Chapter 17
“With Warren’s permission?” Kai asked in shock.
“Yeah, he didn’t want you around. I figured that, if I made life really difficult for you, then you’d run away.”
“So why did he panic and try to run?” Tommy asked, his voice hard.
“Because stalking and fraud carry some severe sentences. And I think he understood he was about to get found out,” Tyson said.
Tommy looked at Tyson in surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“When I brought in Legendary Security to investigate the stalker, we started looking at everyone in this company,” Kai said. “And Warren panicked. He’d hired Larry to terrorize me by making me think I had a stalker.” She shrugged. “It was a shitty thing to do but hardly worth throwing his life away for.”
“It wasn’t just that,” Tyson said in a low tone.
She narrowed her gaze at him, seeing the signs of impending bad news in his careful look. “What did you find out?”
Tyson reached out a hand for Kai. “Mark. His death wasn’t an accident.”
Kai gasped in horror. “Please no,” she cried out. “Mark was a good man. He was my friend.”
“Sorry, Kai, but the police have opened an investigation into his death. Mark left a notepad on his desk where he’d been working through some issues. His sister contacted the police when she read them. Mark was concerned as Warren was really angry when Mark contacted you. Even though Warren needed the money, he didn’t want to sell enough shares to bail out the company, essentially transferring one-third ownership out of his hands. He’d threatened Mark several times.”
Kai, tears in her eyes, said, “By killing Mark, Warren thought he’d inherit Mark’s shares. Which, added to his own, gave him a controlling interest. And, by selling off part to me, he’d get out of the financial hell he’d gotten into, and this way he wouldn’t lose the company. Only Mark lay on his death bed for several days, and, in the meantime, our paperwork was completed, making me a shareholder and, with the way the contract was written between them, Mark now had a choice to leave the shares to me instead of Warren.” She shook her head. “And I had no idea. Poor Mark.”
“Poor Mark, indeed.”
“Jesus, Mark was awesome. That sucks,” Tommy whispered. “Was anything about Uncle Warren like I thought it was?”
“Don’t think that,” Larry said. “Warren wasn’t a bad man. He was desperate.”
Tommy turned to look at Larry. “How can you say that? He killed his partner. He helped you terrorize Kai. Then he tried selling one of our products to one of the worst companies possible.” He shook head. “He was about to run and leave the company hanging.”
“He should have killed Kai. Then he’d have had the money and all the stock in the company,” Larry cried out.
“And looked guilty as hell too,” Tyson said quietly. “That would have triggered an investigation he couldn’t afford.”
“No way. He’d have done it so no one knew. Like he killed Mark.”
“I would have investigated,” Tyson said, his voice hard and cold. “I’d have turned every stone to make sure I got the answers I needed. Then I’d have made damn sure he paid.”
“Which is why Warren panicked when I brought in Legendary,” Kai said quietly. “Warren knew his chances of escaping punishment were damn small.”
“So he decided to sell his place and run.” Tommy turned to stare at his uncle’s office. “I feel like I never knew him at all.”
“Don’t worry, Tommy,” Tyson said. “With Warren’s death, we’ll track down all related bank accounts, looking for any hidden deals.”
“You won’t honor the contract? Was that hush money Larry brought back? A prepayment or maybe a bribe?” Tommy asked, surprise and hope in his voice. “Can we get out of it?”
“I never signed the contract,” Kai said. “Warren had no right to sell or make an agreement without my signature.” She hesitated. “As for the money I don’t know. I doubt Burning Edge will say it was from them. A deposit wasn’t mentioned in any of the paperwork.”
“But can Burning Edge still enforce the contract?”
She shrugged. “Not sure how they can, not when I have controlling interest in the company, and Warren was only a partner.” She smiled at Tommy. “We’ll sort it out.”
“I don’t want any contract with them.”
She nodded. “I’m in full agreement. But we have a bit of a mess we need to sort out now.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, we’re not taking anything to market for at least another six months, until this thing blows over,” she said calmly. “We may end up with some legal issues we have to figure out first, but then we will rebuild bigger and better. And, when we talk about gaming companies, we’re not going with Burning Edge. An awful lot of bigger, better companies are out there, like Viacom.”
