by Lexi Blake
She didn’t even think about ignoring him. She swiped her finger across the screen. “What do you want?”
“I hear you’ve gotten yourself out of jail. That was very quick. Tell me something. How are you going to afford Henry Garrison, dear? He might take you on for the publicity, but he’s going to want to be paid in the end.”
Why was he calling her? Taunting her? Was this how the man got his jollies? “I don’t think that’s any of your business. You should know that I’ve already put a legal team on the partnership agreement. I’m not selling my stock to you.”
A humorless chuckle came over the line. “You will. The only question is how much you get for it. If I force your hand right now you’ll get nothing. Or you could play ball with me and come out of this with half a future. The man you think of as Riley Lang is the son of an old adversary of mine.”
“Benedict Lawless.”
“Excellent. So I was right and they’re the ones paying Garrison.”
She winced. So this was information gathering. She couldn’t feel too bad about it. They were talking to the press in an hour or so. He would have found out anyway. “It’s really none of your business.”
He ignored her. “Yes, I see they’ve likely told you the tale. Naturally you won’t care to hear my side. I think if you go to Riley, he’ll try to protect you. He can’t. All that’s going to happen is I’ll have to take down the entire family one by one. I won’t hesitate. If you care about them in any way, you’ll convince them to give this up. I suspect that will be impossible, so you should protect yourself, Ellie.”
Anger burned inside her. “What makes you think you can touch them?”
“I can touch anyone. You certainly didn’t see me coming. I’ll take them out, but if you back off and give me what I need, I’ll think about going easy on your lover.”
“On the man who betrayed me?”
“Is that how you’re playing it? Don’t be ridiculous. I saw him after you were hauled out. He didn’t care about his revenge then. I expected more from him. I thought for a moment I might have found a worthy adversary. He’s more like his father than I gave him credit for. Apparently Benedict’s ridiculous softness has found its way to the new generation. You looked quite pathetic on the news, by the way. The camera added far more than ten pounds. You know the truth is you’re actually lovely in person. If you hadn’t been so very prudish, I might have considered you for myself.”
The idea made her flush with anger. “Now you just want to make me sick.”
“No, I want you to understand that the man you knew for all those years doesn’t exist. I’m far worse than your father ever thought of being, so you should back down now while you still have something to live for. Get out of this fight. It’s between me and the big dogs. You’ll only get hurt.”
“What is the purpose of this call, Steven? I know you didn’t call for my health and well-being.”
There was a low chuckle over the line. “Your father left me something. I want it. It was to come to me upon his death.”
Her father had left a lot of things behind, but nothing that would interest Steven Castalano that she could think of. With the singular exception of StratCast stock, and he almost had his hands on that. “There was nothing left to you in his will.”
“This was a gentlemen’s agreement and it has nothing at all to do with legalities. StratCast made its fortune from the original source code we based the company on.”
“The code you stole from Benedict Lawless.”
He sighed. “Ah, they’ve been telling tales. No matter what they say, they can prove nothing. Your father took the original code and held it hostage over my head all these years. I want it back. Find it and I’ll stop the prosecution. I’ll purchase your stock when it comes back up by, say, twenty percent. Then you’ll be out of this war you find yourself in. You can take the money and enjoy your life.”
Twenty percent was still less than half of what she should have been owed. “It seems to me that source code would be worth more.”
“More than your freedom? More than their lives? If you don’t get me that source code, something terrible could happen to that lover of yours. Not that I would have anything to do with it, of course. Or your sister. I know she’s a bitch of the highest order, but she’s your only blood. Perhaps I’ll start firing all your friends here. I think I’ll start with dear Lily. My son likes her, but I am less enthralled.”
A chill went through her. This man was capable of anything. “So if I find this source code, why wouldn’t I give it to Drew Lawless?”
“The code itself proves nothing,” he replied in an even tone. “He can drag my name through the mud, but it won’t mean a thing. I would like to avoid that. I would like to avoid all-out war with them. I simply wish to retire in the near future with as much cash as possible. You’re going to be tempted to choose them over me.”
“Oh, tempted is a silly word.” She wouldn’t choose him if he was the last person on earth.
“Nonetheless, they’ll never care about you. You have to start thinking with something other than your sadly underused lady parts. They’re using you. You’ll always be Phillip Stratton’s daughter to them. They hate us, Ellie. They hate all of us. They would do anything to bring down this company. They’ll say anything to get you on their side. I know what I did was brutal, but it’s nothing compared to what Drew Lawless will do to you. Take my deal. Get yourself and your loved ones out of the line of fire. You could start again if I convince the prosecutors that I was wrong. I can pin this on someone else. I can give you back your life. You can come back to StratCast and take care of research and development. You were never suited for an executive position anyway.”
“I’m supposed to marry him in a few minutes.”
A pause came over the line. “They’re willing to go very far to bring you in. Perhaps you’ll have an accident soon and then Drew Lawless will have what he needs. His brother will have your stock. He could fight the contract. It’s what he’s been trained to do. Think about it. Every single one of them has given up their own hopes and dreams so they can be soldiers. Do you really think they would welcome the daughter of their enemy into their home without having a plan to get rid of you?”
