Chapter 37

“Marcus!”

Ashlee stood in the middle of Erin’s office looking ... well, there wasn’t a better word than disheveled. It was strange. Ashlee had always looked so put together. Her makeup was always understated and natural-looking, giving her a healthy, youthful glow. She always wore the best clothes.

Tonight, she was wearing a simple pair of sweatpants, a pink T-shirt with one of the My Little Ponies on it, and her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. She was nervously washing her hands as she clutched them to her chest. Her emerald eyes were dark, suggesting a lack of sleep as they darted about the room.

“Oh my god!” she said, bringing her hands to her mouth as she stared at me in horror. “You look horrible!”

“Thanks, I guess,” I said, looking her up and down. “You don’t look your best either.”

“I didn’t know this would happen?” Her voice cracked with emotion.

“What?”

“This shouldn’t have happened ... I didn’t mean...” She trailed off, unable to finish whatever she was saying, as she stared at me in shock. I knew I didn’t look bad enough to get that kind of reaction; this was more than about a few bruises on my face.

Erin and I exchanged glances, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.

“What are you talking about?” I asked as I approached her. “Why did you disappear after I got kidnapped, Ashlee? Do you know who did this to me?”

“No!” She said, dropping her hands to her sides and emphatically shaking her head. “It’s not my fault! None of this is my fault!”

“Then who’s fault is it!?” I was having difficulty not raising my voice as I closed the distance between us and towered almost a foot over her.

“Marcus,” Erin cautioned.

“Who did this, Ashlee!?”

Ashlee looked on the verge of crying. “I’m so sorry, Marcus! I didn’t know I’d like you!”

She started to bow her head, but I grabbed her chin and forced her to look up at me. I’d already been pissed at Ashlee for abandoning everyone the moment I disappeared. It reeked of guilt. This, though ... this was almost worse. Now, she was in my house rambling, and I didn’t know what it meant. “No,” I growled. “You’re going to tell me what the hell happened.”

By this time, her face was completely twisted as she began openly crying in front of me, seemingly unaware that I was manhandling her. “I did everything he wanted! Why won’t he return any of my calls?”

“Ashlee!” I shouted. “Who?”

“Marcus,” Erin said, “Chandler’s trying to reach you.”

Distracted by the news that Ashlee was in Erin’s office, I’d momentarily forgotten that I had asked Chandler to take Hiro to my study, where they were waiting for me. “Fuck. Okay.” I said, pulling out my phone as I let go of Ashlee and turned my back on her. I called Chandler as I headed toward the door; he answered on the first ring.

“Marcus?”

“Hey, Chandler,” I said.

“Marcus,” he said, his voice dropping in volume, “where are you? It’s been twenty minutes.” The usually jolly man sounded more annoyed than I’d ever heard.

“Sorry, Chandler. Something came up. It’s going to take me longer than I thought. Can you keep Hiro busy for another ten to fifteen minutes?”

“Marcus, this is Hiro Tanaka we’re talking about. He’s not a man who’s used to waiting on others.”

“Okay,” I said, “what if you pitched him the idea?”

“I’ve already given him the basics,” Chandler said, his tone clipped. “Tanaka isn’t much for small talk, so we’ve been discussing some of the details, but he wants to hear from you since you’re the architect of this scheme.”

I was so frustrated that I wanted to chew my arm off. On one hand, this plan had been in the works for nearly as long as I’d been a billionaire. On the other hand, I’d been waiting to get my hands on Ashlee since I woke up back in my house. “Ashlee’s here. She had something to do with my kidnapping, and I need to talk to her.”

“That can’t wait half an hour? What is she going to do? Evaporate?”

I will fucking end you, you fucking Harry Potter cartoon character!

Fuck. Chandler didn’t deserve that, even if I was just thinking that.

“Fine,” I growled through gritted teeth. “Give me two minutes.”

“Very good,” Chandler said and hung up.

I whirled to face the two ladies. “I have something I need to take care of.” I pointed at Ashlee and said, “You! Don’t you dare move from that spot.” Ashlee tugged on the collar of her shirt and pulled it over her nose as she blinked at me through tearful eyes. She nodded hesitantly in response.

I pointed at Erin, “You! Make sure she doesn’t leave that spot.”

