Treachery

It is ridiculous how much I enjoy having Luca in the car with me. Over the past two years, I’ve attended dozens of these functions, each one with some highfalutin socialite or supermodel on my arm, their banal chatter boring me to tears while we smiled for the flashing cameras and made our way through the crowds, rubbing elbows with the up and comers of the new generation.

Typically, my father and his crew are always hanging off to the sides, working whatever deals they need to keep the family businesses ru

Afterwards, I would take whatever nameless and meaningless date I had home and practically shove them out of the car.

Not one of them held my attention for longer than the few hours it took to get through the event we attended. Not one of them made me smile with their sharp tongues and narrowed eyes as anger painted their cheeks a pink color.

Not one of them was to me what Luca has always been, even when she doesn’t know it.

I’d hoped I could fuck her out of my system back at Yale on the night I’d let my guard down, but all that experience did was leave me a starving man, desperate for another taste, irritated to no end that no matter how many women I was with after her, the sweet taste of Luca was always on the back of my tongue.

And now I have her again. Letting her go isn’t an option. Not until I’m done getting what I want.

Still, I have a job to do, one that Warbucks has been calling about obsessively.

Unfortunately, Luca is sitting on information that our fathers are desperate to get their hands on. For what reason? I still don’t know, but I sure as hell plan to find out.

I have the fun job of discovering how to get what I need without telling her what it is - without allowing her to understand how we ended up here and why.

All in a day’s work…or three year’s work, depending on how you look at it.

Turning to glance at her, my gaze focuses on the flutter of a few strands of hair that have escaped to curl down at the side of her face, the gloss on her lips catching the speckled light, glimmering as a tease.

Her shoulders are held back with pride, her hands folded demurely in her lap, but when my eyes track down to glance at her feet, I see the truth of her aggravation as she taps out the passing seconds with the toe of one shoe.

Luca plays a good game of appearing content, but there is always something that gives away exactly what she’s feeling.

She’d stolen my breath the second those elevator doors pulled open at her apartment, my full attention on her despite the Cupid-reject standing next to her flapping his jaws about blackmail and people blocking doorways.

Not that any of it mattered. I can’t, and won’t, let it matter. Not when Luca is nothing more than a means to an end, an errand my father set me on years ago that I’d failed to accomplish.

The fat fuck hasn’t let me forget it, and after attempting his own luck at taking care of the problem himself (failing miserably, I might add) he’s gotten in my face again, threatening hell’s fire if I didn’t get Luca back under thumb again.

Now, here we are, alone, her looking as good as ever while I both want her and hate her for being the only puzzle I haven’t been able to piece together. She’s my only failure, the only game I’ve lost because she ran off before I could finish playing.

It only pisses me off more to know that when this is all said and done, she will hate me more than she hates her lousy excuse for a husband.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy her while I still have her, and enjoy her, I will.

“I’m sorry to hear about your father. It must have been difficult losing both your parents so close together.”

Her head snaps my direction, lips pulled into a thin line.

“How do you even know about that?”

“I represent your husband, remember? He told me everything.”

That isn’t the truth of how I know, but it’s as good an excuse as any. Telling her I’d followed everything there is to know about her for the last three years sounds a bit too stalkerish, even by my standards.

Softening a touch, she relaxes, her head shaking as her eyes scan me up and down, most likely looking for any clue that I’m fucking with her.

“Mom was expected,” she finally answers, “she’d been sick for years. At least with her I’d had the chance to say goodbye. My father was more difficult. But car accidents are like that, I guess. Your loved ones are there one minute and gone the next. You know how it is.”

I don’t know how it is, in fact. Although that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to. I have every intention of pissing on my parents’ graves when they’re six feet under, a friendly fuck you and goodbye that will be a godsend if it were to happen overnight.

Everyone I’ve grown up with wants the same thing, but apparently money can’t just buy you power, it can extend your life, and our fathers are as healthy as fucking horses despite the years they’ve spent drinking, smoking and whoring, their money paying for the plastic surgery that keeps up the appearance of our mothers and their wives.

It wasn’t until college that the resentment between fathers and sons grew to uncomfortable levels.

All nine of us are just biding our time, waiting for the day that the generation before us drops dead so we can take over the empire that has been built beneath the noses of the residents of New York, a network of politicians, CEOs, police chiefs and other powerful players who are indebted to us in some way, shape or form.

Except all of us have run out of patience, and I wonder if there is any possible way we can speed along the inevitable.

The only thing standing in our way is sitting in the car beside me, a problem that was dropped in my lap regardless of whether I wanted it.

Acting as if this is simply idle conversation, I relax against my seat and ask, “Why are you so desperate for the money Clayton owes you? I would think you’d be financially set with the assets from your father’s business.”

She scoffs and turns to glance out the window again.

“Apparently, Clayton didn’t tell you everything. My father’s business collapsed soon after my mother died. There was nothing left by the time he got in the car accident. Nothing except a few patents and years of electronic records.”

I know that, but don’t let on that I know.

The car pulls into a driveway on our left, a sprawling estate coming into view as we wind along the curved driveway toward the front entrance.

“What do you plan to do with it?”

Her eyes meet mine, wariness in her gaze.

“I don’t know. Dad never really talked to me about his company. I know it had something to do with technology, but that’s it. I’m thinking about giving what’s left of it over to someone who might know its value and ask them what I should do.”

Which is exactly what I can’t let happen.

What Luca doesn’t know is that her father’s company isn’t simply about technology. More like security from what I could find out, an information network used by many governments, both regional and national.

Her father’s contacts and employees in the field ranged from former CIA, FBI and military intelligence officers, their specific duties that of protecting politicians and other high-level businessman and celebrities from becoming indebted to people like my father.