Trey

Pulling up in front of Addison Media, it doesn’t take more than a second for me to pick Gator and Crusher out of the crowd. It’s hilarious to watch the reactions of the businessmen and women who are coming and going. They look like a couple of MMA fighters standing on the steps of Capitol Hill.

“I assume the one on the left is Gator?” I ask. He is a well-built black man who looks like he would hold his own against any pro football player. The guy standing next to him, however, can only be described by using a term like Crusher. I’m sitting in a bulletproof vehicle, but I would still be nervous as hell if he was coming at me. He looks like he could rip a door off with his bare hands.

“Yeah, that’s Gator,” Anthony confirms. “He’s my bro, you’re going to like him. We went through MARSOC training together and have been best friends ever since. Crusher, on the other hand…” He pauses and cracks a smile. “He’s pretty single-mindedly focused. He doesn’t let anyone get too close, but I would trust him with my life.”

“That’s good,” I nod, before opening my door and stepping onto the curb. I reach out and help Mandy step down from the vehicle.

“He’s even a gentleman,” Anthony comments to Mandy, before giving me a nod of approval. “Speaking of gentlemen, let me introduce you to Gator and Crusher. It’s good to see you guys. How the hell are ya?”

“We survived,” Gator, replies with a sigh.

“It was a tough fuckin’ stretch,” Crusher adds, cranking his head and cracking his neck. “Excuse my cussin’,” he adds peering over at Mandy.

“Don’t mind me,” Mandy replies. “I’ve heard it all before.”

“This is Trey Addison and Mandy Grayson,” Anthony tells the two men as we turn toward the entrance. “Trey’s family has built this company from nothing over the last hundred and twenty five years.”

“That’s impressive,” Gator says, giving me a genuine nod. “So your family still owns quite a bit of it?”

“Yeah, and we still have the majority of voting rights too, which is rare for a Fortune 500 company,” I tell him, feeling a little pride in the success my father, grandfather and great grandfather have achieved. “I’ll take you guys up to the executive suite.”

All three guys look like fish out of water as we head through the lobby and across to the elevators. I keep waiting for someone to question our presence, but everyone seems to recognize me. They probably think I am Tyler, since he has worked here for years. We grab an elevator along with several junior execs, who can’t stop staring at Crusher.

“He’s a big son of a bitch, isn’t he?” Gator finally asks, since no one else is saying a word. They all nod their heads and turn back toward the control panel to watch the light move from number to number as we climb toward the top. By the time we reach the top floor it’s back down to the five of us.

“I think I’m a little underdressed,” Crusher says as we step off the elevator, finally breaking his silence. “I didn’t think people wore suits anymore.”

“They do at Addison Media,” I tell him with a chuckle. “It’s not Mad Men around here, but it’s definitely old school.”

“Here, I have something for you,” Anthony tells me before proceeding into the Tommy’s executive suite. He hands me something that looks like a piece of transparent tape. “These circles are tiny FM transmitters made of clear graphene.”

“This is a transmitter?” I lift the edge of one of them with my fingernail.

“It uses the latest nanotechnology,” Anthony explains. “It works best if you can slip it between a smartphone and the protective case, but you can put it on the back of a watch, a computer or anything electronic. The transient energy given off will keep it charged and will allow it to send out a constant tracking signal.”

“Wow. Even if he found it, he would never guess it was anything like that,” I reply, handing them to Mandy. “Maybe I can distract him and you can stick it to the back of his phone. Even better, he seems to take off his diamond studded Rolex when he works on his computer. It’s been sitting on his desk both times I’ve been there. He will never leave that behind.”

“Sure, make me do the dirty work,” she says with an instant spark in her eyes.

“You’re the one who claims to love the adventure,” I tease her. “Now it’s time to walk the talk. Just don’t end up on your knees like you did with me.”

“Well, if you’re able to do your part, I won’t be forced to take any drastic measures,” she replies sarcastically.

Mandy

I feel a burst of excitement as I take the transmitters from him. Entering the office suite, part of me had expected Trey to confront Tommy with all three brutes in tow. Instead, he motions for them to take a seat in the reception area for now.

“I want to see if we can get him to open up first,” Trey tells the three men. “When we have gotten what we can, I’ll bring him out to introduce him to you guys.” He turns to me. “Hopefully his phone or watch will be on his desk, because that will give you plenty of time.”