“Uh...” Erin said.

I had already turned toward the door and ripped it open. Chloe was standing beside the door, leaning on the wall. “Good. If Ashlee steps one toe out this door, shoot her.”

“Got it,” was all Chloe said, and I stalked away, moving down the hall and toward my study as quickly as possible. I arrived in just under two minutes, as promised.

Chandler hadn’t exaggerated. Hiro Tanaka was polite enough, but I could tell he was annoyed when I entered the room after making him wait for more than twenty minutes. It took me a good ten minutes to ease the tension from him. I wanted to fling Kwan and Carla out of a window for driving me to call Hiro down early - especially considering I had a hysterical Ashlee waiting in another room while my house was filled with party guests. Of course, I couldn’t forget that one of those guests was Roger VanCamp. How would he react if he found out Ashlee was in my house about to spill the beans? Maybe he didn’t have anything to do with this whole thing. After all, if Ashlee hadn’t returned to her house as soon as she got back into town, there was a chance Roger hadn’t been involved, but I wasn’t ready to put money on it.

There was only one thing to do - get through this conference with Hiro as quickly as possible.

The plan for Monday was simple. There would be a new vote for an official CEO for VistaVision, and almost everyone who held voting power wanted Maddox to take over the position. According to Chandler, Wayne Prudem held five percent of the company and didn’t like Kelly. If I recalled Wayne’s exact words as reported by Chandler, he would rather suffocate in a bag of his ex-wife’s queefs than vote Kelly back into a position of leadership in any company he was invested in.

Wayne and Chandler gave me forty-seven percent of the vote, which wasn’t quite enough. Since ninety-eight percent of the shares were held by investors with voting power, I needed forty-nine percent to make it a tie, which triggered the tiebreaker - the sitting CEO got the final say.

Hiro Tanaka owned another seven percent of the company, which got me to the forty-nine percent without Wayne, but he didn’t have the same hatred for Kelly that Wayne and Chandler shared. I had to buy his votes. Paying attention to the conversation was difficult as I gnawed at the mystery sitting in Erin’s office. I was almost willing to give the Japanese man anything to make the deal quick so I could get back to Ashlee.

Who was supposed to call her back? Roger? That couldn’t have been right, or she wouldn’t have stayed away from him all week. No, it had to be Cartwright. She’d been meeting with him, after all. I hadn’t considered the possibility that he’d been in Vegas, but it made sense. Had he been the mystery man beating on me? I remember hearing him speak, but everything that happened during that time was fuzzy, and when I tried to recall it, the memory of his voice was strained and distorted as if he’d been speaking through pool water. Besides, Cartwright had only said two words to me, and I’d been beaten unconscious since. I barely remembered what he sounded like.

As much as I wanted to return to Ashlee, though, Hiro’s demands increasingly pulled me out of my reverie. He started the negotiations by asking for another ten percent of my shares and the CEO position. Wayne, who had called from Texas, and Chandler were both ready to go to war with him over the CEO position, and I wasn’t prepared to let go of a quarter of my shares in VistaVision ... not when I barely knew what I’d be giving up. As good a teacher as Chandler was, I could barely wrap my head around what VistaVision encompassed or how much income it brought me. Chandler almost seemed offended by the amount of my shares Tanaka asked for.

During the negotiations, I got a text from Chloe that simply said, 911. Hardly one for drama, I knew she wouldn’t text something like that unless it was important.

“Excuse me for one second. I need to take this,” I said, throwing the pair of them an apologetic look.

Chandler looked like he wanted to protest but held back. Hiro simply frowned.

“Look here,” Wayne drawled in his Texas accent over the intercom, “I get wantin’ your piece, but this ain’t it. You...”

I approached the door to my study and stepped just outside. Three people were playing pool and looked at me as I exited the office and dialed Chloe. Two more looked like they were coming from down a hallway where the dungeon was, and I hoped Erin had secured all the rooms I didn’t want anyone to enter. The idea of my parents or Richie seeing that room horrified me.

“Hey,” Chloe said, and I could detect the stress in her voice.

“What’s up?”

“I don’t know how, but VanCamp knows his daughter’s here and is demanding that he take her and go.”

“Shit. Is he in there?”

“No, but he really wants to be,” Chloe said.

