“You like that, baby?” he panted. “Call me daddy.”
My stomach churned just watching. But Caz wasn’t done.
“You might notice that all this naughty stuff was happening right here at the Harvey. Crazy, right? Who would record this kind of behavior? Like people want to have all their dirty little moments recorded for posterity. Well, if you’re an Everhart that’s how it works. They love to record stuff to watch it back. Even if they’re not it in,” he said before he switched back to the video, which showed notable people of all sorts as they walked into their hotel room. He stopped just short of showing anything scandalous. “In fact, if you’ve signed on to the Internet via the Harvey, odds are every last photo you had on your device, every video, every last phone number, every last text message and every contact was saved on their server. They like to keep a lot of records. They’re bloodhounds for the paper trail,” he added with a smirk before he switched the feed to scroll down all the records he had somehow unearthed.
Suddenly I knew that Aubrey and Caz had been working together. Her hacker friends had found the info, and Caz decided to be the journalist that broadcast it in order to protect his sources.
“You’ve heard a lot about Mr. Tigg in the last few days. He owns a company right here in Vegas that does security for the Harvey. They call it security, anyway. I call it voyeurism. I call it an invasion of your privacy. I call it an assault against your civil rights.”
I watched the outrage rise throughout the hotel lobby and the casino. My phone went crazy with alert after alert, as someone, or a host of someones, posted the whole thing live to social media, since he had uploaded it to a popular video sharing sight.
He showed the warehouse we had professionals investigate, which revealed scores of video storage. “This is only from the past year. I’ve gone through some of it, but it’s not the juicy stuff that Suzanne used to show to me when she paid me to fuck her brains out on the regular. No, Suzanne Everhart was too smart for that. She’d never leave that kind of evidence out in the open like that. She’d tuck it away in a very dark corner where nobody could find it unless they knew where to look. Like say, on the Internet.”
Everyone in the lobby gasped as they stared between each other.
“Funny thing about Mr. Tigg,” he continued. “No one has actually seen this guy, so it’s pretty hard to hold him accountable for the atrocities his companies have committed, including a brutal home invasion assault against my good friends, Devlin Masters and Coralie Cabot, where she was nearly raped and killed for crossing a powerful woman like Suzanne Everhart.” He showed the video, which was just as graphic and jarring as ever. I looked away, which meant I could see everyone’s reactions. They recoiled in shock and horror.
Devlin squeezed my hand tight, pulling me into the crook of his arm. Even now he was my hero, trying to protect me.
“I think we can all agree that Mr. Tigg is an asshole at best. A criminal at worst. If, that is, Mr. Tigg exists at all. That, my friends, is the million dollar question. So decided to track ‘im down. I already knew the name because Mr. Tigg was a silent partner for Alphas4Hire, where I used to work. So I went all the way to Costa Rica, where I realized something startling. The office for TIGG Conglomerate is a mailbox. It doesn’t really exist. It’s what they call a dummy company, which is supposed to work as a cover to other companies, including that phony security company in Vegas, including the company run by the goons who attacked my friends, including the company where I used to work as a gigolo. As you can see, these companies have a certain, undesirable element. No one legitimate would want to be associated with these companies beyond the profit. Hence why Mr. Tigg is so darned mysterious. I’m sure by now, you’re just dying to know who it is, right?”
Caz widened the shot so we could see the computer opened in front of him. “Turns out, Mr. Tigg isn’t a who at all. He’s more of a what.” He brought up an Internet page with two boxes, one for username and one for password. “I started thinking to myself, the Harvey has been in business a really long time. If they were stashing video they’d downloaded from those 300 rooms for ten years, that would be a shit ton of content. It would need massive amounts of storage. Massive, anonymous storage, like that provided by the Dark Web.”
