Mr. Corporate (Mister #3)

by JA Huss

  He’s smiling when he faces me the second time. “I don’t care, Tori. I don’t care what you did. I don’t even want to talk about it right now. OK? I just want you to have a drink with me.”

  I look at my glass, scowling.

  West gulps down his second and heads back for more.

  I sigh, decide I probably need this drink more than he does if what happened over the weekend was my fault, and let the entire thing slide down my throat.

  It burns like fuck. My throat is fire, my stomach is warm, and when I exhale, I feel better.

  West is smiling.

  I smile back. “It’s good.”

  “Have another one,” he says, taking my glass, refilling it, and giving it back.

  “You’re trying to get me drunk. You’re hoping whatever it is I know will come pouring out with that bottle.”

  “I wouldn’t mind it, Tori, but I just told you why I’m doing this. If I lost it all, I want one last chance at enjoying it.”

  “To better days,” I say, touching my glass to his.

  “We could probably both use some of those.”

  We drink together this time.

  All the way down. One long gulp of confidence and sympathy in the form of a drink. And then I set the empty glass down on the desk and look at the man I love so much, it hurts. My chest is constricting and my heart is fluttering. And I might die if I find out I hurt this man by mistake.

  West waves me over to the long leather couch on the other side of the room. I sit and he sits next to me. I cross my legs and his hand slips into place along my thigh.

  “I can rebuild, you know. So fuck it. If he got my money and my assets, then fuck him. I can always make more.”

  “Who?” I ask. “Who would take it?”

  “Liam, I guess. He was never happy about how I got away with what he wanted.”

  “The stupid coins?” I laugh. “This is really about those stupid coins?”

  “They’re worth two billion dollars today.”

  “They are not!” I laugh.

  “But there’s a problem.” West smiles as he turns his head to look at me. “They don’t belong to me any more than they belonged to the people who lost them in that wreck.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They belong to the Spanish government. So if I get them—and that’s a big if, Tori—if I get those coins, then I have to turn them over to the Spanish government. It’s their historical wealth. Liam knows this, but he’s got people in the private market who will buy. I don’t. I can’t ever sell those coins.”

  “You had a lot of money saved, West? They took a lot?”

  “Almost fifty million dollars.”

  I can’t even comprehend fifty million dollars. “But… you were acting like you needed this contract so bad. Why? Why did you fight me so hard about it? Why not just let me have it?

  He smiles, then looks at me and smiles bigger. “It wasn’t the cash, I needed Victoria. It was the job.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  He just shrugs. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over and the money is gone.”

  “I didn’t take it,” I say again.

  “I know, Tori. I don’t think you did.”

  I swallow hard and close my eyes. My heart thumps in my chest and I realize my breathing is coming in short, staccato gasps.

  “Hey,” West says, placing his palms flat on my flushed cheeks. They are cool and strong. He looks me in the eyes and shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t do that. Not over this, Tori. Not over money. I don’t need that money. It’s probably a good thing it got stolen because it was turning me into someone I said I’d never be. All I want is you. We can make more money. All I want is you.”

  We’re silent after that. Everything that has happened these past few days is rolling around in my head so much, I feel dizzy.

  Now what? What do I do? I’m gonna lose him, I can feel it. He’s saying this stuff now, but once he finds out what I did…

  I’m going to lose him.

  And if I lose him, and my business, and screw up my father’s legacy… what’s left for me?

  I feel like I should fight against this fate. I feel like I need to come out swinging. I feel like this is my last chance to keep something—the only thing I can keep—of this very fucked up life I’ve been given.

  West.

  He’s the last thing I have left.

  So now it’s my turn to talk.

  “I got a phone call, West. That’s how I knew about Wallace Arlington and Liam’s contract. I got a phone call from some guy who refused to give a name and he told me to contact Liam and tell him not to hire you yet, because I could get Wallace on board and you couldn’t.”

  “I don’t care,” West says, kissing my lips. It’s such a soft, gentle touch. He was always gentle with me, even though I was wild and rough with him. “And I don’t even need to know the rest.”

  “I need to tell you the rest. I think your friends are right. I think we’re connected in more ways than we know. He told me that if I got you out of town for a while, he’d pay off all my debt. My mortgage, my credit cards. All of it.”

  West is silent for a few seconds. I’m sure he’s going to get up, walk out the door, go tell his friends, and never speak to me again.

  But he doesn’t.

  He says, “I don’t understand how you got into so much debt. You had what, seven million dollars from that Fullerton contract? How, Tori? How did that happen?”

  “It was such a stupid mistake, Weston. You’re going to be so mad at me.”

  “No,” he says, kissing my lips again. “I won’t, I promise. We all make mistakes.”

  “But it’s so dumb. I bought that building for ten million back when the housing crash happened. It was worth at least twelve just a few years before. So I had some instant equity with my down payment. It was a good investment. But I went to make the first mortgage payment and I entered the numbers wrong. Instead of fifty thousand, I entered five million. And I didn’t even notice. So then I had all seven million tied up in this building. I couldn’t even pay my taxes the next year. I had to take out an equity loan. And it just all spiraled out of control. I lost all control.”

