by Alex Elliott
HARD AS STONE
Alex Elliott
Black Swan Press
Brentwood
Beautiful Betrayal Book #1
BB Details
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Redacted and available for the first time as the hot new political thriller series:
BEAUTIFUL BETRAYAL
Rules are about to be broken when a man with a taste for revenge
brutally uncovers a dark secret buried within a beautiful enigma.
Last campaign stop and things turn guilty.
Atticus Stone and his personal aide Phoenix O’Malley get too close for comfort.
Their one-nighter unlocks a doorway to decadence.
Or the road to ruin.
To her close friends she’s known as ‘X’ for a reason:
SHE’S A BOMBSHELL WITH A PAST.
HE’S A U.S. SENATOR WITH A FUTURE.
Together, they’re a beautiful betrayal in the making.
Copyright
Published in the United States of America
Text Copyright ©2016 Alex Elliott
Beautiful Betrayal All rights reserved.
Published by Black Swan Press
Hard As Stone
Blood From A Stone
Cold As Stone
BEAUTIFUL BETRAYAL series
The hottest scandal to hit Capitol Hill.
Beautiful Betrayal
Hard As Stone #1
Pit a dynasty family against an implacable killer, and the body count is on the rise. Revenge is best served piping-hot and in bed. Dispensed by the shadow nobody sees coming. Employing KGB tactics, he capitalizes on an opportunity to save his own skin. Everyone has an agenda and no one is above suspicion, or becoming collateral damage.
Dedication
For Omega
HARD AS STONE ~ BOOK #1
Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it. ― Socrates
Chapter 1
Atticus Stone~ Zero-Sum Game
“Failure is not an option.” –William Dodson “Bill” Broyles Apollo 13
HARD TO CALCULATE how long I’ll be chasing my tail, and if I should alert my family. Doesn’t look as if I’ll be catching a seven o’clock flight to Atlanta. It’s almost five and cold enough to freeze my nuts off. Best case scenario, I’ll be late for the feasts of the seven fishes. A lavish dinner my mom and aunt customarily host and where another blind date awaits. A toss-up which is the greater irritation. I park and glance at my watch as if it’s the enemy.
I grab the envelope off the seat and pocket it. If I had any sense, I’d burn it. Neatly printed on expensive linen stationery are today’s date, the time, and an address. Hand-delivered to me as I stood arguing a motion to compel in court. I’m still stunned. Cast from my blissful state of equilibrium, it’s doubtful I’ll ever be the same. I’m on the fence whether that’s a good or a bad twist of fate.
What I’m not mistaken about is an overt fact: the hydra symbol stamped on the note matches the notorious symbol branded into my skin. Nine snakes and a skull.
Only one person would send it. The same person who removed the tip of my right index finger when I pointed it in his face. Unless this is a trap.
I climb out of my car and phone home, and end up talking to a dozen people who converse in one volume: ear-piercing. None are my mother. At the elevator, I jab the call button, and critically survey the stairwell nearby. At the rasp of low laughter, I curse under my breath, and hold the line.
“Patience, number one son,” Vince grinds out.
A defibrillator couldn’t zap any stronger. I don’t flinch even though a thunderbolt of pain knifes my eye socket. From years of practice in managing migraines, I keep my expression impassive as I mentally wrench my head off my shoulders. If I could, I’d drop-kick my skull from the federal courthouse garage into the harbor.
In lieu of upchucking, I tamp down my irritation and dish out, “What in the hell are you doing here?”
“Not crashing your party if that’s got your jockstrap twisted,” Vin returns.
Digging out a ‘script bottle that I keep handy, I say between gritted teeth, “Hello? We were supposed to meet at Starbucks. You’re cell is dead, or off.” In the polished metal of the elevator doors, through the zig-zagging aura assaulting my occipital lobe, I half watch as Vince breaks free from the shadows.