He typed in RTIGG as the username, and then, for the password, he typed in “Overture.” Dev and I shared another silent glance when it instantly it opened up another page, full of thumbnails for black and white video clearly taken at the Harvey in the various rooms and suites. Caz smiled triumphantly at the camera. “Pretty cool, huh? I’ve got video here going back to when Harvey Everhart didn’t need a toupee. But we don’t just play the classics on RTIG. We play the new hits as well.”
He clicked on one of the thumbnails, where Everett Pertree was being serviced by what was clearly a couple of call girls while Harvey watched. “Treat him right, ladies,” Harvey told them. “He’s going to be a very powerful, very rich man by November.”
“In case you’re just tuning in, that’s Everett Pertree of Pertree Tech & Innovation. They’re the ones who supply all those voting machines to dutiful Americans everywhere. Voter fraud is a felony these days, right?”
He closed out the video. “Things aren’t looking good for ol’ Harvey. But what about his wife, Suzanne? What about the elusive Mr. Tigg? I wondered that myself, so I enlisted the help of some clever friends of mine to scour through whatever they could to get a photo or a video of this guy, so I could introduce him to all of you. Here’s the problem though. There are about a dozen people who have aliases for this guy, and they all look somewhat similar, but none are the original R. Tigg.” He swiped through the now familiar photos for the camera. “I had to go back about ten years to find that photo, the one that looked decidedly different from the rest, just to pinpoint where it all started. And guess what? I did it,” he grinned. He shut the computer and stood, using his phone to keep the video going as he walked over to the bedroom door of the suite.
“What would you do if I told you that I have this elusive Mr. Tigg right here in this hotel room, right now? Are you ready to meet him?” he asked, and everyone around me, riveted to the spot as we watched this broadcast, bobbed their heads.
He threw open the door to reveal Suzanne Everhart bound on the bed. “Say hello to Mr. Tigg, everybody.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that busy, crowded casino lobby.
Suzanne struggled against the tie wrapped around her mouth. “Seems we don’t just have a dummy corporation. We have an actual dummy. Someone who used her influence and her connections to create an entirely fictional person so that she could get away with all her dirty deeds, under a male pseudonym that she paid people very good money to ensure it would never get traced back to her.” He pulled the tie away. “What is it you want to tell the lovely people, Mr. Tigg?”
“You are so going to jail for this Caz,” she growled before she looked at the camera. “I’m being held against my will! Please! Somebody rescue me!”
Caz chuckled as he put the tie back into her mouth. “Rescue you? I’m making a citizens’ arrest, and I think everyone watching will agree once they see the first government issued ID for Mr. R. Tigg.” He switched the video so we could see a driver’s license for Mr. Tigg, which looked exactly like Suzanne, except as a male. He could have been her heavier brother.
“You created a fake identity to run companies that commit criminal acts, and used that to boost your own husband in the US government with fraudulent donations through high-profile names you blackmailed for their votes, simply because you caught them doing things on video they’d never want to be exposed. We’ve got those videos, too,” Caz told the camera. “Like any true sociopath, Suzanne likes to keep her trophies.” He stroked her hair. “You’ve just been begging to get caught, haven’t you, Suzanne?”
She struggled even more against her restraints.
“But I realize this might be a little hard for any of you out there to believe. Here’s this
beautiful woman of class and breeding, how can any of what I’m saying be true? I’m just a hustler, and here she is, all bound and pretty on the bed, like I’m holding her captive against her will. I do have one last video. It’s a little harder to watch. If you have kids, you might want to cover their eyes.”
I instinctively covered my stomach as he switched one more time to video, where a much heavier Suzanne used a strap-on to mount and ride Harvey for a private little rendezvous she kept on tape. “Say my name, bitch,” the heavier version of Suzanne said before she used a riding crop on his bare thigh.
“Mr. Tigg!” Harvey responded.
“Who’s going to get you to the White House?” she pressed.
“Mr. Tigg!” Harvey responded.
“Who owns you, Harvey Everhart?”
“Mr. Tigg!”
