Hard Love

by Meredith Wild

  A hollow laugh escaped me, at the irony of us here, at how I could feel the fight slipping from me with each passing day. I pushed the tray away, unable to stomach another bite.

  There we sat. A billionaire and an heir to one, clad in shapeless blue uniforms that relegated us to the lowest rung of society. Money helped, but we couldn’t buy our freedom.

  I’d known this. I learned the very real lesson years ago, and as a result, I’d always been exceedingly careful. I found the information I needed, but I was cautious with whom and how I meddled when I skirted the law. The irony was that I sat here now, in front of a man I detested who deserved nothing more than four cement walls around him for the rest of time.

  That empty defeated feeling crept over me all over again.

  “If Michael could only see us now.”

  Max’s lips grew thin, all signs of his desired camaraderie gone. “He cares a lot less than you think he does, you know.”

  “You’re saying that because he cut you off. Giving you what you deserve doesn’t mean he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else.”

  “You don’t know him,” he bit out.

  “I’ve known him half my life. I know him pretty damn well.”

  “You had a glimpse. You’ve only seen the good.”

  Michael was more than good. In fact, good wasn’t a word I’d use to describe him. Focused, shrewd, discriminating in his actions and choices. He couldn’t choose his children, clearly, and Max would never be able to forgive him for choosing me over him when it came to business.

  “You’re his child, and you act like one. I’m sure he’d show a different side of himself to you. One I probably wouldn’t like either.”

  He let out a weak laugh. “You look at me and all you see is a fuckup because that’s what he wanted you to see. I would have done anything for him, for a chance to learn from him and be a part of something more. He purposefully kept me away from opportunities that would have helped me excel, and then he handed those same opportunities to you. He threw it in my face.”

  “Maybe he did, but that doesn’t excuse the mistakes you’ve made.”

  “The only mistake I made was turning my hatred onto you. It should have been him. It should have been him all along.”

  “You turn your hatred onto anyone who gets in your way, lest you forget.”

  He dropped his fork and pushed his tray away. “Listen… I’m sorry about Erica.”

  The words hung in the air between us. Ridiculous, small words. “You’re sorry?”

  “What do you want me to say? I barely touched her. I’m doing time here for nothing.”

  I saw red. Every muscle coiled, ready to fight.

  “You used her to get to me. And my fist was the only reason you didn’t get any further with her. You know that as well as I do, you sick piece of shit. You have no fucking idea what she’s been through.”

  “She slept around, Blake. Mark even fucked her. Just because she’s your wife doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a past. I mean, she was asking for it the whole time she was dealing with Angelcom. What kind of woman pitches a room full of men and—”

  I lunged across the table. Gaining a grip on his hair, I slammed his head down onto the table between us. I held him down by the neck. Rage coursed through me.

  A gurgled cry left his throat. “Let me go!”

  “Mark raped her, you stupid son of a bitch.”

  He struggled against my hold. The noise in the room fell, though never went completely silent. Still, I felt the eyes of onlookers nearby on us. But something wild and reckless had taken hold of me. Where else, if not in this hell of a place, could a man like Max face the kind of wrath he deserved? If it came at my hand, so be it. The measly time he’d serve wouldn’t be enough. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough.

  He struggled and I loosened my hold only to slam him down harder, feeling the tendons in his neck bend under my grip. I bent, hovering over his ear.

  “Do you have any idea what it’s like for me to not be able to touch my wife because she thinks I could be you? Or him?” I paused, letting my ragged breath feed the surge of adrenaline pumping through me. “I should have finished you that day. I should have ended you and your pathetic existence. You’re goddamn lucky Michael pulled me off.”

  He grimaced. “He didn’t want to.”

  “Because you’re a worthless piece of shit, and even Michael can’t deny it now.”

  “You! Hands the fuck off!”

  I snapped up, eyes narrowed at the approaching guard. Much as I may have wanted to give him and any number of others the same treatment I’d given Max, the guard was twice my size with a billy club in his hand that I could only assume he used with some regularity.

  “Don’t fuckin’ look at me that way, rich boy.”

  I released Max and stood back from the table. Max retreated to the bench, hands to his throat as he gasped for breath. Whatever consequences might come, I’d face them and I’d do it again. If being here afforded me nothing more, it might be the chance to give Erica justice from this side of the wall. That was a purpose I could get behind.

  The guard took Max by the back of the neck, matching the hold I’d had on him.

  “What the hell!” Max yelled, his arms flailing helplessly until he tumbled to the floor.

  “Get up,” he barked.

  “I didn’t do anything. He jumped me!”

  The guard leaned down, hoisting the stick high in the air. Max flinched back about a foot.

  “First thing, you don’t know what the fuck it’s like to be jumped. Second, you’re in here for attempted rape, so you should get your pussy ass up or you’re going to find out.”

  Terror flashed behind Max’s eyes as he scrambled to his feet. A quick scan around the surrounding tables revealed a host of menacing glares eating up Max’s present vulnerability.

  “Get the fuck up before someone makes a lesson of you.”

  Max took his tray, got rid of it quickly, and retreated to an empty table at the far end of the room.