  “Fuck. How the hell do you write a check for five million instead of fifty thousand, Tori?”

  “Online bill pay?” I laugh. I have to laugh. It’s so fucking sad I have to laugh. “I just don’t know how it happened.”

  “Do you think…” He stops, shakes his head a little. “It’s stupid, but… do you think someone fucked up your payment on purpose?”

  “Who would do that?”

  “I dunno,” West says. “Maybe a jealous mob boyfriend?”

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I snap.

  “Sorry, I know that. I just don’t have another label for him.”

  “Abuser,” I say. “You can call him my ex-abuser.”

  “OK,” West says. “Him. Do you think it was him?”

  I want to say no. I want to say he’s been out of my life for too many years to care what I’m doing. I want to say I got away and the past is in the past.

  But I can’t.

  So I say, “Yes,” instead. “I have always thought it was him. And I think he was the one who set me up with the Liam contract too. I think all of this goes back to me, Weston. Not you. The rape, the island, everything. It’s all my fault.”

  Chapter Forty-Two - Weston

  We hold hands on the way back down to the living room where Five, Oliver, and Pax are sitting at the bar, drinking as they watch televised horse racing on the flatscreen TV.

  They all stop talking and look at us when we come towards them.

  “I think we have a problem,” I say. Tori squeezes my hand and I squeeze hers back. Her squeeze says, No, please, don’t tell them. My squeeze says, Trust me.

  She stands still by my side, for once in her life taking my promise at face value.

  I want to kiss her right now. I want to
kiss her long, and deep, and softly. So softly, she will melt into my arms and we will float into some other life where shit is not hitting the fan and people are not trying to kill us.

  But that has to wait.

  So we tell her story again. Together.

  Five stops us at the phone call at her work, asking, “Who was it? Did you recognize the voice?”

  “No,” Tori answers. “But he sounded young. Our age. I think it was one of Lucio’s men.”

  Five walks over to a briefcase, pulls out a laptop, opens it up on the bar, and starts typing.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Checking her phone records for that day.”

  “Go on,” Pax says, unable to keep the impatience out of his voice.

  “He said he’d give me a fair chance at that contract to rebuild my business and he’d pay my debt off. All I had to do was keep West busy for a couple days.”

  “So they could rob him,” Oliver says.

  She shrugs.

  “It’s not your fault, Tori,” I say. “The part you guys need to know, the part I never told you because Five insisted we not share stories, is what’s important here.”

  “What’s that?” Oliver asks. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I saw her,” Tori says. “I was there that night she said she was raped, you guys. I was standing in the trees in the back of the house. It was dark that night, remember? So no one could see me. I was freaked out because my… rapist…” I stop talking and shake my head, drawing in a breath like oxygen contains the courage I need. “So I was hiding. Just waiting for West to come outside so I could see him.”

  It takes a lot of courage for Tori to use that word in front of my friends. So much fucking courage. I pull her in tighter and give her a hug.

  “Lucio was looking for me. He attacked me the night before you guys were accused. And I have a feeling he is the one who set you up. I know Weston never touched that girl. She was drunk by that time, but I saw the entire interaction. West was with some buddies out back. They were drinking and laughing. Then they went inside and I was just about to make myself known when she came stumbling up. She had her hands all over West, but he pushed her away and asked her if she needed a cab home. She took a swing at him, missed, and fell down. That’s when I came out of the shadows, and we went up to his room.”

  “You knew this?” Pax asks, looking at me.

  “This was my story. I always had a witness. I was never worried about it. But Five told us to shut the fuck up, so I shut the fuck up.”

  Everyone looks over at Five, who is still typing away. “Keep going,” he says, without taking his eyes off his screen. “I’m listening.”

  “It was him,” Tori says. “It was Lucio Gori Junior who set you guys up. It was Lucio Gori Junior who raped me, over and over as a child. And if I had to guess, I’d say it was Lucio Gori’s friend who called me and offered me that contract.”

  “Bingo,” Five says, spinning his laptop around. “That call came from a bar owned by Lucio Gori Senior.”

  “That motherfucker set us up,” Pax says. “I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna fucking kill that asshole.”

  “No,” Five says. “No, we’re not killing him. The last thing we need is the mob on our asses. And we don’t have any evidence, other than Tori’s story, that any of them were involved in the rape accusations.”

  “Then we need to get that evidence,” Pax says, walking towards us. “I want my fucking name cleared, do you understand me?”

  He’s looking at Tori like this is all her fault.

  “Hey,” I say, putting my hand up in front of Pax’s face. “She didn’t smear your name. That Lucio asshole did.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s the one who can get the evidence we need. She’s the one who can get close to him. Not us,” Pax says.

  “She’s not doing anything, Pax, so back the fuck off. And don’t give me this ‘I’m innocent’ bullshit again. We all know you’re not innocent.”

  “Fuck you,” he roars. “You don’t know shit.”

  “I know you’re one twisted dude.”

  “Fuck—”

  “Hey,” Oliver says, coming between us. “Knock it off, Pax. Just calm the fuck down and let us figure this out.”