She continued to plow into him, clearly punishing him for what he had done, which I could only assume was screw around with some young girl.
She owned him from the start, just like everyone else.
“Yeah, you don’t have to take my word for it. Almost everything you need to find is in the Crescendo suite of the Harvey, which just so happens to be registered this week to one R. Tigg. These souvenirs include that strap-on, one of her favorites. Should provide some interesting DNA evidence, especially these days. You’ll also find the web address and pass codes to all the dark little corners of her private server where all the video is stored. There you’ll find more offenses than you can shake a stick at, including all the private information she’s stolen from every single guest who had the misfortune of staying at or plugging into The Harvey.”
She struggled even more against her restraints. He looked back at the camera. “Oh, and to all the lovely guests of the Harvey, don’t panic. The hotel is coming under new ownership, and it’s going to be great after they do some major housekeeping, to get rid of all the bugs. Literally.” He walked around the room to demonstrate how insidiously the surveillance equipment had been hidden.
He turned back to Suzanne. “Your reign of terror is over, Suzanne. You’re never going to hurt anyone again.” He turned back to the camera for one final message. “And to my pussycat, the only one I’ll ever have,” he added softly. “I love you, baby. This one was for you.”
I held my hand to my mouth. Of all the people to sacrifice himself for what we had planned to do, I never, in my wildest dreams, expected it to be Caz. He took on all the attention so we didn’t have to, and would likely have to answer for his part gathering this illegal information. “He’s so going to get arrested,” I said.
“He’s going to be famous,” Dev corrected. He held up his phone, which was tuned in to Caz’s new video channel. It already had a million subscribers. I laughed as I turned into Dev’s arms, because at long last I could. There was nothing, and no one, stopping us anymore.
It was over.
It was finally over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
We flew to France right from Vegas, mostly to let the furor die down regarding Harvey and Suzanne Everhart, who had face-planted as sure and as certain as any two people in American politics. They were jailed within a week, he for his offenses with underage girls and voter fraud, and she for her offenses with everything else.
Caz joined us right before we boarded, where he admitted on our long flight overseas that he had used Maurice to get Suzanne’s confession, by offering one last major fantasy to her. “We went after his nevers,” he said. “Like most major homophobes, he wanted a little taste of the sausage, so I gave it to him. She couldn’t resist tapping that ass herself. It allowed me to get closer to her, to sniff out the information right under her nose.”
“Why did she trust you?”
“She didn’t,” he said. “But she knew that if she could get one more video of me, she could hold it against me. There was nothing left and she knew it. She had no idea what you knew, and she certainly didn’t know we were honing in on Mr. Tigg at the time. I had to act quick.”
“You did all this before we revealed anything?”
“That night that I left you,” he confirmed.
“But how did you know first?” Dev asked.
“Aubrey,” he said as he motioned to my cousin. “That girl has the nose of a bloodhound. I was going through all her notes every single day. I saw the name, it jogged my memory. I wanted to get in good with Mr. Tigg for a long time, just in case Suzanne ever used my video with other guys against me to Maurice. Little did I know.”
“You didn’t have to do that, Caz,” I said, thinking of everything he had done to make that takedown happen.
“Are you kidding? I’m a fucking superstar, haven’t you heard? I even got an offer to do my own show about the life of a gigolo, where I can basically do what I do way out in the open and get celebrated for it. I’ve even agreed to do nudity, provided it’s tasteful and critical to the plot,” he added with a wink.
“You don’t have to go back to that life, Caz,” Devlin said.
“It’s what I do,” he shrugged. “It’s what I’m best at. I fuck people.”
I took his hand in mine. “No, you don’t.”
He lifted my hand up to his lips and kissed it. “I already found my queen, and she belongs to someone else. So what am I holding out for, really? This is me. I have fun. I do what people tell me not to. I’m Caz,” he said with that smirk.
