I used to never get tired. I was a workaholic. Work was the fire in my blood. Sex was just an outlet for all the byproduct energy generated by my corporate bloodlust. They were all meaningless unloading of tension into these beautiful vessels of lust, but they were all faceless to me, just bodies I could buy with my money. They had high price tags as I valued my health but I also did not believe in freebies. When I was in my twenties, freebies were everywhere, classy women all willing to spread their legs for the chance of riding my cock with a two-billion dollar inheritance.

Now, thirty billion dollars later, in my late-thirties, I’d learned my lesson with free pussies. They were not exactly free. In fact, they wanted more in exchange for milking my cock toward several mediocre orgasms. They wanted marriage. Kids. Permanence.

Freebees would lead you to shitty situations. I’d rather spend high for my cheap pleasures. Making more billions was always better than sex anyway.

But now…now there was a new fire in my bloodstreams. A longing so deep no amount of work could drive away, and no amount of cynicism could kill.

I was missing her so damned bad I was losing my mind.

Cressida had refused to see me again. She’d dropped all my calls.

Her father’s surgery was only half-successful. Armand didn’t die on the table, but he lapsed into a coma. The doctors told Ana and Cressida to prepare for the inevitable. I knew all this because I talked directly to Armand’s neurosurgeon. I kept track on Armand’s condition.

Two weeks had passed.

I’d never known what hell felt like until now. I thought losing my mother to suicide was the worst I could ever endure. I was wrong.

Losing Cressida…this, I could probably never endure.

I didn’t know what I would do without her. The days would be endless. The years would be unbearable.

It was funny how I used to know what to do in every situation, but a slip of a girl half my age had rendered me totally helpless.

I was a fucking mess, and I didn’t know what to do.

The curtains suddenly moved to the sides. The blinds opened.

Light poured into the study, flooding my already hazy vision.

“Adolf, I told you to shut all the fucking blinds, dammit!”

More light came in as all the blinds opened. It wasn’t my butler who was holding the remote control. He would have scurried off by now.

“Fuck! Who is it?!” I growled.

“My goodness, look at you.”

I groaned. “Karin, what are you doing here?”

My grandmother appeared in front of me, her hand on her hips. She stood there elegantly, surveying my sorry state like a queen, her nose in the air.

“You look like shit, Joshua.”

I groaned again, holding my head. “Don’t you have a gala to attend or something?”

“Get your ass over to your table and open your laptop.”

“What—Karin, I’m not working.”

“Oh really? Good! It’s about time!”

“I mean today. Just today.”

“I came here to end your misery, boy. Get to your laptop.”

“What’s in my laptop?” I grumbled, not inclined to move from where I was sprawled on the floor.

“Just do what I say, dammit!”

My grandmother was in her eighties but she could commandeer an entire battalion of soldiers, me included. I crawled to my table and managed to put my ass on the chair without falling off. I flipped my laptop open. “Now what?”

“Google Ruby Heidegger.”

“Who is she?”

“The solution to your problem.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just do it, Joshua.”

I sighed and typed the name on the Google search box. “Okay, the woman is a popular socialite in Europe. So? I don’t have a clue who she is…but it says here she’s married to a Swiss billionaire diplomat.”

“She’s one of your grandfather’s former mistresses. The youngest and most beautiful of them all. Very smart woman.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear, but what has she got to do with me, Karin?”

“I was waiting for the FBI to figure out where the money trail ends. They’re so fucking slow.”

Trust my grandmother to find the FBI slow. She was the original energizer bunny. “They’re on a dead end. The money’s disappeared and Magnus is not telling. He’d rather serve life than return the money, if there’s any left of it, that is.”

“Oh, the money’s still there, I believe. Magnus still hopes to get his hands on it eventually. A lot can happen within a life sentence. El Chapo managed to escape prison more than once. The system can be bought.”

“You think Magnus is with the cartel?”

Karin shrugged. “Who knows?”

“I’m not in the mood to play Sherlock, Karin. I have a fucking hangover. Get to the point.”

“After your grandfather dumped her, Ruby became Magnus Rutledge’s mistress for a long time. I introduced them to each other.”

That reduced my headache a tad. “Okay…I’m listening.”

“I believe Magnus was in love with Ruby but she was born from the wrong side of the town so he married someone his parents chose for him. But he kept Ruby as his mistress for years. Are you getting my drift, Joshua?”

Fuck, this, I never saw coming. “I think…are you saying…?”

“This will surely rock some diplomatic boat that’s why I held this tidbit off a bit longer, but I think you badly need it.”

I shook my head, my hangover wearing off fast. “I’ll be damned. I’ll be fucking damned.”

I grabbed my phone and called my lawyer.

“Wyatt, we’re going to Switzerland!”

“What’s in Switzerland?”

“The money pot.”

After the call, I went to hug my grandmother and kissed her on both her cheeks.

“I love you, Grandma.”

“Don’t say it to me. Say it to her.”

I smiled. For the first time in days, I fucking loved daylight again.

“I will.”