  “What we need,” Five says, head buried in his computer again, “is some incriminating evidence. Something to tie him to the whole rape thing ten years ago. Something concrete. Something irrefutable. Something that would stand up in court.”

  “Something like… a confession?” Tori asks.

  We all turn to look at her.

  “Yeah,” Oliver says. “Something like that.”

  She bites her lip, like she wants to say more, and when I look at Pax and Oliver’s faces, I realize what they’re considering.

  “Fuck you both,” I say. “She’s not gonna be the bait.”

  “How would you get a confession?” Five asks, walking away from his computer and towards us. “It was ten years ago.”

  “She’s not gonna get anything,” I say again, only louder. “Tori, you’re not doing this.”

  “I think he’s just arrogant enough to tell me the truth,” Tori says.

  “Stop it, Victoria.” I look over at Pax and Oliver. “She’s not participating in this con, you assholes.”

  “What if I go home to Brooklyn, let him know I’m there? Keep him in some public place. And then start telling him all these things about you guys that might lead him on. Make him talk?”

  “Why the fuck are you ignoring me?” I grab Tori by her arm and make her face me. “Stop it. You’re not going near that guy ever again. I don’t care what kind of confession he might give up.”

  Tori looks me in the eyes, then turns away and resumes talking to Five, Oliver, and Pax. “What if I get him to admit what he did? And get it on tape. Then you have me first-hand witnessing that girl coming on to Weston ten years ago, and Lucio’s confession. That’s more than enough to charge him with whatever.” She looks up at me, like she’s just remembering I’m here. “What kind of charges could we get him on, Weston? If he planned all that ten years ago?”

  “We’re not doing this,” I say, trying to remain calm. “You’re not doing this. It wasn’t even Lucio—” I stop before I say too much. Everyone is talking at the same time, putting in their opinions, Tori arguing that she knows that neighborhood, and him. Pax yelling about his stupid reputation. So my blunder goes unnoticed.

  “Felony obstruction,” Five says, answering Tori’s question once things calm down. “Conspiracy, maybe blackmail. If we find more people involved.”

  “Tori, please. Listen to me. I’m not going to let you do this.”

  Tory stays quiet for a few moments. I look at Pax, and Oliver, who are both refusing to meet my gaze. Then she turns to me and says, “You don’t get to make this decision, West. I love you, and I want to be with you. But we have these things,” she says, “hanging over our heads. And I can’t live my life waiting for him to come back and hurt me. And you can’t live your life waiting for someone to pop back up and try to nail this rape thing on you again. And before you say, Who cares, I didn’t do it—it doesn’t matter. If you’re a team,” she says, waving her hand at my friends, “then you stay a team.” She turns back to the guys and says, “It has to be done. And I’m the only one who can do it. It just has to be done.”

  “He’s never going to confess, Victoria. Never. He’s not stupid. He’s the son of a major mob boss. You won’t be hunting him. He’ll be hunting you.”

  “Well,” she says, turning away from me and towards my friends, “then I guess I better get some pointers from Mr. Mysterious here.” She looks me dead in the eyes for her final words. “Because I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of letting the memory of what he did haunt me. I’m tired of running, Weston Conrad. And you of all people should understand how that feels.”

  “I do,” I say. “I fucking do. But we don’t even know how this fits into the plot w
ith Liam. Maybe it’s nothing. Did it ever occur to you that Liam was the one who set us up?”

  “Corporate’s right,” Five says. “It could be Liam.”

  “But wait.” Oliver turns to look at Five. “We have to follow the trail from the origin. And the only origin we have right now is Lucio Gori. We should go with Victoria’s plan. And we should do it now.”

  “Fuck you,” I spit at Oliver. “Just fuck you. The origin is Liam, asshole. Liam is the one everyone is connected to. And how much you wanna bet Liam and the Gori family are old friends. You’re not calling the shots here, Oliver. We should go after Liam first. We all agreed to listen to Five ten years ago, so let’s agree to that now.”

  “You’re only saying that because he doesn’t like her plan,” Pax says.

  “So? He’s the fucking genius, right? We should listen to Five.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Tori snaps, yanking her arm out of my grip. “How many times do I have to make this clear, Corporate? I’m not your property. You don’t dictate my actions. You’re not allowed to discount my opinions.” She lifts her chin up in defiance. “You’re not calling my shots, Corporate. I’m calling my shots. I’m doing this for me. Not your friends, me. I want Lucio gone and I want to be the person who puts him away. This is my fight, so stay the fuck out of it.”

  She turns and walks towards the front door.

  I wince as the glass doors slam shut and then look over at Five. “It’s your call. You let me know. But I’ll make this very clear right now. If you say yes, and she gets hurt, I will fuck you up.”

  Chapter Forty-Three - Victoria

  Why does he have to assume I’m going to get hurt? I am at least as dangerous as he claims to be. He knows this. I can handle myself. I can protect myself. I’ve worked my ass off for fifteen years to get to this point and if you ask me, this is like God telling me it’s my turn. It’s finally my turn to show Lucio Gori that he’s not in charge of me. That I’m not afraid of him and his threats. That he has no power over me anymore. That I will fight back and I will kick his ass.