“Is that Marcus?” I heard Roger from the other end of the line. “Marcus, you had better let me collect my daughter, or I’m about to make a scene!”

“Put me on speakerphone,” I said.

A moment later, Chloe said, “‘Kay.”

I turned away from the few onlookers and trudged a few feet down the hallway toward the dungeon room. “You go ahead and make a scene,” I said, trying to keep my voice as low as possible while trying to maintain a certain level of calm authority. My stomach was in knots as I decided to go toe-to-toe with Roger VanCamp. “Let’s see what happens when they find out you’re letting me fuck your wife.”

“Most of the company knows that,” Roger snapped, and he didn’t sound particularly troubled by my threat.

I took a deep breath to steel myself for what I was about to say next. “Do they know she doesn’t want to stop? Bet you’d love for them to talk about that around the water cooler? Poor Roger getting cucked by their newest client. Thought he could use his wife to hook the big whale, only to have it blow up in his face.”

The silence lasted a second longer than expected, and I took that as a good sign. The man was jealous and prideful, and the last thing he wanted was for it to become common knowledge that he no longer exercised complete control of his precious trophy wife. I could tell how much it bothered him in our exchange earlier.

I had him on the ropes, so I decided to press things a little further. “Or how about we dig into where you’ve been for the last week. Were you really in the UAE or Saudi or wherever ... or were you in Vegas?”

Roger snorted on the other end and said, “Boy, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” If there was any wariness or doubt on his end, I couldn’t hear it. “How about we make this deal - you tell your little guard dog to stand down and let me collect my daughter. We leave. No one has to know about the war profiteering you’re part of or how you own the majority of a company that is doing illegal experimentation on disadvantaged people for pharmaceutical research and development. I’ll also keep my mouth shut on whatever is happening between you and Barbara Nanford.”

Barbara? Who the fuck was...

My eyes grew wide, and I felt my stomach try to drop out of my ass. Bobbi.

What the fuck did Roger know? How did he know?

Wait ... war profiteering? Illegal experimentation? What the fuck was he talking about? Was I involved in all that? Chandler did say my grandpa had his hand in some pretty dark stuff, but things like that? What was next? Human trafficking?

I wanted to tell him he was bluffing. I might have if it hadn’t been for the threat he’d just made about Bobbi.

What the fuck did you tell him, Helen!?

“Marcus?” Roger said.

“Get the fuck out of my house, Roger,” I said.

“And Ashlee?”

“If she wants to go, take her with you.” That sentence tasted like rancid garbage in my mouth. Fuck Carla and Kwan. I wanted to fling Roger out of a window. No ... I wanted to shove him into a wood chipper. Death by defenestration was too good for this guy.

“Thank you,” Roger said, and I could hear the sneer in his voice.

God dammit! My answers! I wanted my fucking answers!

Never in my life had I felt this much rage, and I did something I would have never done a month ago. With the call still going, I flung the phone down the hallway at an angle and watched as it smashed squarely into the side of a door frame, spun several times in mid-air, and clattered to the floor.

I turned and stalked back into the study, shutting the door only moderately hard behind me. Whatever Chandler was saying to the speakerphone immediately died as he and Hiro looked at me.

“Hiro, I can’t give you twenty-five percent of my holdings. It’s insane that you’d ask for that much. I also can’t give you the CEO position. Chandler’s done a great job and knows more about VistaVision than anyone else. Here’s what I can do, though. I’ll give you five more percent of the company and any executive role you choose.”

Tanaka peered at me through his spectacles for a solid ten seconds and said, “My son gets a position in the company of my choosing, and deal.”

“Not CEO,” I clarified.

“Not CEO,” he repeated.

“Deal,” I said.

“I want it in writing tonight so my lawyers can review it.”

“Chandler?”

“I’ll have our people start drafting it immediately.”

“Good,” Hiro said with a small, satisfied smile.

After we were done in my study, Hiro and Chandler left with me, and I found Erin and Chloe waiting just outside my door as we emerged. The five of us rode the elevator and emerged on the rooftop once more. It was still going pretty strong, though it looked like the crowd had thinned out a little, considering it was approaching midnight. Some of the people I’d invited were getting a little long in the tooth, after all.