  The guard leveled a dead stare my way. “Watch yourself,” he warned.

  * * *

  ERICA

  One step into the office and the concerned looks on everyone’s faces told me that they already knew something was very wrong.

  James’s blue eyes peered up at me from behind his computer before he rose. “Erica, I heard about Blake. Are you okay?”

  I stepped past him and set the thumb drive on Sid’s desk. Sid tugged his headphones down around his neck.

  “I have a new project for you,” I said.

  “What’s this?” He glanced between the drive and me.

  “I’m not one-hundred-percent sure, but I’m guessing it’s the code that was loaded onto the machines that tallied false votes in Fitzgerald’s favor.”

  He pursed his lips. “Do I want to know how you got this?”

  “No. Your job is to look at it and find a way to prove Blake didn’t write it.”

  He blew out a slow breath. “That’s all, huh?”

  When I didn’t respond, he put the drive into his computer and started tapping keys. His eyes darted back and forth over the screen while Geoff, Alli, and I stared expectantly.

  “Yes, looks like these are the binaries.” He looked up. “Give me a few hours to sift through this. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  I pulled up a chair across from his desk and sat down, crossing my legs at the knee. I eyed the mess on Sid’s desk. The surface was decorated with no less than a dozen energy drink empties and a few stacks of paperwork. He lifted an eyebrow when we made eye contact.

  “Blake’s in jail, Sid. I’m not leaving here until you find something.”

  Geoff spoke up. “Can I take a look?”

  “Let me make a copy, one sec.” Sid tapped a few more keys and removed the drive. “Here,” he said, handing it to him.

  A few eternal minutes passed when Sid spoke again.

  “Well, this is a good sign.”


  “What?” I asked, sitting up straighter.

  “Looks like the code that originally ran on the machines was modified by an outside program.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  “Basically, someone attached a virus by using a zero-day exploit to Blake’s code to inflate Fitzgerald’s votes on the day of the election. If Blake had written this himself, I seriously doubt he’d use this method.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Why attach a program to your own code when you’re capable of writing one comprehensive piece of code that does the job?”

  Hearing that made me loathe Evans all over again. If he’d had people looking at this, they should have suspected the same. Maybe that was why Carmody had given me the drive. I wanted to ask him why he’d given it to me, but I figured there was a good reason he hadn’t stuck around long enough for me to ask.

  “Okay. That’s a start, but we need a way to prove Trevor did this.”

  “Um”—Geoff’s expression was tight with concentration as his fingers flew over the keyboard—“maybe we can’t put Trevor’s name right on this code. But Blake’s is already on it, right?”

  “Yes, the encryption routines are his. Everyone including the authorities know this,” I said.

  “Okay. Then theoretically we should be able to prove that two different people wrote the two pieces of code. It’s kind of like handwriting analysis, or distinguishing fingerprints. Code patterns can be analyzed the same way.”

  “You can do that?” I asked.

  “There are legit programs out there, but since this is, uh, sensitive, I have a friend who’s got a homebrew version of his own written. I can have him run this through his program, compare the two versions and highlight the discrepancies.”

  “Let’s do it,” I said without hesitation. That’s what I needed, something concrete. Everything outside of the charges they were holding Blake on now was based on conjecture.

  “If I had something else that Trevor and Blake wrote, that would help so I could compare the two,” Geoff added.

  “There are logs from when Trevor started attacking Clozpin,” Sid said. “If we can prove the virus isn’t Blake’s code, we should also be able to prove that whoever hacked our site and any number of the others in Blake’s fleet were the same person,” Sid said. “I don’t have the Clozpin server logins anymore though, unfortunately.”

  James spoke up. “Mine still work. I’ve been snooping on their progress since I left. Hang on, I’ll send them over.”

  Sid chuckled. “Amateurs.”

  I was about to ask how long all this would take when my phone rang. Daniel was calling me.

  “I’ll be right back.” I went to my office and closed the door behind me. “Daniel, hi.”

  “I got your message,” he said.

  “Thank you for calling me back.”

  “I told you not to call.” His tone was less than warm.

  “Well, I don’t listen very well.”

  “Obviously. There’s too much heat right now. The election aside, the feds are up my ass thinking I’m behind all of this along with Blake. You don’t want to get mixed up in this any more than you already are.”

  “They arrested Blake.”

  He cleared his throat gruffly. “I’m aware.”

  “He didn’t do this.”

  “You’d better hope to God he didn’t, Erica. I’m not going to bother telling you how much money I’ve sunk into this campaign. This isn’t just money. This is a life’s work, and if he came between me and—”

  “I know who did this, and I need your help to find him.”

  For all the hurt Daniel had caused, all I wanted to do was smack him in the head for how single-minded he was being. Finally, finally, I was making progress and he was still hung up on Blake’s supposed guilt.

  “Erica, I don’t have time for this.”

  “I don’t care if you have time for this or not. I’ll never ask you for anything ever again. I’ll stay out of your life forever if that’s what you really want. I’m just asking for this one thing.” The words came out in a rush, before I had a chance to realize what I was promising. But the truth was that I’d say anything and do anything to get Blake out of this, and Daniel could be my last hope to find Trevor.