I didn’t care what he said. Caz was part of my family now, and everyone felt likewise. So he joined us for the summer at our family chateau near Châlons-en-Champagne, as did Rhys, who had jumped the pond to join us by the beginning of July. As soon as he closed his case against the Everharts, he opted to celebrate with an extended vacation with Margot, whom I had suspected just landed husband number four. He had been bitten by a cougar, and he had loved every bit of it.
By August, Lucy, Gus and Axl joined us as well, filling up another room in our sixteenth century home. Chateau du Cabot had never been so full, or as happy. Father’s health improved as a result. He played with Axl, he spent time with Aubrey; he even made peace with my past with both Devlin and Caz, who had earned their place in our family.
Oliver and Darcy flew over to join us for my wedding on August 9th, and once again she supplied the dress. Like the dress I had worn for the Fierce finale, it featured a lace bodice with a jewel neckline, but the empire waistline allowed for the sweet swell of my tummy. It was ivory, not white, but it didn’t need to be. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about tradition. There was nothing traditional about my relationship with Devlin Masters, nor would I want there to be. We had traveled through the bowels of hell, with the devil riding shotgun, and we had survived. I knew we could handle anything the universe threw our way. I was proud of our history now. Proud of the things we had done to wrestle our independence under own own control, and proud of standing strong beside family, whether blood kin or not.
This was who we were. It was who I was. Imperfect. Flawed. Confused. Determined. Tenacious. Stubborn. Devoted. Strong.
I was like my chipped peridot engagement ring, which had been damaged when it had been thrown into a fireplace. Now it had been rescued, polished and renewed. That was me. That was us.
I turned to Father, who sat at the entrance of the chapel, so handsome in his suit as he sat in his wheelchair. He hadn’t been in this chapel in a long, long time, and I knew the ghosts chased him here. “You okay, Dad?”
He smiled at me as he took my hand. “I am perfect, Coralie.” I bent down to kiss his head, because I agreed.
He rolled beside me as we walked the short length of the aisle where my beloved waited for me. Caz stood next to him, his best man, and his best friend. Both Lucy and Aubrey stood up for me, and I handed them my bouquet of roses, both dark red and white. Finally I turned to Devlin. A lone spotlight of sunshine spilled over his handsome face from the cracks in the ceiling. That was perfect, too.
The preacher welcomed us, and asked who would give the bride to the groom. The entire chapel a
greed, “We do.”
“There is no power stronger than family,” the preacher said. “It reaches through time, beyond death, stretching on forever for an unbreakable bond. There is no beginning. There is no end. That is love, the underlying current for everything we think, say or do. It holds fast. It fights hard. It forgives,” he added as he smiled at us. “It never fails.”
Devlin took my hands in his as we recited our vows once again, pledging ourselves in a way I knew would be unbreakable this time. He slid that familiar ring on my finger, and it was like it had never left. When the preacher pronounced us man and wife and instructed us to kiss, Devlin picked me up into his arms and said, “There she is. My beautiful wife.”
We kissed as our family erupted in applause around us.
Henri and Jean-Luc prepared our meal for the reception, which lasted long into the night, even after Devlin and I had escaped to our room. He spun me around in a waltz to no music. It reminded me of my broken music box. “I’m sorry about that,” I told him, and I really was. It was such a thoughtful, sentimental gift.
“I don’t grieve for what’s gone, Coralie,” he told me. “I never did. What’s right in front of me has always been the best there has ever been.”
He kissed me softly before he led me to our bed, where we consummated our marriage. Again.
Before they left, Oliver and Darcy renewed their vows in that same chapel. Father had always regarded Oliver like a son, and I realized he had always been more like my brother, so it worked out in the end. I stood up for her, and Father served as best man for Oliver. The next day they flew home, where she would finally tell her story. She wasn’t afraid to go to jail anymore, she was more afraid of being afraid. She wanted a clean slate for her new life with Oliver.
Masters Forever (Masters #3) Page 30