Trey takes my hand and raps the knuckles of his free hand on the door before cracking it open. “Are you ready for us?”

“Sure.” Tommy jumps up from his chair and greets us just inside the door. “So what can I do for the two of you today?” He spins on his heel and heads back toward his desk chair. He’s acting as if he’s hopped up on amphetamines or something.

Trey leads me over to the chairs directly in front of Tommy’s desk and plops down into one of them. “I met with Nolan and Aileen this morning,” he says, crossing his legs and taking a deep breath. “Obviously, that conversation has created more questions than it answered,” he adds, staring intently at Tommy.

“What are you getting at?” Tommy asks, seeming genuinely perplexed by his statement.

“Okay, where do I begin? Carly introduced you to them, as well as Bill and Dad. Is that correct?” he asks, starting at the beginning of the timeline that Nolan had provided.

“That’s true,” he says without any hesitation.

“Why?” Trey asks suspiciously. “What did she have to gain?”

“Twenty-five million dollars,” he says with a nonchalant flip of his hand. He then leans back with a smug look on his face.

“So you paid her for the introduction?” I ask, as the legal aspects of the transaction begin to intrigue my law-minded brain.

“I had mentioned to her that if she knew of anyone who was interested in buying my stake in Firefly Media, I would pay her five percent of the take,” he says, obviously thinking that it was perfectly rational. “I made the same offer to several others as well.” He continues to stare intently at Trey maintaining his smug look.

“Dad and Bill were okay with her earning a commission from the deal?” Trey presses, dropping his foot back to the floor and sitting up in his seat.

Tommy pauses for a moment, rubbing his chin between his thumb and index finger. “She asked me to keep our arrangement to myself,” he finally admits. “I told her that I had set up an international corporation in Belize to protect my assets. She asked if I would do the same for her.”

“Ahh, so when the sale occurred you simply transferred the money to her account in Belize,” Trey surmises. Judging by the look on his face, we both just figured out why Victor lost trust in Carly.

“I actually gave her stock options that she was able to cash in,” he clarifies. Still seeming convinced that he hadn’t done anything unethical.

“You owned roughly fifty percent of the equity, so that’s about five hundred million,” Trey says, looking up at the ceiling for a couple seconds. “So twenty five million of that went to her. Not bad for making an introduction,” Trey says shaking his head from side to side. “So once Bill took control of the company, he found out that you had enhanced the financials. ‘Then he came back to you and demanded a refund, didn’t he?” Trey speculates. “Did Dad figure everything out as well or did Bill tell him?”

“First of all, I was sorry to hear about Bill’s suicide. I honestly think that he just didn’t understand a new economy company,” Tommy responds, shifting in his chair. “He thought he and Aileen could increase the value of it and Nolan could replace me on TV. I can’t help that the network pulled out once they found out I had sold my stake.”

“Seriously?” Trey asks, rising from his chair. “You hadn’t disclosed that fact to the network in advance?” He leans on Tommy’s desk, looking him right in the eyes.

“I didn’t think it would matter,” Tommy claims, but obviously he had to have known better.

“You seriously thought your could swap out the host and the network would just accept it?” Trey asks, stepping back from the desk and running his hand through his hair in frustration. “I think you wanted to bail before your portfolio companies started going belly up.” He bends down putting his hands back on the desk, staring intently at Tommy. “Early on you could use the profits from the TV show to prop up those companies, but then it got to be too much to support. Am I getting warm?”

“Did Nolan tell you all of this?” Tommy asks, suddenly becoming uncomfortable enough to spring from his chair. “Or are you looking to pick up where Bill left off?” he asks, moving around the desk to confront Trey.

“Whose idea was it for you to become CEO of Addison Media?” Trey pushes back. “Did you really think you could roll Firefly Media into Addison without anyone realizing that you had committed fraud?” he asks as his temper begins to flare. “Is that why Dad was killed or was that just a convenient coincidence?”

“Why don’t you ask Carly?” Tommy replies, narrowing his eyes. “That is if you can find her.” He scoffs. “I know you think you will somehow be able to pin all of this on me, but like I told you before I don’t have anything to do with any of it.”

“So Carly did all of your dirty work?” I ask after seeing that Trey is beginning to lose his cool. “Once all the key players are dead, Carly flees the country. How convenient.”

