29. Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Anson
" M r. Larue, there's a Mr. Beauregard Bodine here to see you," Carole informed me at half past ten on the day Nova had been arrested.
I could guess what this was about. I still didn't understand the connection between Beau and Nova, but I was probably going to find out. I'd been waiting all day to hear from Kiefer on the progress of the investigation. He had let me know that Nova would be questioned. A part of me wanted to be with her, another couldn't handle it. Couldn't face the fact that she'd used me… again .
"Send him in." I moved from my desk to the sitting area, which had a couch and two armchairs. The coffee table between them held a bottle of bourbon and glasses. I poured a finger for Beau and myself.
Beau walked in and nodded at me. He sat on an armchair across from me. He picked up the glass of bourbon without sayin' anything, and downed it.
"I needed that," he muttered. "I'm here to ask you to back the fuck off my sister."
I arched an eyebrow. "Your who?"
"Nova King is my half-sister, and she's had enough of your fuckin' bullshit."
He pulled something out of his pocket and threw it at me. I instinctively caught it. It was a USB stick.
"That's proof. It was pathetically easy to find it. Nova didn't have access to Larue Home project funds. You know why?"
My eyes narrowed. What was he saying? I knew she had access, unless….
"She thought you were settin' her up, so she asked finance at Savannah Lace to handle everything. She hasn't logged in once into the budgeting program," Beau explained. He poured himself some more bourbon.
"She's your sister?" I was trying to make sense of what Beau was saying.
"Yeah. My half-sister, but that's just semantics. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you not to fuck with Beau Bodine's family."
This son of a bitch was in my house, drinking my bourbon and threatening me?
"Let's try this again," I drawled, "And let's take it from the top."
"Fuck no!" Beau stood up. "I have a chopper waitin' to take me home. I don't have time to educate your stupid ass. Go through the USB stick, and you'll find that the person who logged in as Nova was your fuckin' fiancée. She's been stealin' from you…for a while now, though she did try to make it look like it was more recent."
I paled. "What?"
"Yeah," Beau nodded smugly.
"How do you know this?"
"I run a software company, and I have skills."
"Did you hack into Larue Homes?" I asked, not sure if I was impressed, amused, or annoyed.
"If I did, well, that would be because your security system is shit," Beau said without humor. "So, here it is. Nina's going to fire your ass."
I stood up then. "Like hell she is."
"You take that up with her. You come near Nova again, and I'll break your fuckin' legs, and that's not hyperbole."
Now, I had to be amused. "Beau, I'm not gonna be your bitch on this, alright? If what you're sayin' is true, and I'm inclined to believe you, ‘cause it makes more sense than…believin' the woman who spent last night with me is…. Well, if that's the case, I'm gonna be near Nova a lot."
"You think she'll want you near her?"
"I'll be on my knees and—" I saw Beau's eyes flare. "Not like that, for God's sake. To apologize."
Beau nodded. "That's her call. But she sheds one tear because of you, and I'll—"
"You won't have to," I said softly. "This is on me."
"She doesn't need your money or anyone else's. She just inherited a third of the money my father left. It's not Larue money, but it's enough that she doesn't need to work ever again if she doesn't want to."
I closed my eyes as the meaning of what he was saying sank in. She was Emmett Bodine's daughter. She could've just made that knowledge public, and gotten her share of the inheritance. She hadn't.
"Trev has known for a while. I found out today. Trev is in Atlanta, so he wasn't there when she got arrested. He asked me to handle it and let it slip. I'll be tellin' my mother soon—and most of Savannah society will hear about it, ‘cause everyone is in fuckin' everyone's business there."
"I can relate," I muttered.
"Now, we're clear, aren't we, that you'll not fuck up my sister again? Oh, and when you hear about Raymond Carre's untimely demise, act surprised." Beau Bodine, I realized, was not some playboy-soft CEO type. He was dangerous.
