by Holly Hart
I must look crazy, but there’s nothing I can do to solve that problem right now.
“Um,” I murmur, racking my brain on how to respond. “You must be Poppy…”
Poppy is looking at the camera. Her forehead wrinkles. “You’re not dad,” she says.
I shake my head. This is so not how I wanted to meet Harlan’s daughter. In fact, I can’t think of a single worst possible way to be introduced to her.
But it is what it is.
I’m going to have to deal with it.
“No,” I say softly, voice catching. “I’m not.”
“Wait, did I–” Poppy taps something on her screen. “Did I call the right number?”
She leans forward, peering into the camera and, I realize, at the picture on her screen. I see the gears turning over in her mind. “You’re in my dad’s office. Where is he, and, who are you?”
Both of those are very good questions. And they’re questions I have no idea how to answer.
“Yeah,” I mutter, chewing my lip. “I’m in your dad’s office. He’s… out.”
What do I do now? Lie?
In the event, the decision is taken out of my hands. Poppy gasps, and shifts her phone. The camera pans jerkily across her face. I realize she’s made herself a tent out of her bed sheets, perhaps in an attempt to hide what she’s up to.
“You’re her, aren’t you?”
“Who?” I exclaim. “What do you know? Did your dad–”
Poppy shrugs. She’s clearly proud. “Puh-lease! I’m not an idiot. I’m ten – well, almost, anyway. I knew my dad was seeing someone. It’s you, isn’t it!”
I freeze. I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to this question. I feel paralyzed. What would Harlan want me to say?
Suddenly the fears I had before – about Harlan’s life, and his safety – they seem to fade away into nothingness. Because what could be more important than potentially ruining his relationship with his own daughter?
My heart rate speeds up. Blood pounds in my ears. I feel like if I put one foot out of place, Harlan will never forgive me.
“That’s,” I finally say, wringing my hands underneath the desk – where Poppy can’t see – “Something you need to ask your dad. It’s not my place to say.”
Poppy waves her hand airily, knocking the flashlight lighting her tiny pillow forward. She reaches for it and rights it.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll keep this between us,” she winks.
God, Poppy has so much of her father in her, it’s hard to believe. I feel like this little ten-year-old – nine-year-old – is running rings around me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
My cheeks are burning. What the heck am I supposed to say to that?
“Promise?” I mutter.
“I told you,” Poppy grins madly. “You don’t need to worry – this is between us. I won’t tell if you don’t. Deal?”
“Why do you sound so grown-up?” I groan. “I’m almost three times your age, and half the time I’m just groping around for the way forward …”
Poppy shrugs. She looks at me with concern, and that almost hurts more than anything. Now I’ve got a nine-year-old feeling sorry for me!
“I guess I had to,” she says solemnly. “After mom died, and everything…”
“I’ve been there, kid,” I whisper. “Deal?”
Poppy nods vigorously. “I can’t wait to meet you!” she says. “It’s a deal. Anyway, I better go before one of the teachers catches me. We’re not supposed to use our phones after bedtime. Have fun with my dad!”
Poppy’s goodbye hits me like a haymaker to the gut. The screen goes black, and I choke with worry. I don’t know how I would survive if something happened to her father … and I was the cause of yet more sorrow in this beautiful young girl’s life.
Because Harlan’s right – his kid is something special. I never thought he was lying to me, just that he was like any parent … overcome with love for his daughter. But in Poppy’s case, the praise, if anything, undersells her true brilliance.
And it reinforces my need to get in contact with Harlan – to tell him that I don’t care – that he doesn’t need to risk himself.
And you can.
The second the idea strikes me, I hit my forehead and groan. How could I have been so stupid? There’s one sure way to get in touch with Harlan, and he’s standing right outside the front door –
– where I left him.
I stand up so fast Harlan’s office chair falls over behind me. I don’t stop to pick it up, don’t even look back. I sprint for the front door and throw it open, with only one goal on my mind.
