Chapter 14

Mick

This week was gearing up to be a real shit show. I had an industry dinner to attend tonight. I was all dressed up in a tux and I wanted Terri on my arm tonight so we could dance while the orchestra played waltzes. But if I brought Terri, I’d have to tell her not to let on that she was my employee, and I didn’t want her to lie. So instead, I was going to go solo and drink my weight in champagne. Then I’d pour myself into the car and have Lionel drive me home.

I thought about logging in to that stupid game to see if she was on. She was usually online, except she didn’t always have her game chat broadcasting. I suppose I could call her, but it was probably best that I kept my distance. Still, I wanted to talk to her. Terri had left early today after witnessing that debacle with my mother. I wanted to explain that while my family didn’t play board games together, we were stuck in a vicious competition that would make her brother’s trash-talking look like compliments.

My watch buzzed, which told me Lionel was out front with the car. I was a little surprised to feel disappointed that I wasn’t spending the evening on the couch with Terri tonight. But then again, it was only Monday. I’m sure by Friday, something work related would come up that would involve her and me on her couch with our feet up playing games. I hoped so anyway.

Lionel was standing in front of my family’s limousine. He stiffly held the door open for me and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “Sorry about this.”

Confused, I stepped into the limo and found myself facing my parents. Lionel closed the door before I could bolt.

“Well, this is awkward,” I said, arranging myself in the seat so our knees didn’t touch.

My father looked tanned and fresh. Apparently, spending a few hours in jail hadn’t dulled his spirits. Like me, he was dressed in a custom-made tux. He held a brandy glass and an unlit cigar in one hand. My mother was dressed in a glittering pink gown that did her no favors. She held herself stiffly away from both me and my father and stared out the window.

“You don’t return my calls,” my father said.

“I didn’t think we had anything to say to each other.” I prided myself that my tone was mild and unaffected. Inwardly, I was seething. Lionel could have found a way to warn me. I wouldn’t have gotten in the car if he had. Although, it was probably better to have this scene behind closed limousine doors rather than at a gala at the Met among a hundred of our closest friends and enemies. I was glad Terri wasn’t here to see this. It was about to get ugly.

“I want you to drop the suit against me.”

I poured myself a healthy glug of Johnny Walker Blue and leaned back in my seat. “I’m afraid it’s out of my hands. The prosecutor found enough evidence to convict. It’s up to the jury now.”

“Not if you tell them it was all a big mistake.”

“But it wasn’t, Warren, was it?”

Warren Wentworth glared at me, but I had lived under that look for almost thirty years. I gave him one of my own. “What did you do with the money?” I asked. None of the investigators I hired could find a trace of it once it left our bank account and was routed to a special account in the Caymans that Warren owned. Then it had just disappeared. One minute there. The next gone.

Warren stole a look at my mother, but she was acting like she smelled a turd. If she was listening, she was doing her best to ignore us. I tried to picture my family sitting around the massive rosewood table in our formal dining room, playing a board game. It would have ended in violence.

I gave a half laugh. “What was her name, Warren? Or was she just a nameless stripper?”

“You watch yourself.” My mother kicked me with her pointy shoes.

I shifted just in time to miss getting pinned below the kneecap. I guess she was listening after all.

“If you drop the charges, I’ll sell you our shares in the agency,” he said.

My ears perked up, but I couldn’t appear to be too interested. “Wait, you want me to perjure myself and say that it was all a big misunderstanding and buy you out of the company. What’s in it for me?” Aside from making all my dreams come true. I could not let him see how eager I was for that. I would appoint myself CEO and because I would have the majority of shares, no one could outvote me. Right now, Simon had two votes for CEO—him and my mother—and for some reason Warren was voting for me for CEO. I guess it was because he thought I could convince the prosecutor to drop the case. If I appeared too eager for his deal, though, it would drive the price up. I wouldn’t put it past them to change their mind just out of spite.

“If you don’t, I’ll sell our shares to your brother and he’ll have controlling interest.”