“I told her that no one would be able to crack her account in Belize, but she insisted on freaking out,” Tommy says bluntly. “As if cleaning out the bank account is going to solve anything.”

Trey and I both look at each other and I’m sure he’s just as shocked as I am. Did Tommy really just tell us that Carly contracted the hits? Or is he just trying to pin the blame on her, since she is no longer around to defend herself?

Trey

After pausing for a moment to evaluate Tommy’s statements, I confront him face to face one last time. “So you are telling me that Carly is the one behind all of this?”

“It appears so,” Tommy replies, pulling his phone from his pocket. “She sent me a message yesterday afternoon saying that she was going to Belize to close the bank account and move the rest of the money.” He scrolls through his messages and shows us the message from her.

“So, Carly killed Dad, tried to kill Tyler, killed Dr. Potaturri as well as Bill Gleason,” I summarize out loud, thinking that maybe Tommy can shed some light on how that would all make sense.

“I thought the doctor and Bill were both suicides,” Tommy says, furrowing his brow like a well trained actor.

“I’m sure they were suicides, just like my brother’s suicide attempt,” I reply sarcastically, taking another deep breath in an attempt to maintain my composure. “I’m sure when all the autopsy results are in, there won’t be any doubt as to how they died.”

“Well, I guess it won’t affect me either way,” Tommy says, setting his phone down on the corner of the desk.

“You’re right, I guess it doesn’t matter,” I reply, shifting strategy. “Come here, I want to introduce you to a few new friends of mine.” I nod toward the door, encouraging him to follow me. I open the door and wave my hand for him to lead the way.

“Jesus, who the hell are you guys?” he asks, stopping dead in his tracks.

“This is Anthony, Gator and Crusher,” I tell him. ‘They work for me now. Have you ever heard of the Alpha 9?”

“Sure! So you guys are for real, huh?” Tommy asks, holding his hand out to shake Anthony’s.

“We are,” Anthony replies, standing up to greet him. “We haven’t had a single unsuccessful mission since the day we got together.” He turns toward the other two men. “Gator and Crusher were just in Honduras this past weekend where they took out Caesar Acosta.”

“I saw something about that on CNN last night,” Tommy says shaking both of their hands. “I heard there was literally an army protecting him.”

“Arrogance killed Caesar,” Gator replies, before glancing at Crusher.

“Arrogance and me,” Crusher says with a haunting look in his eyes. “I’m not a fan of cocky fuckers who think they can get away with murder.”

Judging by the change in Tommy’s facial expression, I think he understands the warning contained within Crusher’s words. “I’ve got to get back to work,” he grumbles, turning back toward his office door.

“It looks like you’ve been busy shredding,” Mandy says nodding toward the five full garbage bags sitting in the corner of his office.

“Yeah, I figured there was no reason to keep all of the presentation materials from the Firefly deal,” he says, his sly grin returning. “An acquisition by Addison Media is no longer in the cards, so what’s done is done.”

“Which explains why Bill was so pissed yesterday,” Mandy postulates.

“Yeah, he seemed to be annoyed by the fact,” Tommy replies, placing his hand on the doorknob. “Now that I think about it, he did seem like he was about to go off the rails when he left yesterday. Hopefully he had plenty of life insurance for the sake of Aileen and his wife.”

“We’ll be in touch Tommy,” I tell him, accenting it with a steely glare as he closes the door on us. I try to shake off my anger as I turn, leading everyone out of the suite. “He never ceases to amaze me,” I add once we are out in the hallway.

“That was fun!” Mandy says with a sparkle in her eyes. “My heart was pounding by the time I slipped the third one under his phone protector.” She giggles and grabs my arm, pulling at me.

“Third one? Where did you put the other two?” I ask her in amazement.

“I put one on the bottom of his laptop, one on the back side of his Rolex like you said and the third one in his phone.” She beams.

“Well, you did good,” I assure her with a proud smile. “I know he didn’t suspect a thing.”

“So, do you buy the bullshit story about Carly?” Anthony asks, as the elevator doors close. “If he’s going to continue being a criminal, he needs to install a more soundproof door.”

I laugh and think about all that was said during our short-lived meeting. “I still have a hard time believing that Carly is behind all of this. But, it’s possible that Tommy has done a good job of making it appear that way. That would explain why she ran off to Belize to clean out her bank account,” I reply, rubbing my temples. All of this is giving me a headache.