Ambition 2: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Driven)

by Landish, Lauren

  "I've got a husband and ten year old boy," Vanessa said with a smile. "If you're offering, I'd love to come. Although I have to warn you about my son. He's got a crush on you."

  "Isn't he a little young for that sort of thing?" I asked, amused and flattered.

  "He's mature for his age. We're thinking of getting him a razor as a stocking stuffer for Christmas this year," she said. "I'm just saying, if he gives you the puppy dog eyes, you'll know why."

  I shook my head in amazement. "Ten year old boys need to be fantasizing about Katy Perry or something, not me."

  Vanessa laughed. “Oh what about your house staff? You know I've been working for you all this time and I've never met them?"

  "I'll see. Joanna is getting a lot closer to delivery. If things go according to schedule, we're going to have a new baby in the house by Super Bowl time. But I can ask."

  "Thanks. I've talked with her on the phone a few times, she sounds quite nice."

  I smiled, thinking of my Sophie. "She is. By the way, any word from the attorney?"

  "Not yet."

  I sighed, my only sign of frustration since getting in. The Squid had been doing his job, using private investigators and delaying tactics to wear out Scott Pressman. If it had been just him or his family, he should have folded up by that point. Instead, his legal team was nearly as sharp as he was, counter filing motions and things constantly. I'd already had two depositions, and hated them both.

  The evidence was clear, Scott Pressman was being backed by the Union. It was our best opportunity of busting him open. If we could make a connection between Scott Pressman and the Union, Mark had enough dirt on Pressman to tie him to the now defunct Confederation. There was no way that Berkobitch would want that to come out in the papers.

  "All right, thanks. Let me get to work, and try and make up for some lost time. Patrick’s got a council meeting tonight, so I should be able to catch up.”

  Chapter 10

  Mark

  I was really starting to get too familiar with crawling around unobserved, and it was beginning to bother me. I'm a man of action, not dirty shirt fronts. When Tabby called me to tell me about the harassment that morning from the cops, I added another stop on my list of night visits.

  Thankfully, in neither of the two visits I had on tap for that night did I plan on having to use anything other than my stealth and observation skills. Of course, that didn't mean things couldn't change on a moment's notice, so I went prepared.

  "Be careful," Sophie said to me as she lay back on the bean bag chair. Her stomach bulged like a soccer ball was under her shirt, and yet she was still beautiful to me. We'd even experimented on ways that we could still be intimate even after the doctors had told us that regular sex was not a good idea until about a month after the delivery. "Tabby's getting home late, so I'm going to be cold."

  "She and Patrick will be home by ten," I said, giving her a quick peck. "You'll be fine until then. By the way, after the baby, I was thinking, maybe Patrick's ready for a patrol with me?"

  "We can talk about it after the baby," Sophie said, "but I'm fine with it. He's better than I was when I started with you."

  "Don't sell yourself short beautiful," I countered, kissing her again. "See you soon. I'll have coms up if you need to get in touch. And go to bed early, no need to try and stay up until I get home. Remember what's most important."

  My first stop was Pressman Contracting. After the last time we'd spoken, Scott Pressman had apparently tried to turn over a new leaf, at least until his long nursed hatred against Tabby came out in the lawsuit. He'd worked hard when I checked in, and had even used his illicit bankroll to finance the expansion of his family's business. His little brother was now in college as well, studying business out west at UCLA.

  I had thought Scott had finally let things go until the lawsuit. Thankfully, The Squid had kept his lawyers from digging too deeply into MJT, while at the same time stalling the system. He knew me from my previous life, and knew that going to court was the last thing I wanted. I'd be willing to pay a settlement first.

  Still, civil law is a lot like poker in situations like this. We weren't playing the facts, we were playing the man. I knew Scott Pressman, and I knew some about Francine Berkowitz. The one advantage I had was that they didn't know me very well. Hopefully it was all the advantage I needed.