Well, that wasn’t fair. Drumming my nails on the armrest of the limo, I turned to my mother. Bette Wentworth played at being an old-money socialite, but she had the morals and instincts of an alley cat. They were perfect for each other. “What’s in it for you?”

She sniffed and still refused to look at me. “Warren and I will start up our own business. We’ll be out of your hair and you only need to see us at Christmas or Thanksgiving.”

If then. Was there a bad side? “How much do you want for your shares?”

“Three million dollars.”

Simon didn’t have that type of money. But his wife’s family might be able to supplement that cost. Especially if that meant Laila could move into the office to watch her husband like a hawk. Having to argue every decision with both Simon and Laila would drive me into becoming a raving alcoholic by the end of the year. Three million dollars was a lot of money. It wasn’t out of the question, but it would put me in a precarious position if things went bad with the agency. I could lose it all.

“Two million,” I countered. “You already got the first million.”

“No deal,” Bette hissed.

She knew what Laila’s family brought to the table. And yet they came to me first instead of Simon. After I called the cops on my father and fired my mother, there had to be something else going on here. The parents I knew would have given Simon first crack and then pissed on my desk when the deal went through. Unless they already had gone through Simon and he had been a dud. I pursed my lips. I couldn’t stop thinking about the angles. That was one thing being a Wentworth had taught me. Everyone had an agenda and would fuck over your dead body to make sure they came out on top.

Warren was sweating. I looked at him a little more carefully. His wedding ring was gone. He wasn’t wearing his jeweled tie clip or his cuff links. There was a slight tremor in his hands, and his gaze darted outside the car as if he thought we were being watched.

“Gambling or drugs?” I hazarded a guess.

He winced.

“It’s none of your damned business,” Bette snarled.

“It is if I’m paying for it,” I returned and leveled her with a glare that I hoped kept her from kicking me again.

“I can’t go to prison. And I can’t pay the vig.”

Closing my eyes, I resisted the urge to bang my head on the car window. I should have known. When the money was gone without a trace, I should have put it together sooner. “How soon do you have to pay the loan shark the three million before it goes up to four million?”

“I have until the end of the week.”

“You have monies coming in,” I said. I knew he owned investment properties and had a stock portfolio that would keep him in the life he had grown accustomed to.

“Not enough. Not in time.”

“I can’t just wave my magic wand and get three million dollars.” I thought quickly. I could mortgage a few properties, drain my own 401(k), secure a few loans of my own, basically put everything on the line, but I just might be able to do it. “And I can tell the prosecutor I won’t testify and it was a big misunderstanding, but that may not stop her from continuing forward with the case.”

“You get me the three million dollars by Friday and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“What’s to stop you from doing this again?” Warren had always been a gambler. He and Bette were both fond of the casinos in Monte Carlo and Vegas. They had traveled there several times a year when I was growing up. There was even a rumor that my mother had been a showgirl at Caesars. She viciously denied it, but I had come up with some blurry pictures of Bette “Bombshell” Davidson that could have been her. The name matched.

“Why do you care?” Bette countered.

Good point. I didn’t. Not unless it came back to bite me on the ass.

“This was different,” Warren said. “I made bad choices.”

“You got suckered.” Bette crossed her arms.

Hanging his head, Warren nodded. “I fell for a con.”

“Where?”

“Vegas. Met this guy at the high-roller table at the Bellagio and we really hit it off.” He shifted his gaze to my mother and looked away. “I was indiscreet.”

I think that was code for he banged a high-end hooker.

“He helped me out of an awkward situation with the local police.”

Nope. Didn’t want to go there. Didn’t want any details.

“It was only right that I bought him dinner and we spent the night gambling and drinking.”

“How much did you lose?”

“A million.”

“In one night.” Bette shook her head in disgust.

“Not all at once. I kept throwing good money after bad. Crap tables, blackjack tables. I was up two million at one point. Then the tables turned. I couldn’t do anything right. When my markers got called in, I didn’t have it, so I borrowed it from my new friend.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that there wasn’t any contract signed.”