29
Harlan
Garibaldi’s eyes spring open. It takes every shred of self-control I have not to punch the man directly in his square, pig-ugly Italian face. Not that I’ve got a problem with Italians, just this one. He deserves it.
“Who –” He squeals – pig-like – I cut him off, squeezing my fingers around his throat until he chokes. He’s wearing a necklace, a gold chain, and its links bite into my skin.
His fat body struggles underneath the bed sheets. Little arms spring up, smothered by his duvet, and attempt to fight me. I hold him off easily. I’ve fought men in cave tunnels in Afghanistan, in the deserts of Syria, Yemen and Iraq. This fat little banker doesn’t scare me.
“Wakey, wakey, you little fuck,” I spit each word out.
I make no attempt to hide my complete and utter disgust at this odious little man. “Surprised to see me?”
Garibaldi continues to struggle against my grip. I smash the barrel of my pistol into his temple – not hard enough to do any real damage, but hard enough to make his eyes water, to get it through his head exactly who is in charge here.
Hint – it’s not fucking you.
“Do you plan to settle down?” I say in a low, murderous rumble, “or do I have to do that all over again? Because trust me, piggy, I will.”
Like a trapped deer in the woods, Garibaldi freezes. I’ve got half a mind to just put a bullet through his head right here, right now.
He deserves it. Skye is the only woman I’ve loved since Ashley, the only woman I’ve even thought about. The fact that he made her afraid, even for a second, is almost enough temptation for me to put him in an early grave.
Only one thing stops me – Skye. She’s at once the reason I’m here, and the only thing standing between me becoming a murderer.
“Who are you?” Garibaldi whimpers beneath me. Hot spittle flies out of his mouth as he struggles – choking because of my fingers digging into his windpipe – to talk. “Who sent you?”
“No one sent me,” I say, leaning down so that my face is only a couple of inches from his. “Remember me, little piggy?”
Garibaldi’s eyes spring open wide as the recognition hits him with the force of a transit bus. The “oh shit” moment is palpable. It’s enough to make my lips curl back in an evil smile that makes my enemy quail.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Now, are you going to give me what I came for, or am I going to have to start cutting bits off of you?”
The truth is I would never torture anyone. I’m not evil, and it doesn’t work. But Garibaldi doesn’t know that. As far as he’s concerned, I’m just an insane billionaire who’s broken into his house in the middle of the night, fueled solely by a desire to do him harm.
Well, he’s almost right. I’m here for two reasons. To get the photos back, and scare this little prick shitless.
I release my grip on the pig’s throat. He sucks air in greedily. His chest pants and strains underneath me as his lungs cry out for more oxygen. When I’m sure he’s had enough – enough not to pass out, anyway – I squeeze his throat once again.
“Here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to give me what I came for, and maybe I won’t kill you. How’s that for a deal?”
If I already had a reputation as a hard dealmaker before tonight, this was going to be the icing on the fucking ca
ke.
“Why are you here?” Garibaldi pants, straining to speak, “I haven’t seen you in –”
“Wrong answer, piggy,” I grunt. I lift my leg onto the man’s mattress and press my knee against his chest.
“Aw, shit,” I grin, looking down at a filthy footprint. “Where are my manners? I’m getting your sheets all dirty.”
I hold the smile and stare into the piggy’s eyes. I put all my weight through my knee, compressing his lungs, forcing the breath out of them.
“See,” I spit venomously as his body spasms beneath me, desperate for oxygen, “that is what happens when you lie to me. Now, shall we try that again?”
I’m glad Skye cannot see me right now. I’m giving in to the very darkest parts of myself – a side I thought I’d left behind long, long ago in the deserts of the Middle East. Apparently, when the people I love are threatened, I can still summon up the darkness.
I don’t like it, but it’s real.