  Setting up across the street, I waited while Scott closed up shop for the night. He'd gained about twenty pounds since I'd last seen him, most of it muscle. I guess when your dick doesn't work any longer, and your wife is accustomed to what he was, you did what you could to keep interest where you could. He finished up a chunk of computer work, nothing that I could see, then closed the top on his laptop, leaving it behind. Not a good idea in my opinion, but I only noted it for future reference. Tonight was about observation of Scott himself.

  He locked up the shop and got into a used pickup truck, driving off. I quickly followed, keeping enough distance between us that I was able to hopefully remain undetected. I was surprised when Pressman left the city and headed towards the suburb town of Kingsville, about a half hour outside of town. Kingsville was mostly upper middle class, not quite gated subdivision level, but it was the sort of town where you could let your kids play outside without fearing for their lives.

  Pressman drove to a rather routine looking ranch style house and parked. I stopped my bike a block back and watched him go inside before I followed, stashing my bike in between two SUV's that were parked on the street.

  I'd learned stealth by practicing in urban environments, and of course growing up as a country boy, in the extreme rural confines of the woods. This suburban stuff was totally different to me. I decided to go with the old standby, just walk up like I was part of the neighborhood, hoping my hood would cover my face enough to prevent people from wondering what a masked man was doing walking through their neighborhood at nine o'clock at night.

  I listened carefully as I vaulted the fence to his backyard. It was only a short little chain link fence, so I wasn't expecting a dog or anything, but you never knew. Pressman could have had one of those little anklebiters, a Schnauzer or terrier or something. It paid to be careful.

  Going around back, I saw Scott sitting down with what I assumed was his wife. She was beautiful, I had to admit, but in a way that was also ugly. Let me explain. I've told Sophie that she's the most beautiful woman in the world But it's not just her looks. It's her spirit, her heart, that coupled with, yes, a nice build that makes Sophie beautiful to me. Sophie could be bald and two hundred pounds and I'd still think her beautiful.

  Scott Pressman's wife however was different. Maybe when she was out being a seductress she knew how to change her facial expression, at least enough to fool her mark, but to me, there was something just inherently evil about the woman. She was beautiful but cold, aloof. My suspicions were soon confirmed. Scott was sitting at the dining room table, a look of utter rejection on his face. "Are you really going out tonight?"

  "Of course," his wife replied. "Unless you found some magic dick pills, there are only so many things you can do to keep me satisfied."

  Scott sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Melinda, this is the third time this week. You know, sending Nathan over to his grandparent's house isn't going to keep working as a cover. What are we going to tell him when he figures out that his mother is out working the game with men every time he goes to play at Grandpa's?"

  "That's your problem," Melinda said simply. "I figure you can put that either right before or right after you explain to him how his father's a limp dicked piece of shit.”

  "Hey, you know why I did that! For you, goddammit!" Scott yelled, his temper getting the best of him. "You think I enjoyed it?"

  "I don't know, did you? It certainly looked like you did," Melinda said calmly, snapping her purse closed. She wasn't dressed for going out, but who knew where she might have been stashing clothes. As physically attractive as she was, she probably could have shown up i
n most clubs wearing a high necked potato sack and gotten five men within twenty minutes. "The way you were moaning, it sure sounded like it."

  "Fuck you, bitch," Scott spat, sagging back into his chair, defeated. "Just fuck you."

  "If you could, I wouldn't be going out tonight, now would I? Enjoy your pro wrestling," Melinda said, leaving the dining room. I heard the front door slam, followed by the sound of a car engine revving before driving off.

  I gave it a few minutes before making my move. I was just about to open the window and sneak in when Pressman shocked the hell out of me. The son of a bitch, who'd broken more hearts than I could recall, most importantly to me Tabby's, put his face in his hands and started bawling like a child. Great racking sobs tore from his chest, and I felt a momentary flare of pity for him.

  Instead of slipping the lock, I made a quick decision, and knocked lightly on the glass door. Scott reacted like he'd been shot before looking at the back door. I faded into the shadows and waited for him to approach, opening the door. "Who is it?"

  "Come out, Pressman," I rasped, sticking to the shadows. "No threat, I just want to talk."