Getting tired, Mr. Tanaka decided to find his wife and head home for the evening, giving me a slight bow of respect that I returned. Once he was gone, I breathed a sigh of relief that we’d sealed the deal with Hiro, but it doubled as a sigh of frustration that I’d lost Ashlee in the process. “How the hell did VanCamp know his daughter was here?”

Chloe glanced at Chandler. “We’re good?”

“Yeah,” I said. As far as I was concerned, Chandler had proven himself trustworthy and deserved some answers after I had left him hanging for nearly half an hour in my study with one of the most powerful men in Japan.

“He’s probably keeping track of her using her phone. He knows who I am, so when he saw me, I think he just made an educated guess that you were in there with her. He seemed surprised when it was just her and Erin.”

“Wait,” Chandler said. “What’s this about VanCamp?”

“Ashlee was with me in Vegas when I got nabbed,” I said. “She knows something about it. Maybe even helped make it happen.”

“My word,” Chandler muttered. “You have been busy, haven’t you?”

Unsure if that comment was pointed at the attempt to find out who my kidnappers were or about my sex life, I decided to ignore it. “Did Ashlee seem happy to see him?”

Erin shook her head. “No. It’s weird. She seemed almost relieved to leave but didn’t look thrilled to leave with her dad.”

“What about Helen?” I asked.

“Helen looked like she knew she was about to become roadkill any minute,” Chloe said.

“Fuck. Do you think they’re in danger?”

“Of being yelled at?” Chloe asked. “Yes. Of being killed or abused? I doubt it.”

“Can we put someone on them?”

Chloe shook her head. “Not one of my guys, but I figured you’d want someone to keep an eye on the situation. I texted Henry. He’s on it.”

As usual, Chloe was good at anticipating my needs. She really had been a godsend. “Thanks.”

“Just doing my job, sir.”

“Nothing we can do in the meantime,” Erin said. “You should get back out there and mingle.”

“Gonna be hard to do with everything that just happened.”

“Think happy thoughts,” Erin said.

“She’s right, my boy,” Chandler said. “You’re about to outmaneuver seasoned businessmen and take the helm of one of the biggest, most influential companies in the United States. Take some time to celebrate the victories as well as the losses.”

I nodded. Maybe they were right, but some of the things Roger said bothered me. I’d been blindsided by accusations of taking advantage of poor people in third-world countries and profiteering ... not to mention him knowing about Bobbi. I shouldn’t have been surprised; Helen had said as much, but hearing it from someone I hated was a sting that was hard to recover from. Especially when he used it against me like that.

“I’ll try.”

The next half hour flew by, and despite the weight of what happened, the mixture of friends, family, and a splash of alcohol did a lot to buoy my spirits. I danced with Honey, Rose, Erin, and Danni. I did a couple of shots with Dillon, Jonah, and three girls I didn’t know. Jonah and I argued over public education in the US until we were shut up by Honey - who straddled Jonah and planted her lips on his - and Rose, who crawled into my lap and stuck her tongue in my throat. I would have been a little concerned about my parents seeing this if it weren’t for the fact that we were back in the garden. Considering the relative privacy, I enjoyed a few minutes of her grinding her crotch against my half-hard cock as we made out like a couple of high schoolers. The sound of wet smacks nearby told me Jonah was still enjoying himself.

When we parted, Rose leaned in and scraped her teeth along my jaw as I slid my hand under her skirt and pawed her dark chocolate ass. “Is the only hot tub the one out near the pool?” she breathed before taking my earlobe between plush lips and sucking on it.

“No,” I said. “There’s one here in the garden, too.”

“Good,” she breathed in my ear between soft kisses. “Find us there when things have calmed down a little more.”

We continued necking and making out for another minute before I got up, adjusted the steel bar in my pants, and headed back out. On the way, I caught Vikram and Venus making out and grinned, happy for the guy. He was a hard worker, and I suspected he didn’t have much of a social life. I wanted to reach for my phone and text him that he should find a room, but then I remembered that I’d destroyed my phone.

Emerging from the garden, I ran into my parents, who looked a little tipsy. “Marcus!” my mother said and pulled me in for a hug. “Thanks for inviting us! This has been amazing!”

“Are you guys leaving?” I asked, feeling guilty that I hadn’t spent more time with them.