Maybe that’s what Skye can work on next …
“You know why I’m here,” I state, relaxing my grip and releasing my weight. Garibaldi’s chest inflates once more.
This time, he nods, never breaking eye contact.
“And you’re going to answer my questions,” I say. Again, it’s a statement, not an inquiry.
He nods again.
“Where are the photos?” I ask.
The man’s eyes gleam with a malevolent dishonesty. I can see his mind turning, trying to figure out how to turn this situation to his advantage. “I don’t know what you’re–”
I groan, and my head falls forward onto my chest. I can’t believe this guy. Not only did he take me, of all the Joe Schmuck’s in New York, to be an easy mark, but now he’s trying to play me like a fool – again.
“Seriously, dude,” I growl. “I’m tired. I’ve been up all night screwing the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and you’re costing me my beauty sleep. Are you seriously going to fucking lie to me while I’ve got a gun pressed right up against your temple?”
Garibaldi flinches at the word gun. He struggles fruitlessly against my grip, before giving up, as if exhausted.
I’m not surprised. I wonder when the last time he exercised was. By the looks of him, it wasn’t recent.
“I’m going to make this very, very difficult for you,” I say, grinding my teeth together even as I speak, “unless you start telling the truth, and fast. Capisci?”
Garibaldi nods, and the gleam seems to die in his eyes. I still don’t trust him, but I think he knows I’m being serious now.
“You took the photos. Yes or no?”
“No,” he chokes.
My blood boils and thunders in my ears like the rushing of the sea. But I stifle the anger. I let it feed me, not overcome me.
“But you ordered them taken,” I say.
He nods as I put pressure on his Adam’s apple. “Yes, yes!” He squeals.
“How did you know I would be there?” I ask, spitting out the question that’s been bugging me ever since I found the camera.
“From your… phone,” Garibaldi chokes out, still panting for breath, “Your office phone.”
“You bugged it?” I howl, knuckles going white with rage. The thought that this piece of human filth has been listening in on my conversations sickens me.
“Man on the inside,” he pants, “at the phone company, owed me a favor.”
“So you planned to blackmail me, is that right?”
Garibaldi – the lying fuck – shakes his head. “No, no. I just wanted a meeting. That’s all. I would’ve given–”
I kneel again on his chest.
“Don’t you fucking lie there,” I spit, hopping mad, “and spin me falsehoods. You think I’m going to believe that?”
This time, the man stays silent. It’s a smart move. I don’t think there’s a word that could come out of his mouth that wouldn’t feed my anger right now.
“I’m going to tell you a story,” I say. “Tell me if it rings a bell. I think you wanted back in to Wolfe Capital. Your wife finally figured out that you’re a piece of shit, left you, and took your cash as well. So you decided to come after me, decided that instead of working for money like everybody else, you’d just threaten me instead – and threaten the woman I fucking love.”
Garibaldi freezes beneath me as he realizes the seriousness of the minefield he’s walked into. I have no doubt that in his twisted, screwed up, criminal mind, he thought he was just playing hardball.
Thought he’d swagger into my boardroom with leverage in his back pocket and force me to cut him in on the action.
He probably thought that Skye was just some whore, thought that I – of all people – would pay a woman for sex.
He couldn’t have been more wrong. Because he didn’t just screw me, he screwed the woman I love.
So now it’s personal.
“Did you?” I hiss.
“Did I what?”
“Know what she meant to me? Means to me. Did you think you could use my love for her like a cheap bargaining ploy?”
Garibaldi’s already small, snakelike black eyes disappear even further into his head with fear. It’s a strange trick. It makes my stomach turn. He looks barely human.
He shakes his head.
“No, no – I swear. I just –”
He stops, mid-sentence, and tears glitter in his eyes. I look down at him with disgust, but it only seems to spur him on. In seconds, his eyes have welled up, and tears are streaking down his cheeks.
“You don’t know how it is,” he sobs.
What the hell?