Dressed in nondescript dark clothing and wraparounds, he walks up behind me, sporting his customary shit-eating grin. “I was there. Waiting. Good thing I walked over.”
“Walked over. From the wharf?”
His brows rise above his sunglass frames. “Whoops. No wonder you didn’t show across the street.” He produces a pack of Juicy Fruit and offers me a stick.
I decline, opting to slam back 100 mg. of Sumatriptan.
There’s no way to quantify Vince other than an SOB with a peculiar sense of timing. A fixer. His stature like mine is commonly termed imposing. We must look enough alike that people irritatingly mistake us for one another, or assume we’re brothers. I classify him as a blood relation who started hanging around, doing oddball jobs a few years back. In summary, he’s a general pain in my ass. If required, he moonlights as my bodyguard, which does little to qualify his presence as comforting. His appearance coincides when things are off the books and delve into wet work.
The squall inside my skull goes from stabbing to gutting. Sweat erupts and begins to drip down my face. My nerve endings howl but I’ve got to maintain. Pharmaceutical relief should kick-in soon and I grunt over my shoulder, “It could be a set-up.”
He nods. “Only one of us should attend.”
No joke. To buy some time before I keel over, I supply, “Oh and which one would that be?”
“The person who isn’t potentially on the FBI’s shortlist.”
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. “How many times do I have to tell you? So far, zero people realize you even exist.”
“If that’s the line of logic you’re going with, I doubt either of us will see forty,” he counters. “Don’t blame me for my waning trust. It’s kept us both alive.”
There’s a break in the pain and I almost stagger in relief. No longer at the mercy of my weakness, I seek a solution to this predicament. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, I shouldn’t be here to see a defendant prior to an initial hearing. Getting disbarred will be the least of my problems if the shit hits the fan. “Let’s do an hour in and out. If you don’t hear from me, go to plan B.”
“You’re very accommodating. Maybe too,” he mutters.
“Fine, Vin. Then you run point and attend the meeting. I’ll cover your ass.” Edgy from the meds, I go to turn but he stops me with a dark chuckle.
“Settle down, counselor. I’m only rattling your cage. You’ll explain my absence.”
“Funny,” I shoot back and toss him my keys. “Charge your cell and don’t leave.”
“Naw. I’ll be right here.” His mouth forms a hard line. “Call for take-out if you run into a problem.” Vince steps away, far enough that the shadows swallow his reflection.
The elevator dings and the doors glide open. Let the games begin.
~
AT THE ENTRANCE to the temporary detainee interview rooms, I stare out the glass doors at the new-fallen snow. I shouldn’t give a flock. Yet within the partitioned prisoner holding area, I force myself to study the pine saplings blanketed in white. Not the excuses I’m hearing as I grip my cell.
“What about the marshal’s office?” My vocal cords are strung so tight that the word
s sound coarse. This isn’t the persona I should project.
“Tuck, I can’t reach Ingram,” Oliver replies.
“Patch me over in a three-way,” I instruct my paralegal.
“Roger.”
Switching gears, I imagine the final notes played on a grand piano. Arabesque, Number 1 from Debussy echoes off the walls within my mind. I hyper focus, recalling the precise arpeggio fingering of the pianist, rather than tearing Oliver a new one. I shouldn’t complain. He puts up with my shit.
“Marshall’s Office,” a man answers.
“Ingram in? Tell him it’s Stone.” Jake Ingram is unique. He’s got a void in his psyche. A cavity that I leverage by supplying temporary plugs that feed his ego. In return, he provides me with intel. He’s like many of the contacts that I’ve cultivated all over this godforsaken armpit of a city.
There’s the muffled sound of talking, then the speaker says, “Yeah. Hold the line.” There’s a pause. Dead silence followed by the unmistakable clipped nasal voice of Jake, “What can I do for you, asshole?”
“How many numb nuts does it take to open a box?”
He laughs. “Just a single hardass.”
“And?”