“Absolutely. So you’re keeping the company going?” Tommy asked hopefully.
She smiled. “With your skills, I’m sure we can take the company far.”
Larry shouted. “It should be his company.”
Tommy shook his head. “I don’t know anything about business. I just want to do what I do.”
“And that’s why you do what you do, and that’s why I do what I do,” Kai said with a smile. “Obviously I will need to hire some new staff.” She looked pointedly at Larry. “You do realize you’ve ruined your future and your life as a whole?”
He turned to look at his friend. “Tommy, you’ll get me out of this, right?” He inched toward the front door. “I did all this for you.”
Tommy looked at him. “Larry, you’ve been like a brother to me, but, dude, when you mess up, you mess up big.”
Larry’s face twisted in anger. “After all I did so you’d get your damn company? You’re the genius behind the company. It should be yours. I know for a fact you could run it.”
“How would you know that?” Tyson asked quietly.
“Because I talked to Warren about it. He and I were good friends, and I was one of the few who knew about his and Tommy’s relationship. He assured me that Tommy got everything.” He glared at Kai. “And that means everything.”
She shook her head. “And how is it that you can still believe Warren after all he did? Tommy will likely inherit something, but I think the company is now mine, one hundred percent.”
Larry’s face filled with such rage that he was probably contemplating attacking her. Tyson had yet to move. She wanted Larry to try something so she could beat the crap out of him. But of course, cowardly to the end, he turned and raced for the front door. He threw it open, and, as he headed out, several policemen surrounded him.
“No, no, no, no. You can’t do this. Tommy, help me.” He screamed all the way down the hall, all the way down the stairs.
Finally his screams couldn’t be heard anymore. Kai turned her attention to Tommy, who sat hunched over, tears in his eyes.
She glanced at Tyson and then gave Tommy a big hug. “This is probably the worst day of your life. However, it’ll get better after this.”
He shook his head. “How can it ever be good again?”
“Don’t let your uncle’s murder be the end of you. Make something of your work. Prove it can be done without lying and cheating,” Tyson said quietly. He motioned to the detective at the door.
“Unfortunately I have a lot of questions for you for the next few hours.”
“What about his stepbrother—my father—is he in trouble too?” Tommy asked.
Detective Mannford walked toward them and answered, “Yes, he is. But more for fraud. I don’t believe he had anything to do with your uncle’s murder. And I don’t think he had anything to do with the stalking issues.”
“No, just for whatever Burning Edge was up to,” Kai said.
Several hours later they took Tommy home to his place. At the end of the police questioning, he’d been pretty broken up. Detective Mannford had offered to give Tommy a ride, but he’d looked at Kai, so she took him home.
When they dropped him off, making sure he had a couple friends to stay with him, she walked back out with Tyson and said, “So does that mean you’re heading home to your place now?”
“Where is my place?” he asked. “The compound is about forty minutes from here. Currently I have been living with you more than there.”
She laughed. “Well, maybe that means you have two homes instead of one.”
“You know? I kind of like the sound of that,” he said with a smile. Outside at the SUV he turned to her. “I really like the sound of that.”
She slipped her arms around his neck. “Good. Because what we have has nothing to do with the job. It has nothing to do with all the pain and headache I went through because of Larry and Warren. It has nothing to do with Tracy and the wonderful relationship we both had with her. It has to do with us. And I, for one, don’t want to lose it.”
“And I don’t want to lose you,” he said, his voice low. “So I highly suggest we play it by ear and see which place we want to live in. For the moment we won’t change anything. You can spend some time with me at the compound, and I’ll spend some time with you in Houston at your apartment. And then we can decide which place works better for us.”
She snuggled into his shoulder and teased, “Are you sure you don’t want a relationship just to get your hands on that VR system first?”
He pulled her closer and held her tight. “If that’s a side benefit, who am I to argue?”
She rolled her eyes. “You get to play the hero in virtual and real life.”
“As long as I’m your hero,” he whispered, “I’m a happy man.”