“I’m out. I’m out in the cold.”
“What are you talking about?” I spit, recoiling from this strange turn of events. I was disgusted with the man before, but now I feel…
… Pity.
It’s a strange mix of emotions. I don’t really feel the pity for Garibaldi himself, more what he’s become. He had character before, strength. I could respect that, even if I didn’t like it, or him.
But whatever this creature is beneath me, it’s been chewed up and spat out by life. It’s barely recognizable as human.
“The Don died, and his son took over the Family,” Garibaldi weeps. “He didn’t need an old man like me by his side anymore.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
Garibaldi continues as if he hasn’t heard me. “Then my wife left me. Took me for everything I was worth. The art – gone, furniture – gone. She told the court about me – who I worked for.”
“I guess they didn’t look too kindly on that, did they?” I chuckle with grim satisfaction.
“I just wanted to feel the rush again,” Garibaldi moans beneath me, his face wracked with anguish. “I wanted to be back in the game.”
“You didn’t have a plan, did you,” I say, shaking my head and releasing my grip slightly. “This wasn’t some elaborate scheme to bully your way back in to the top table. It was a desperate ploy from a desperate man.”
Garibaldi doesn’t reply. He just lies there, on his mattress, sweating freely – a blubbering wreck.
“I need the backups. Now.”
“I–”
“Don’t try and tell me you don’t have them,” I say, grimacing with anger. “You’re pathetic, but you’re not stupid. Tell me where they are, and you don’t have to get hurt.”
The truth is I’m not even sure I could hurt this man right now. It would be like kicking a broken, beaten, battered dog while it’s down.
A neuron fires somewhere in my brain, and I decide to take a different tack.
“You jerked off, didn’t you?” I ask him, sickened by what I’m suggesting. The idea of this little fat man tugging at his cock while looking through those pictures sickens me.
He shakes his head violently. “No, no – I swear!”
“Come on,” I spit. “A sad, lonely, little man like you – you’re telling me you didn’t want to see what a real piece of ass looks like?”
<
br /> “I promise,” Garibaldi moans. “I’ll swear in whatever book you want. I didn’t, I wouldn’t…”
“Maybe that’s it,” I say with an evil grin. “Maybe that’s the pound of flesh I should take in return for what you’ve done.”
The fat man’s eyes widen with incomprehension. “Pound of…”
I leer at him. “Well in your case, that tiny little cock probably doesn’t weigh half an ounce.”
I flex my gun hand, and slowly pull the weapon away from Garibaldi’s temple. He breathes out deeply and relaxes, for some strange reason thinking it’s all over.
It’s not.
I trace it down the man’s front. His eyeballs quiver as he watches it the whole way – then widen as he realizes where I’m taking it.
“No…” He moans. “Please…”
“That’s right,” I chuckle, pointing the barrel of my pistol directly at his cock. “You’ve got precisely three seconds to tell me where the backups are, or I promise you one thing – you won’t be jerking off for a very, very long time. Though with that little thing between your legs, I’m not sure how you’ll be able to tell the difference…”
“Three…”
“Two…”
“Okay!” Garibaldi squeals. “You can have them! I swear to you, I didn’t know what she meant to you. I swear it on everything I hold dear. Just take them, take them.”
He lets out a long, shuddering, exhausted groan and slumps back – broken, defeated.
One…
I say the word silently, inside the privacy of my own head. Mostly I am glad I don’t have to shoot this prick’s cock off, but I’d be lying if I said that a tiny part of me – about the size of Garibaldi’s cock – didn’t want to blast it off anyway…
“Okay then, piggy,” I grin, “time to ante up. Where are they?”
Garibaldi looks at me with hate-filled eyes. The glare sizzles on my skin, but the heat bounces off of me. I’m saving Skye’s dignity, the career she loves, and that means I’ll do whatever it takes.
“My neck,” he groans with a defeated hiss, “on the chain around my neck.”