“And I took my kid brother. Mr. Wall Street was impressed with the courtside seats. Thanks for the tixs.”
“My pleasure,” I reply, then add, “Who in your office is coming to court today at five?”
“Easy answer. That would be nobody. Dude, nothing is going on.”
“Wish that were true. You guys have any warrants still in play?” As we talk, on my cell I email him a pair of Bruins tickets at the Garden.
“It’s Christmas Eve. We’re coasting.”
“Figures,” I retort. “Jake, have a good one.”
“Is there anything I can—”
“Yep. Check your inbox and enjoy the holiday.” I hang up.
Oliver calls me back and I tell him, “Get me the clerk’s office. Ask for Marilyn.”
I scroll my list of deeper contacts. When Marilyn picks up, I lower my voice, “Why are you still at work?”
She titters. “I’m waiting for Santa’s helper. I’ve got mistletoe but no luck.” Mind you Marilyn is sixty-two, happily married, and has the patience of a gnat.
“Unbelievable,” I say. “Somebody is slipping.”
“But not you. Thanks for the case of bubbly.”
“Don’t. Mention it.” I wait a respectable two seconds. “Speaking of slipping, I’m standing outside of the fed holding area. Are there any backlogged warrants or arrest records that coincide with an initial hearing on the docket for five?”
“Today?” she asks as if I’ve lost it. “Not unless it involves a holiday party.”
“Okay. This must be an error.”
“Do you want me to come downstairs and do some digging?”
“Not a chance,” I tell her. “Hopefully you’ll be in good company soon. If not, save the mistletoe. I’ll be by next week.”
“Will do. Merry Christmas, Atticus.”
When she hangs up, Oliver asks, “What next?”
“If there isn’t a warrant or an arrest record in play, must be under wraps. Or a mistake.”
“Zilch came out of the Grand Jury that hasn’t been dealt with by the magistrates. So if there isn’t anything on the docket…”
Turning away from the entrance, I ignore the frustration on the other end. At the prosecutor’s desk, I sign-in and order Oliver, “Call the chief judge’s office. Ask for Jude. She owes me a favor.”
I cup my phone and say to the guard checking my ID, “I received a message about a meeting set for five. Who’s in holding?” I glance past him and into the large holding cell behind the plate glass wall.
“Counselor, nuh.” The guard points down the hall with a smirk. “Your client is that way. Quietly waiting.”
My client? This can go about a million ways south. At the moment, I’m a civil servant. Clients and billable hours along with annual bonuses, a sizable portfolio, vacation homes—none are part of my world. Yet. I let go of the door handle for the common area as the hair along my neck stands at attention.
“Oliver, I’m good here. Thanks and Merry Christmas. Go home and I’ll see you on Monday.” I slip my phone inside my breast pocket next to the note, which might as well be a red-hot poker for how it feels knifing me in the chest, charring my career into ash.
Yards from Boston Harbor, I’m standing in a US District Courthouse, and I have a choice. This is my watershed moment. If I turn on my wingtip-soles and retreat out to the parking garage, my future might be safeguarded. That’s an unknown. My quest for revenge is so near I can practically taste it. My cover, a veneer I’ve painstakingly built, brick-by-brick is seamless. But not my conscience—I owe a debt. That debt is the monkey on my back.
Failure isn’t an option.
As if on autopilot, I turn. Each step taken is robotic, gilded by conviction, and I close the gap between yesterday and today. Up ahead is another checkpoint complete with a metal detector. At the counter, I flash the guard my ID, slide my briefcase and dump the required contents of my pockets onto the conveyer belt. The buzzer sounds. The door opens and I pass through another detector then wait while the guard rifles through my briefcase, folders, papers. He picks up my new cell and elbows the other guard. They trade shit about it, and poke through the pockets of my case as if on a treasure hunt.
Holding my wallet open, he taps my credit card. “Platinum,” a guard says to the other lug nut on duty. “You got one of these?”