I quirked an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yeah. And I expect you to deal with Pete Fontaine. Don't make me do it, 'cause I'll have him fuckin' killed, not just for what he did seven years ago but for how he traumatized her yesterday. Now, you? You've done your part by not trustin' a woman who is fuckin' awesome. Your punishment is losin' her. I hope she kicks you hard when you're on your knees, ‘cause you don't deserve forgiveness."
He took a couple of steps toward my door but came back. Poured himself another shot of bourbon and downed it. "Fuck that's smooth. Be seein' you around on your knees, asshole."
With that parting shot, Nova's brother walked out of my office, and then my house.
I sat on the couch, stunned at what I'd learned. It was late, but I called Kiefer and Diego, and told them about the USB stick. My IT skills were good, and I was smart enough not to plug strange USBs into my computer. We decided we'd go through it first thing in the morning.
I wanted to go to Nova, but I knew I had to finish what I needed to do with Bailey and Pete first. Only then would I deserve to even begin begging for her forgiveness.
I barely got any sleep that night.
I wondered how gullible, ruthless Anson Larue was that his fiancée had been cheating on him with his friend, the same friend who'd had his girlfriend assaulted and probably framed for stealing.
I wondered why he did it. I wondered who he did it with. I had a lot of questions that I hoped to get answers to, but right now, he'd give me nothing. I'd have to twist his nuts. Now that I would do with pleasure.
I called Nina first thing in the morning and begged her not to do anything until I could come and make my case. I'd explained the best I could what had happened, and she gave me a week to get my shit together.
I called Nova and was sent straight to voicemail. When I tried to text her, I realized she'd blocked me. I didn't deserve better, I knew that.
I went to the office early and nagged Kiefer to get this whole mess sorted. He was not a morning person, and he didn't come into the office until ten, so when I asked him to get in by eight, he was just about ready to kill me. What he found on the USB stick didn't help me.
"Someone hacked into our network to get this," Kiefer screeched as they went through the contents of the USB stick on an air-gap computer. He was our CFO and a closet IT nerd, which came in handy because he also managed all IT for Larue Homes. "Christ on a fucking crutch, Anson. We need a system re-haul if someone can just waltz in and poke around."
Diego leaned against a wall, arms folded. The son of a bitch looked smug as hell, and he hadn't said, I told you so , but then he didn't have to, because every time I looked at his face, that was the message he was broadcasting.
Kiefer explained that Bailey had been moving money ever since the Sentinel Heights project had been established. The amounts had been small, but they'd added up to nearly a hundred thousand dollars. Beau had helpfully traced the money to a bank account in Atlanta, which was under Bailey's mother's name.
"How could this happen?" I asked Kiefer.
"She had access to everything because she worked for you," he grumbled. "And she knew how much to move without tripping over any alarms. She's been doing this for nine months."
"And she decided to frame Nova for it?" Diego asked.
"Yeah; even manipulated so it looked like all the money had been taken since Savannah Lace came on board." Kiefer banged on some keys. "What the fuck was Bailey doin' with the money?"
"I can't say," I confessed. I had no clue what Bailey was doing or why she was doing it. I thought maybe she had just tried to frame Nova, but now I realized she'd been stealing from the company for a while and now found a convenient scapegoat, one I handed to her on a silver platter.
"I now have to take this to…who? Savannah PD or the ADA here in Sentinel, or fuckin' Pete Fontaine?" Kiefer asked, exasperated.
"Pete is persona non grata ," I warned.
Kiefer sighed. "Because he arrested your…is she your ex or current or future?"
"Just keep Pete out of it. He's not to be trusted," I stated.
"Fine." Kiefer let out a long-suffering sigh.
"Keep it with Savannah PD and let them figure it out. My guess is they'll farm it out to the GBI," Diego suggested.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was equipped to handle cases where jurisdiction was not clear, and they'd want this, I suspected, because the money embezzled out of Larue Homes, a project that the state government had invested in.
