefully strong.
“Linus, I found out about yesterday. It was a gunshot wound to the head. Suicide is definitely not suspected, or my source would have told me.”
I suck in air, hearing this news. I wasn’t Linus’s biggest fan, but he didn’t deserve this. My only guess is that Jan had no more use for him.
Which confirms what I suspected about Theo’s fate and my own if I fail at what I’m doing out here.
“You? I suspected from yesterday morning,” he continues as he walks back with both glasses. He hands one to me and settles into his chair. “It was confirmed by the man I met with yesterday before dinner.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s called the Pirate. He’s…like me,” he says ambiguously before taking a drink.
“Tell me everything,” I say, using his own words against him as I look him dead in the eye.
A small smile curls his lips, and he lowers his eyes as though to concede the point. He gives me a thoughtful look before continuing.
“What would you do to the man who killed your mother? Or your father?”
I stare at him for a moment, then take a sip of my drink to put that question in perspective. By now, I’m immune to being shocked in his presence. I’m sure there’s a point here, but I don’t know what it is.
“I’d certainly think about killing them,” I say, remembering exactly what it is I walked in on Magnus and that man discussing. “But I doubt I’d go through with it.”
“You’d be surprised what the human mind, body, and soul is capable of given the right circumstances.”
“I still doubt I would. I am an attorney, after all.”
He laughs softly, and then his eyes go dark again. “I hope you never have to find out first hand.”
“I hope so too. And stop deflecting. Who was he? The man in the restaurant?”
He raises one admonishing eyebrow, and I simply match it with one of my own. He can power trip all he wants. I’m done with this facade. Now, it’s my turn to get answers.
“His father killed my father.”
I swallow this information along with another sip of what I now recognize as brandy.
> “Is that why he wants to kill him? For your benefit?” I ask, wrinkling my brow in confusion.
Magnus shakes his head no. “The man also killed his mother.”
I exhale a silent, shocked laugh.
“This is the world I operate in.”
“One where everyone kills everyone.”
“I’ve only ever killed one man.”
Now, I really am shocked.
“You wanted to know everything. I’m telling you. The rumors of just how many people I’ve supposedly killed are greatly exaggerated. Of course, after I was done with them financially, some of them managed to do the job of their own accord. ”
“Why did his father kill yours?”
“It’s a particularly long story.”
“I have thirty-eight more days.”
He smiles.
“My role in this started was when I was thirteen. You want to know what I’ve been up to the past year? You have to go back just that far to learn what I’m doing and why.”
“So, start at the beginning.”
Magnus takes a long sip before continuing.
“My father was the Vice President at a bank in Luxembourg. As such, we were fairly well off. Until he was accused of embezzlement. Considering everything that happened in the years following, with the bank being involved in money laundering, I know he was framed because he was the first to discover it.”
Magnus’s face hardens, and his eyes cloud into that forest green hue that always portends something dark and dangerous.
“We lost everything, not just money. All our family friends, respect, even the school I was attending, I had to switch since so many of my classmates were children of people he had once worked with.”
He looks off to the side in thought. “My father was going mad with vengeance. He and my mother would argue into the night about what the bank had supposedly done to him. She wanted him to move on, suggested us relocating to Monaco where she was from so they could start fresh. He just kept insisting he was being framed to cover up money laundering that the bank was involved with.
“Then, one day, he took off for a short trip, saying he’d finally found one of the men responsible for everything. By then, my mother was already half-packed, ready to take my sister and me with her to leave Luxembourg for good. But before he left, he came to me with only one name. I suppose by that time, my mother was done listening to his theories. Richard Coleman, the father of the man you saw in the restaurant.”
The Monte Carlo Shark: An International Legacies Romance Page 16