“Yeah, along with my Ferrari,” the other snorts.
Unconsciously, I clasp my hands like some poor schmuck. Is this my impression of a humble priest? On that thought, I exhale in disgust and cross my arms over my chest. Revealing too much already, I resist rubbing my thumb over my index stump. The remnant of a night of terror, yet for whatever reason, it soothes the ragged part of me that refuses to mend.
Unequivocally, this isn’t the future I’d envisioned as a kid. Sure, I’ve done hard time. Twelve years and counting. Four at Princeton. Two at Harvard. Six in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in good old Beantown. Next year, I’ll—
“Put the cell back. He’s good to go,” a guard declares to the two dickheads as if I’m invisible.
I proceed through the motion of picking up my car keys, wallet, gum. Rechecking the locks on my briefcase, I field their questions about how much I earn. Where I purchased my iPhone. If I thought a corrections guard would get approved for an Amex. Pretending to make nice is an exercise in self-control.
If these idiots only knew what I can do with a switchblade. A hunting knife. Hell, a blunt spoon, they’d shut their gaping pie-holes.
By nurture, not nature, I’m a shark. As such, only once have I detoured from my carefully constructed strategy in rendering my revenge. A necessary chore and what I classify as taking out the garbage when an asshole in personnel screwed with my plans. There’s a risk of doing one’s job too well. I proved that point to the know-it-all administering the lie detector test after he’d repeatedly asked me about my Calabrian heritage, about my father, and our family company. Nothing of importance relative to my application for federal employment.
Vince wasn’t around and I took care of business. Since that hiccup, my hands are fairly clean. I specialize in prosecuting white-collar tech crime and have earned a hardball reputation in combing through evidence. Extricating the dirty details.
All the hours I’ve spent working my ass off in the U.S. Attorney’s office will be over soon. An arduous trek, and me patiently standing here is a testimony that we reap what we sow. These morons require a lesson on how to act. But it isn’t my problem; no more than if they were pesky flies circling a dumpster. Babbos.
My endpoint is near. I’ll cash in after the payoff. Then there will be no reason to hold back.
“Gentlemen, enjoy your night.” I retrieve my case and follow the cagiest of the bonehead g
uards. Silently, we enter the underground tunnel. An emergency exit, it connects the holding facility of the federal courthouse to a restaurant across the street. Ten more feet and there’s a metal door and a man waiting.
“He’s clean,” the guard says, stopping short of the point where the courthouse property ends.
Down this basement passage lies an upscale Sicilian restaurant that is probably booked solid for the holiday. It’s also owned and operated by several astute families with ties that run deep and hence the underground connecting corridor. One of many subterranean hallways.
I walk up to the other guy. Dressed in all black, he nods respectfully. There isn’t a trace of veiled animosity or smirk on his face. It isn’t my reputation that garners this man’s reaction. His nonverbals speak of his employer’s power. He presses a switch on the corridor wall and steps back.
The door slides open. From the hall, I stare into the dark eyes of the man I haven’t seen since I was five, half-frozen, and scared shitless. In the midst of a turf war, right after my father was killed, and I’d been sucked into the eye of a nightmare.
“Damiano, buon Natale,” Santo Aldebrando says in a smooth rasp. He doesn’t call me by my given name. He doesn’t get up. He doesn’t do more than drop a sugar cube into his espresso. Without breaking eye contact, he picks up his spoon, and stirs the caramel-colored froth, unearthing memories within me while ripping apart my plans.
“Zio,” I exhale, recalculating if this is another hiccup or a juncture. Either way, encountering my uncle might dismantle the countless details I’ve constructed. I’m blindsided, but not enough to detour from my goal.
Crossing the threshold into this room becomes the Rubicon River. Effectively, I’ve got zero options if I’d like to live to see next week. So I make my choice, enter and set my brief case on the floor. The piper has arrived and he expects to be paid. The only question is how much?