“Yeah,” Dad said. “We’re too old to stay out much later than this. Richie and Megan wanted to stay longer, though. Would it be okay if they stay the night?”

“We have the room,” I said. “Do I need security on Megan to keep Richie from trying anything?”

Mom dismissed my question with a wave and a snort. “Try the other way around. Anyway, that ship has sailed, Marcus. We let them do it in the house as long as they use condoms. Just don’t let them drink.”

“Who are you people?” I asked. “Mom, you would’ve shot me if I’d brought a girl home!”

“I know,” she said. “You just snuck out instead. If I’m being honest, Jacob wore us down. With Richie, we decided if he’s going to do it anyway, might as well do it in the safety of our home where we can make sure they’re safe.”

“How progressive of you guys,” I said begrudgingly.

“That’s what Emily said,” Henry chimed in. “Speaking of, tell her we’re sad we missed her.”

“Did she never show up?” I asked.

“We haven’t seen her,” Mom said.

“Strange, but you guys can tell her that tomorrow. Still want to do dinner?”

“We’ll be there,” Dad said.

We said our goodbyes, and they left. I picked up something to sip on from the bar and headed for the ledge, needing a moment to decompress after making the rounds of the partygoers. My parents mentioning Emily reminded me of Natashya’s situation, and I concluded that Emily had decided to stay behind to keep her company.

Forget me and what I’d suffered at the hands of those mercenaries. Natashya had been hurt worse than me, and that was a direct result of Ashlee and whoever she was trying to reach.

As the night wore on, I became more convinced that it wasn’t her father. I couldn’t imagine Roger being so eager to take his daughter home if he’d been ghosting her. It had to be Cartwright, but that wasn’t enough. Cartwright had been a goon for my grandpa - an enforcer. I didn’t think he was the type to put a plan together and use other people. Unless I was reading him completely wrong, Ashlee had been working with someone else to kidnap me.

“You look deep in thought.”

I looked to my right and saw a woman leaning with her back against the railing next to me, watching me with brown eyes a shade between honey and wheat. A thick mane of dark blonde hair hung to the tops of her shoulders, held back from her face with a few pins in a simple, hair-down style. She wore a simple, sleeveless, black cocktail dress that went to her knees. The neckline plunged but was narrow enough that I could only see a hint of the slopes of her average-sized breasts. Her lightly tanned skin showed off a few freckles on her chest that begged to be traced with a finger, like playing a game of connect-the-dots. The dress was far from scandalous, but it was definitely tantalizing.

Julia Lyons was one of the most famous reporters for Channel Seven, a New York news station that had grown so famous that it had become nationally acclaimed. The innocuous name ‘Channel Seven’ had become synonymous with the station throughout most of the nation ... kind of like the singer adopting the name ‘Pink.’ The last time we met, she interviewed me about inheriting my grandfather’s wealth and gave me her card in case I ever wanted to talk in more detail. I hadn’t.

“Just enjoying the view,” I said.

“It’s a good view.” She took a sip of whatever she was drinking and looked back at me, giving me a smile. It was generous, with ample lips and perfect teeth, and brought her high cheekbones into more prominence. She was a talented newscaster and interviewer, but I suspected her looks had just as much to do with her rise to fame on the national stage.

“Do you mind if I ask what happened to you last weekend?” she asked.

I snorted and looked back over the breathtaking New York night skyline. “It’s the weekend. Aren’t you off the clock?”

“A good journalist never stops working.” I noticed her fidget with the ring on her left hand as she said it. She’d come alone. I wondered if there was a story there.

“On the record or off?” I asked.

“I’d prefer on, but if you insist, we can go off.”

I thought about it for a few moments and shook my head. “There’s a lot of speculation, so I might as well set the record straight. It can be on the record.”

Julia simply nodded and took another sip of her cocktail.

“What have you heard so far?” I asked.

“I know an influencer named Charming Charity is set to be released from the hospital tomorrow. She was shot in the stomach but will make a full recovery.”

“You talked to her?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Julia said and gave me a smile. “She sounded good. She also told me that someone was taking care of all her medical bills.”

“Well, it wasn’t her fault she got shot. I don’t see why she has to pay for it any more than she did.”

“She sounded grateful enough to not divulge the name of her benefactor or what they were doing when the attack happened,” Julia said. She turned and leaned against the railing, mirroring me.