Warren shook his head. “A gentlemen’s handshake and it was all taken care of.”

“Until?”

“Until he called in payment in full the next day with a few of his gorillas.”

My mother shifted in her seat. “I wired him what we had in our accounts, but I could only scrape together half a million.”

Only my mother would call paying half a million scraping together odds and ends. “Where’s the rest of your money?”

“Tied up,” she snapped.

“Why didn’t you go for a loan for the other five hundred thousand?”

“My credit’s not so good.” Warren looked away.

There was more to the story.

“This could have all been avoided if you paid the other five hundred the next day.”

“Six hundred,” Bette said.

“What?”

“The interest was a hundred thousand dollars a day,” Warren said. “He bled me dry. I had to take the million to give myself some breathing room. I’ve been paying him off daily, but all I’m doing is treading water while I liquidated assets as fast as I could.”

“Six hundred thousand. You couldn’t have borrowed that from one of your friends? Or sold a car or some jewelry?”

Neither one would look at me. Suddenly, I was very glad neither of them could touch the Wentworth Agency’s funds anymore.

“What’s this guy’s name?” I asked. “The one in Vegas.”

“You don’t want to know him.”

“If I agree to do this.” I shot my mother a look. “And I still haven’t. I get in writing what the final payout is from him and when I pay it, I get a paid-in-full receipt.”

“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Bette said. “These people don’t deal in paper.”

“Then I get assurances from the men in charge that it ends here. You,” I pointed to Warren, “are banned from Vegas.”

“For how long?”

“For life. And you.” I pointed to my mother. “Don’t ever step foot in Wentworth Agency again.”

She had said she wanted to see her sons today, but that was a bullshit excuse. She came to the agency today to stir up some shit. I didn’t need her taking one look at me and Terri and coming to the right conclusion. Although, as far as I know, she still hasn’t put together that Simon knocked up Janet.

Warren wrestled with it for a moment. “Fine.”

He knew he might get the money out of Simon, but I would still testify against him for the theft if he did. If he was going to put my financial security on the line, I was damned sure going to get my money’s worth. I stared down Bette until she gave me a terse nod.

“You provide me the name and contact of the person I need to pay the money to and have your lawyer draw up the transfer papers for the Wentworth shares. Once you sign over your shares—both your shares”—I included my mother in my glare—“I’ll pay off the debt and request the prosecutor drop the charges.”

“Thank you, son.” Warren leaned forward; I don’t know why. To hug me, shake my hand? I flinched away from him. That ship had sailed a long time ago.

“Simon doesn’t hear a word about this until it’s over, or the deal is off,” I warned.

“Deal,” Warren agreed.

“You know we could have come to you for the six hundred thousand that day,” Bette said. “Or Simon.”

I inclined my head. “You should have. We wouldn’t have been in this mess if you had.”

“He wouldn’t let me. He said he didn’t want you to be disappointed in him. But I said you already were. Hated both of us. So why not get a little payback from our sons? Three hundred thousand from you. Three hundred thousand from Simon.”

“So why didn’t you?” I swallowed down the scotch. It burned going down my tight throat.

“Because you would have asked why. Simon might not have, but his bitch of a wife would. I didn’t want to deal with your judgment. Better to solve this our way.”

I snorted. “Theft and deception? I thought your way was self-indulgence and neglect.” The scotch must have loosened more than my throat. I had left my lonely childhood behind me a long time ago. I no longer looked to my parents for approval and I no longer cared that I had been nothing more to them than a deduction line on their taxes—when they bothered to pay them.

Warren took in a sharp breath. Bette let it roll off her shoulders.

“You’re not Mr. Perfect,” she said. “One of these days, Michael, you’re going to fuck up large and I’m going to be there to see it. And I’m going to push you off that pedestal you’ve put yourself upon.”

“Bring it, old lady.”

I didn’t move fast enough to avoid the kick this time.