Could they be plotting? Absolutely. Riley was ruthless. His whole family was. Mia’s sweetness and sunshine could all be an act. Her husband’s stoic routine could be there to make Ellie feel comfortable. Would Case Taggart really help her? Maybe not. All of Drew’s offers could be complete shit.
Marriage would give Riley her stock. Her stock might or might not be worth anything, but he couldn’t play at all if she wasn’t in the game.
If he married her he had access to anything she owned, anything her father had left her. He might be hunting for this source code. He’d gotten into her bed in order to screw with Castalano. He could go this far, too.
“Think about it,” Castalano said over the line, his voice smooth as silk. “This doesn’t have to end poorly for you. Why don’t you come by and we’ll talk about it. We can have dinner and discuss how we can help each other.”
If she went through with this marriage, she was taking the biggest risk of her life. She could actually be risking her life.
“Fuck you.”
She hung up the phone. He didn’t get to take one more thing from her. He sure as hell wasn’t taking away her chance to fight. He might think she was soft, but she knew when it came time to take a risk.
She strode out to where her almost-husband stood, surrounded by family.
“Are you planning on offing me in order to take control of my stock?”
Riley went white. “What? Ellie, I’m doing this to protect you. Whatever else has happened between us, know that I would never hurt you.” He took her shoulders in his hands, looking her right in the eyes. “I will do my best, try my hardest to never hurt you again.”
> He could be the world’s best actor, but she had three choices. Him or Castalano or going it alone. She’d been alone for far too long.
“Let’s do this thing.”
—
Riley looked out over the darkened park and wondered when his blood pressure would tick down again. It was hours after his wedding, hours after they’d greeted the press together, and Ellie had just now thought to drop her bomb. Talk about burying the lede.
“He threatened you.”
Ellie had changed clothes, getting into a pair of jeans that showed off her every curve and a black T-shirt that clung to her breasts. She sat on the sofa looking completely delicious.
It was their wedding night. She was his wife. He had the paperwork and everything. He’d never planned on getting married. Never really thought about it.
Damn, but he wanted to fuck his wife. He wanted to get her in bed and not leave again for a few days. He wanted to be getting on a plane to someplace tropical where he could keep her naked and sated and happy.
And he wanted to shake her a little since she hadn’t bothered to mention this situation earlier.
“Did he directly threaten you?” Drew asked.
“Oh, yeah. He was practically twirling his evil-villain mustache.” Ellie sighed as she took a sip of the wine she and Mia were enjoying. “I hung up on his ass before he could give me the mwah-ha-ha laugh.”
“This is serious,” Riley complained.
At some point in time Ellie had relaxed. She’d held his hand during the interview and managed to look like a bride. Now she seemed fairly happy. She’d sat with Mia and Case and talked for the longest time. She wouldn’t hold his hand again, though.
“Of course it is.” Bran walked in and started passing out beers. “But we’ll handle it. We’re the good guys.”
Riley was certain his wife would argue about that. He wasn’t going to give her the chance to. “I want to know everything he said to you, and I damn straight want to know why I’m only hearing about it now.”
She sat back. “Because I was fairly certain you would throw a hissy fit and then all of it would have been for nothing. We were supposed to look like star-crossed lovers, not like you were about to change into the Hulk. Should your eyebrow be twitching like that?”
Mia leaned over. “It does that when he throws a hissy fit.”
“I am not throwing a hissy fit. I am very reasonably pissed off that the man who killed my parents is now making threatening phone calls to my wife.” He put a hand over his left eye in a vain attempt to stop the stupid twitch that happened when he got truly enraged.
“She’s right, though. You look psychotic, bro.” Bran sat down with the women.
“Calm down.” Hatch sat to Drew’s left, still in the clothes he’d worn to the wedding.
His wedding. He’d stood in the judge’s office and promised to love, honor, and cherish Ellie Stratton until the day she died. It was wrong to put it like that. She could die first and he was fairly certain he would still love her, still honor and cherish her. He was wretchedly sure there would be no other woman for him, and he’d screwed it all up.
He needed to stay calm or he could lose any shot he might have with her. If she thought he was a crazed maniac, she might run sooner than later. He took a deep breath and tried to go for a smile. “Baby, why don’t you tell me what he said. I think we would all appreciate knowing about that conversation.”
A grin appeared on Ellie’s face. “Wow. Now you look like a psycho who’s trying to pass for normal. It’s actually creepier than the first.”
“Damn it, Ellie.” So much for staying calm.
“Fine.” She set her glass down and crossed her legs. “He called to tell me that he would stop the prosecution if I play ball with him. He wants me to stay away from you and to turn over the source code my father stole.”
He stopped, her words chilling him. “Your father had the source code?”
“Apparently. He said it was supposed to come to him on my father’s death, but it didn’t. Either my dad screwed him over or something went wrong. I got the feeling it was something dear old Dad held over his head.” She turned to Drew. “He told me it wouldn’t prove anything.”