  He paused. “We shouldn’t be talking like this. It’s not safe.”

  “Fine. Then let’s meet.”

  He sighed. “Where?”

  I thought for a minute, spinning over the best options. Daniel was probably right to be paranoid, but I was grateful he was agreeing to meet me. Seeing him face-to-face required more than privacy, though. I needed him to really hear me. I needed to say things to him that I’d bottled up for weeks, and this might be the last time for that.

  “Let’s meet outside the city. I’ll text you the address.”

  “Fine.”

  An hour later, Marie and I were standing in her kitchen. Her hands were curled over the edge of the counter. I shifted my weight between my feet and checked my watch again.

  “Why here?”

  The distress in her voice made me regret the decision to invite Daniel over to her place to talk. It was a crazy idea, yet something told me this could be the perfect place to really get through to him in a way that I never had been able to before. I hoped too that having Marie nearby would give me the strength I needed to face him again.

  “Right now he thinks Blake ruined his chances to be governor. I need to convince him otherwise, and we needed a safe place to talk.”

  She released her grip on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “Erica, I warned you about him. He’s dangerous and you’ll never be able to trust him.”

  “Yes, you warned me. In my defense, I had no idea what to expect from inviting him into my life. Saying ‘I told you so’ at this point doesn’t help. He’s here and right now, I need to get through to him if I’m going to have any chance of getting Blake out of this mess. You told me to fight, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

  She sighed. “I just worry about you. Richard…” Her throat moved with a swallow. “He died getting tangled up with Daniel’s affairs.”

  True enough, Marie’s ex-lover had met an untimely end by getting too close to the investigation around Daniel and his stepson’s supposed suicide. I still remembered the determined look in his eyes moments before his life ended and mine irrevocably changed at the end of a gun.

  Maybe in a way Richard had been as headstrong as I am. He was a reporter and that was his job. He wasn’t Daniel’s daughter, though. I pitied the man who crossed Daniel, but deep down, I believed he cared about me, if only because he’d once loved my mother.

  A knock sounded at Marie’s front door and she jolted.

  “That’s him.”

  She stared toward the door and hesitated. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I need to talk to him, Marie, and I need him to trust me.”

  She nodded quickly and walked to the door, opening it to Daniel.

  He blinked rapidly, looking her up and down. He was dressed casually in khakis and a blue shirt.

  “Hi, Daniel.”

  His shocked look morphed into a wince. “Marie?”

  A small smile tugged at her lips. “You remembered.”

  “Of course. How could I forget?”

  He seemed different suddenly. Uncomfortable, almost vulnerable. Not the Daniel I knew. Any version of him.

  “It’s good to see you again,” he said.

  I knew she wasn’t happy to be seeing him again, and I hated to put her in this situation. My mother had made her promise not to tell me about the identity of my father, and yet here he was, knocking on her door. And she had every right to be protective. Daniel was not a man to be trusted.

  She stepped to the side and gestured for him to enter. “Come on in. She’s waiting for you.”

  He came inside and our eyes met. “Erica.” His tone was serious, but not as aggressive as it might have b
een if we’d been alone.

  “Hi. Have a seat.”

  We sat down across from each other in Marie’s living room while she went upstairs to give us privacy.

  “Interesting choice for a meeting place,” he said, once she’d left.

  “Call it a show of trust.”

  Letting him know that Marie was still in my life was a risk, but a little part of me believed it could be a reminder too—an important one. This election debacle would be a turning point for him, no doubt, but it wouldn’t be the first. He’d made a choice a long time ago. He’d chosen to turn away from the woman he loved and the child she carried. He’d made the choice, or maybe the choice had been made for him, all for the opportunity that had so recently slipped through his fingers. He’d made a choice that would lead to this place and time, yet despite all his dreams and grand ambition, nothing had gone according to plan.

  “I trust you. I don’t trust your husband.” He offered a tight smile.

  “Do you really believe Blake did this?” I asked him the question without anger or persuasion. I genuinely wanted to know if he could believe what I knew to be untrue.

  “I’m not ruling it out. He’s never been a big fan of mine.”

  “And the same is true for you. Why would he incite your anger when he already knows how much you distrust him? How would that benefit him or me?”

  He shook his head. “You can’t deny that he wants me out of your life.”

  “You were out of my life.”

  “Blake is an extremely wealthy man. I’m sure you know this by now. I may not have the kind of money he does, but I have power. What this has done is not only sabotage the powerful position I had won, but it’s threatening everything I’ve built outside of this election. My reputation at the head of the firm. As a community member. I’m on boards. I have sway that has taken me this far, and that foundation has been shaken.” He gestured, pressing his fingertips to the coffee table between us. “That foundation, Erica, is my value, and every day that goes by, it’s being stripped away. That puts me under people I’ve never had to answer to before so they can get what they want from me, and your husband would be among them.”

  My earlier patience had grown perilously thin. I groaned, halting his ridiculous tirade. “Goddamnit, Daniel. He didn’t do this,” I insisted, trying to keep my anger in check. “Beyond that, whoever believes their value comes from their political power seriously needs a vacation. Is that really how you see yourself? That’s what you bring to the world?”