  He remembered the voice and sighed, resigned. He knew from my reputation I was carrying guns, even if he couldn't see them. "What the fuck do you want?"

  "Just to talk," I replied. "Come on out, you know I prefer shadows."

  Sighing again, he nodded, leaving the back door to his house open. "How long have you been there, Snowman?"

  "Long enough," I replied. "Is she the reason why you're doing it?"

  "Doing what?" he asked, sitting down at a small picnic set on the patio. "The lawsuit against MJT?"

  "I told you last time to stay away from Tabby Williams, did you really think I'd let you keep this charade up? It's not like you need the business, Pressman. From what I've seen over the past few months, you can barely keep up with the expansion of your business as it is."

  I was standing farther back in the shadows he was, just outside the dim triangle of light that was cast by his windows and his open door. With the crescent moon and partly cloudy skies, he couldn't see me clearly, but I could still see him well enough.

  Pressman shrugged, his face pointed in my direction, focusing mostly on the sound of my voice. "Why the fuck should I tell you, Snowman? All this shit is because of you. You were the one who drugged me, you are the one who taped those damn earbuds in and turned that shit on that fucked up my brain for eight hours. You're the one who tore my life apart, man. I'm just trying to pick shit back up."

  "Bullshit," I replied. "Come off it, Scott. If you wanted to just pick shit back up, as you put it, you'd be spending your free time in counseling trying to get that mental block broken down. Hell, any damage the drugs did physically should have been mostly repaired by now. You're not physically incapable of getting it up."

  His shoulders trembled, and Pressman looked like he was about to get up out of his chair, but he slumped back down. "That's not it."

  "Then tell me. If anything, you know I'm not going to lie to you, there's no need."

  It was true. I was perhaps the only person in Scott Pressman's life he could actually trust, the one person he knew the consequences of telling something to. Strange. "She... Melinda's behind it all," he admitted, sagging into his chair. "She and Berkowitz go way back, back to when Melinda was more active in the game. They've stayed FWB since then, nothing I minded before, but after what you did.... Berkowitz told Melinda she knew how to cure me, to undo what you did. I know it's bullshit, I think Melinda does too, but Berkowitz, she knows she needs an in somehow. She goes through a normal union shop to get to MJT, all of that shop's shit comes out into the light. Pressman though, we've been hiding more skeletons than a graveyard for two generations now."

  "Then why keep going with it?" I asked quietly. "You know you can't be quick fixed. I'm better at what I do than that. Besides, you also know what I'd do if you actually came within sight of Tabby Williams."

  Scott lurched, and I realized I'd seen it before, when I had said her name the first time. "The conditioning is stronger than I planned. I thought they'd have come and gotten you in four or five hours, not eight."

  "Yeah well, its only in the past two months that I've been able to even hear her name without wanting to puke. If this case goes to trial, I'm probably going to piss myself and go blind as soon as she walks into the courtroom."

  "So why do it? Fuck, I gave you an out. That doesn't happen often with me."

  "Because of my son," Pressman replied, anguish in his voice. "She knows the deal. Divorce laws in this state give custody to the mother over eighty six percent of the time. And she's got dirt on me, man. Video, not only of me before, but me since. She’s taunted me for weeks, breaking me down mentally. I mean, all of us in the seduction game, or at least most of us, have gone the other way for a mark at times. I didn't need to often, but I'd done it before, always topping. This time, I bottomed for some cuckold fantasy mark she was honing in on. Or at least, that is what she told me."

  "What happened?" I said, a hollow ball in the pit of my stomach. "She set you up?"

  "You think? It was all a trick by her. She got me in the worst position, and only afterwards showed me the video. Christ, I was acting, man! But she's got it on video, me being someone's bottom bitch while she isn't in the filmed part at all. She's held that goddamn file over my head ever since."

  "Why is she coming after Tabby so damn hard?" I asked, curious. "It wasn't her who put you out of action."