“So you don’t think she was the one to leak that image?”

“I think she was on too much Dilaudid to be a good liar.”

“Hmm,” I said, taking another sip and admiring Charity’s ability to keep her mouth shut.

Julia continued, “I also talked to Steven Vann and Karly Titus. Steven didn’t have much to add except that he liked you. Karly told me that she took in your friends after you were kidnapped. She said they had nothing but praise for you.”

What a fucking world I lived in now. My name was on the lips of people like Steven Vann and Karly Titus. Old Marcus would never have believed it.

“That’s good to hear,” I said. “I enjoyed meeting them.”

“So, what happened?”

I sighed, set my drink on the railing, and looked at the beautiful reporter. “Someone wanted me captured alive and hired a bunch of goons to come after me. They killed one of my bodyguards and almost killed Charity. I guess there were a couple more deaths and a few more injuries, but I didn’t see any of it. They knocked me out. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a warehouse or bunker or ... something. Some mercenary guy beat me and kept me blindfolded most of the time. A couple of notable figures showed up and asked me questions. One of them really had it in for me ... he wanted to kill me when they got whatever information out of me they were looking for. They had me for two or three days, and then my security team showed up, killed a lot of them, and got me out.”

“I owe my life to Chloe Tanner and her team ... especially the bodyguard who died. His name was Ray. He and his husband were in the process of adopting. His funeral is next week, and I’m going to make sure his family never has to worry about money again. I’ll also make sure his husband can adopt if he still wants to.”

“One of my friends was kidnapped along with me. They beat her, and I’m pretty sure they did a lot worse. She’s still recovering.”

“What’s her name?” Julia asked.

I shook my head. “She can talk to you if she wants, but I won’t reveal that.”

“You’ll make sure she knows I’m interested?” Julia asked.

“I’ll tell her,” I said.

“What kind of questions were they asking you?”

“I can’t comment on those. It’s part of an investigation,” I said.

“You’re not giving me much,” Julia said.

“Not giving you much?” I repeated. “Mrs. Lyons, you know a hell of a lot more than any other journalist.”

Julia studied me for a moment and then said, “Yes, sir. You can’t blame a girl for trying, though. Is that everything you’re willing to share right now?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know a whole lot more. My bodyguard can tell you the location of the place ... maybe a few more details. If you want to know more, do whatever journalists do, I guess.”

I looked down at my drink and considered my last words. Finally, I said, “I guess there is one more thing. I lost a friend that night and nearly two others.” My gaze came back up to meet Julia’s. “I’m going to go after whoever is responsible with everything I have.”

“To the fullest extent that the law will allow?”

Silence filled the few feet of space between us for a beat longer than it should have, and then I said, “ ... to the fullest extent that the law will allow.”

We stared at each other as the sounds of the party washed over us. Then she broke out in a crooked smile and gazed out at the night sky. “So, what’s next for New York’s most eligible bachelor and business tycoon?”

I side-eyed her, unsure of why she said it like that. “Well, I’m familiarizing myself with VistaVision and am hoping to get more involved there. I’m also taking a closer look at his other holdings to see if there’s anything I’d like to change. I’d also like to maybe set up some non-profits or something. Give something back to the community.”

“That’s really admirable.” She looked back at me and said, “You’re ... different than I imagined you. Based on the interview, I didn’t expect this kind of conversation.”

“To be fair,” I said, “Being kidnapped changes people.”

“Have you considered getting a publicist or a PR team?” she asked.

“Not really,” I said. “VistaVision has one. My assistant has used her a little.”

“You would really benefit from a dedicated one just for you. You’re getting a lot of press, and it’s not coming off in the best light.”

“How come?” I asked.

“A lot of people see you as one of the luckiest, clueless people to ever walk the earth.”

“Off the record?” I asked.

She chuckled. “Sure.”

“I am,” I admitted.

“Not everyone needs to know that, though,” Julia said. “I know some people in the PR world. I spent some time there. I could send you some recommendations.”

“What about you?” I asked. “You looking for a job?”

“I have a job,” she said.

“What about a better job?” I said.

She chuckled, “You don’t want me as a PR manager, Mr. Upton.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“There’s more qualified people out there,” she said.