Kiefer looked at me sternly. He was a short, portly man in his mid-thirties, who had little patience for people, and preferred Excel sheets and data.
"I don't get it, man. Can't you be with women who don't fuckin' steal from you? Or do you have a thief kink I don't know about?" Kiefer yelled at me.
I saw Diego control a smile, and I had to do the same. Kiefer talking about kink of any kind was amusing.
He threw his hands up. "Fine. I'll talk to the Savannah ADA, and then we see how this pans out. In the meantime, try not to date, fuck, or befriend any woman. Okay, Anson?"
"Aye, aye, captain." I saluted him.
He took his laptop, and stormed out of my office.
"Well, fuck, I never thought he was the kind who lost his temper," Diego laughed.
"It's always the quiet ones."
"Well?" Diego asked.
"I fucked up."
"Big fuckin' time," he agreed. "What's next?"
I sat on my office chair. "I need to sort out Pete. I have no idea how to go about it."
"Hire someone to bust his knees," Diego said, and I wasn't sure if he was joking.
"Let's try to do this legally, yeah?" I suggested.
First, Beau said something about Raymond Carre meeting an untimely death. And now, Diego wanted to have Pete beaten up.
Diego frowned. "Didn't you say Pete has a gambling addiction?"
"Yeah. He goes to Biloxi on the regular to play poker, I think he gets into some of the underground games here."
Diego grinned. "A buddy of mine works organized crime for the GBI. Let me see if he'll do me a solid and do a raid. What happens if the sheriff is charged with a crime?"
"Well, he has to be convicted to be removed, but the mayor can be convinced to suspend him without pay, pending investigation."
We both nodded at the same time.
"That should give you leverage to find out what the hell happened seven years ago."
"Call your GBI friend and get it rolling."
Diego pulled out his phone and held it to his ear as it rang. "Lorenzo, qué pasa ?"
He left my office, and I sat, feeling very much like someone who deserved to have his world crumble around him.
God, I'd been such a righteous fucker with Nova, and all along, I'd been the asshole.
My phone beeped, and I saw it was my mother. She was still on the warpath about Bailey and me breaking up.
Mama: I need you to make dinner this evening. Tyler will be proposing to Alma .
Poor fucking man, I thought, to be married to a woman like Alma when he was in love with someone else. My story wasn't so different. I'd tried to make it work with Bailey because it would be easier from a societal perspective. Well, not when she was fuckin' Pete and was going to be charged with embezzlement, I thought smugly.
I tried to analyze how I'd gotten here, to this place where I was alone, not that I didn't deserve to be. Why had it been easier to believe Pete over Nova? It was simple. I'd known him all my life and I trusted him. I'd known Bailey for just as long.
Nova had been an unknown, and even though I'd fallen in love with her, I didn't trust her. In my world, trust was earned over the years, built brick by brick through shared experiences and proven loyalty. Nova hadn't had the time to lay those foundations. Her sudden entry into my life had been a whirlwind, and I'd let my guard down too quickly, something I never did.
I sighed, rubbing my temples as I replayed the events in my mind. Maybe it was my upbringing, the ingrained belief that people had to prove themselves to me. Pete had been my friend since childhood; we had a history, a bond forged through nearly a lifetime of camaraderie and mutual respect. Nova, on the other hand, was a wildcard. She represented change and the unfamiliar, and I'd always been wary of both.
But now, in the quiet of this moment, I began to see my mistakes. Trust wasn't about the length of time I'd known someone but about their actions and integrity. Nova had shown me nothing but honesty and vulnerability, yet I'd allowed my doubts and fears to cloud my judgment.
Had I let my insecurities and need for control dictate my actions? The answer was painfully clear now. I had been too afraid to trust someone new in my life, too scared to open my heart completely. That had resulted in Nova getting hurt repeatedly. Now, I hoped it wasn't too late to make things right, for both Nova and me.