  "No, but she can't get to you. You don't get it, Snowman. She doesn't just hate you, she hates everything about you. She hates that you pulled me out of the game, took me out of it. I had over three million dollars in seductions going, even without Marcus Smiley's money, you know that? I had Gina Franklin riding me twice a week and this close to giving me the account numbers I needed to clean Bill Franklin out. You know how much we're talking there, even if it was only a few of the accounts?"

  "A lot," I replied, trying to not puke. Even with his injury, even with his own trauma, he was still a self centered asshole who thought of sex as merely a weapon to use, like I use my Glocks.

  "Understatement of the fucking year. And Melinda, she wanted it all. We were going to get away from it, away from the air conditioning contracts and the games, just get away and find a new life. We were going to pull a ghost job, just like you were probably going to do at first before Sal fucked you over. So, she's going after MJT. Notice I still can't say her name without feeling nauseous. I put up with it because, despite the fact that yes, I'm still an asshole. Despite the fact that I'm a total scum of a man who hates most of the fucking world, and most of all hates you, there is one thing that I do all this shit for."

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "The same thing that has kept me from climbing the Financial Tower and jumping off, or going over to Central Station and stepping in front of the Silver Bullet Express to Washington. My child. He's still innocent. I'm trash, I'm a motherfucker, but he's still innocent. And I swear, as God as my witness, I’ll keep him innocent. I may have my own little plot in the seventh circle of Hell all ready to go for me. It might be right near yours, all things considered. But my son? No. It ends with me, and it ends with Melinda. She's at least agreed with me to that much."

  I could tell even listening to him then, he was lying, to himself as much as to me. He knew his wife was going to screw him over, and most likely bring his son into the game as soon as he was able. I'd never seen the boy, but if he was at all as good looking as his mother and father, he was going to be a heartbreaker if he wanted to be. I could see it in the way Pressman held his shoulders, the tone of his voice, he knew it. If I could have seen his eyes, I would have seen it there too.

  I considered for a moment what to do. I looked at Pressman, and then thought about his wife. There was an option I could choose. I could kill Scott Pressman, wait for Melinda Pressman to come home, then kill her too. It was tempting. It would solve the problem with the
lawsuit as well.

  My fingers itched with the idea. But my hands didn't move. Maybe I was getting soft, but I didn't think so. Killing Scott and Melinda Pressman wasn't going to solve all of their son's problems. He'd be sent to live with his grandparents, the King and Queen of Hearts, grand thieves in their own right.

  It wouldn't stop Francine Berkowitz, that was for sure. She was a vulture, who'd just find another front for her crusade against MJT. She was just as much of a seducer as Pressman was, just in another fashion.

  Another option came to my mind. It was risky, but it could end things quickly. "Give me what I need, Scott," I said simply. "Let me take Berkowitz down. It won't solve all your problems, but it'll at least prevent your wife from fucking over another innocent woman. Tell me, didn't you ever love her?"

  Pressman made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, and I knew the truth. He still did, he probably always would. Love is like that sometimes. "You think it would change her?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know. But there's a chance. You know Berkowitz, she's as much of a fucker as you and Melinda are. I can't guarantee you anything, except a chance."

  Pressman thought about it for a moment, then looked towards me again. "Let me think, Snowman. How can I get in touch with you?"

  It was an opportunity. I'd take it.

  Chapter 11

  Patrick

  I was nervous when Mark told us about his activities. The second part, about tracking down the cop who'd harassed Tabby, was pretty boring. There was nothing much we could do at the time about the cop. He'd technically done nothing illegal, and while I was plenty pissed off, even I knew that sticking my nose in would do nothing useful. It’d only give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d succeeded in pissing her off.

  It was his earlier visit with Scott Pressman that gave me my opportunity, however. Ever since getting shot, I'd worked hard, not only in being a member of the city council, but in training. I was in pretty good shape before, at least I thought I was, but now I was in better shape than I’d ever been. With such a beautiful girlfriend, the public just kind of assumed I was getting in shape to keep up with her. It had even garnered one comment from a morning radio jock calling me the "Hot City Councilstud." Tabby had insisted the station send us a copy of that show, and I found out that her ringtone on her phone for me was now "Hot City Councilstud."