Drew’s eyes narrowed. “It might not, but I would love to get hold of it.”
“He doesn’t know that I have a copy of that code. The code itself didn’t belong to the company. That was something Benedict was working on in his spare time. The code that eventually became the foundation of StratCast is something your father claimed he and Castalano worked on over the years. We didn’t have auto backups back then that were as good as they are today. We really could lose things. Ben would back up to a hard disk. The odd thing was about a week before he died, he asked me to keep a copy, too,” Hatch explained.
“Why didn’t you put that out there when StratCast first formed?” Ellie asked.
The room went quiet.
Riley tried to figure out a way to explain without throwing Hatch under a bus. “He wasn’t in a very good place back then.”
“I was drunk,” Hatch corrected. “By the time I was sober enough to deal with it, the patents had already been filed and there wasn’t a lot we could do. But I was smart enough to keep the original code. I’m sure they thought they burned all the backups in the fire. I wasn’t capable of doing a goddamn thing. I didn’t even realize you kids had gone into foster care until weeks later and what did I do? I drank some more and told myself there wasn’t anything I could do.”
“It’s all right, Hatch,” Drew said, his voice calm. “It’s all in the past. I don’t know that you could have done anything. The police had closed the case. It’s highly unlikely we would have gotten a judge to force them to open their source code. Our father was a little naive. He hadn’t put in for a patent. StratCast did that quite quickly. We were kids and you didn’t have the best reputation even before they died. You need to let it go. No one blames you.”
“So if I could find the source code, we could potentially use it against him? Could we prove it was your father’s?” Ellie asked.
There were several problems with that scenario. “It would be difficult to prove it at this point. Castalano will very likely say that it was his partner’s code. Your father is dead. My father is dead.”
“But code is its own language.” Ellie sat up straight. “My father never wrote a ton of code, but I might be able to find it. Code is like any language. We all speak it differently. At this point, the code we use has been rewritten about a thousand times, but that source code would show the truth.”
“And then Castalano would say Stratton did it and fooled him or that Dad was in business with them, so it did belong to them. The problems are endless, but if Castalano wants it, I think we should make sure he doesn’t get it.” He wasn’t about to allow Ellie to hand over anything to Castalano. He wasn’t going to let her be in the same room with that fucker. He hated the fact that she’d been on the phone with him.
“But I don’t know where it is,” Ellie admitted. “I packed up my father’s office. There wasn’t anything like that. He’d gotten rid of most of his old material long ago. I went through his laptop and everything I could find. I’ve been in his office for over a year now. If it was there, it’s long gone.”
“Was there anyone he would have left it with?” As far as Riley was aware, Phillip Stratton had outlived his two wives and there hadn’t been a girlfriend he’d seemed close to. His last six months had played out at his home or in a hospital where his daughters had been the only regular visitors.
Ellie shook her head. “He didn’t have any friends. Not any he trusted, and now anything I might have had at my house has likely been taken into custody. I can try to get in touch with his admin. She retired when he got sick.”
“Give me her name and I’ll get us all the relevant information,” Case offered.
“Her life, of course.” Riley had done nothing but think about all the ways Castalano could hurt her since yesterday.
Ellie pushed her hair back. She’d taken it down after they’d gotten home and now it flowed around her shoulders. “No, that was you, according to him. He told me you would marry me to get my stock and then I would have a convenient accident. He said none of you would ever accept Phillip Stratton’s daughter into your family.”
“Well, we definitely wouldn’t take the other one. I read the write-up on her,” Bran said with a shake of his head. “Sorry, but your sister’s a skank. You’re perfectly welcome. You make Riley less obnoxious. He also masturbates way less.”
“Dude!” His brother’s humor was often lost on Riley.
Ellie’s throaty laugh filled the room. “I think he’s going to have to go back to that.” She turned to Case. “Speaking of my skanky sister, he did threaten her and all of you.” She sobered a bit. “I think he was going to try to hurt you whether I did as he asked or not. He’s going to come after you all. I was hoping Case could help me with Shari. She’s a horrible person, but she’s my sister.”
“What can I do?” Case asked.
“If Steven kidnapped her, he would have a decent hold on me. I was hoping I could use my newfound Lawless fortune to hire you to kidnap her first,” Ellie said.
“What?” Riley had to have heard her wrong.
“I think that can be arranged,” Case said with an easy smile.
“Did you just ask someone to kidnap your sister? Who the hell are you?” He couldn’t stop himself.
She glanced back at Riley. “Hey, we’re married now so I can let my freak flag fly. You know what they say, Counselor. It’s all sweatpants and ponytails and kidnappings after the wedding.”
Case held up a hand. “I can handle the sister. We’ll make sure she goes somewhere safe and quiet for a month or two.”
“Pay her,” Drew said. “That woman goes through money like it’s water. Tell her if she’ll stay at my place near Bali for a month, we’ll give her a million dollars.”
