Chapter 11 #2
Remy clears his throat. "Your grandmother would have wanted to be here to see you get married, Burn and Dare."
I narrow my eyes and tilt my head, trying to puzzle out what he’s saying. My grandmother did want her grandsons to marry well. She told us so many times. But she’s been dead for years now.
“So why is this suddenly so important?”
Remy holds up his hand, stealing my thoughts.
"I know that everyone here is interested in controlling interest in our family company. You’re all bloodthirsty bastards, so I don’t have to ask what you are thinking.
You’re thinking of yourselves. Which…… You don’t have to explain anything to me.
I am as capitalist as they come." He looks around, his eyebrows rising.
"I am going to give the reins of the company over to one of my grandsons.
Whichever of them marries and has a child first."
"What?” my father asks, sounding horrified. "What about the rest of us?"
Remy jabbed a finger at him, halting his words. "Shut up, Tripp. You cut yourself off when you all but killed your wife with your drinking. You and your brother will both get a token amount of my money and not a penny more."
With my mouth hanging wide open, I try to take in Remy’s demands. My pulse thunders loudly in my ears.
Married? I never thought about getting married, not since Daisy left me. And now I’m supposed to do it just because my grandfather makes it part of an inheritance race?
Remy glances between my brother and me. My brother appears to be the polar opposite of frozen, which is how I am feeling. He looks at me, smirking.
Nothing has to be spoken between us for me to understand just what he is thinking. He has already asked Daisy to marry him. That’s the very first step. He is already light years ahead of me, and I know it, which makes my blood boil.
Remy makes a gesture, like he’s being perfectly reasonable.
"Look, twelve months to put a grandchild in front of me.
Perhaps eighteen months, if you really have to try.
" He gives me and my brother a cold smile.
"You shouldn’t have to. When I married your grandmother, she was pregnant within a month. "
"If we don’t follow through with your orders?" I find myself asking. "What if we have trouble?"
He sits back in his chair, regarding the room with pursed lips.
"Well, then I would have to start looking outside the family.
Maybe even selling the company and giving the proceeds to charity when I die.
" He leans forward suddenly, almost seeming as though he is going to fall out of his chair.
He stops himself on the edge of his desk, peering around the room as if issuing a challenge.
"Don’t make me give the money I worked so hard for away. Bring me a grandchild, both of you."
"Don’t you mean a great-grandchild?” my dad asks.
"God dammit, Tripp!" My granddad wheezes. "I am skipping a generation, obviously. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like you all to get the fuck out of my office. Burn and Dare have some sweet-talking to do. And the rest of you can get out of the way of men who were actually working."
I stand here, completely shell-shocked by my grandfather’s demand.
A family? Kids? Marriage? My whole life, my grandfather has always been so staunchly pro-money, pro-capitalist, and anti-charity. And now this sudden threat to give away everything he worked so hard for?
My Uncle Felix stands up, pointing a finger at Remy. "You’re unwell, Dad. You sound like a madman."
My grandfather smacks his lips, giving Felix a heavy dose of side eye.
"You. You’re the worst one in the whole family.
You’re a leech and a money grubber. In my will, you get one hundred thousand dollars and not a cent more.
Not a cemetery plot, not a vacation house, not the deed to this mansion. You can rot for all I care."
Trembling with fury, Felix glares at his father.
"If I am fucked up, it’s only because of the way that you raised me. Look at me. Look at Tripp. Is that the way that you want your own kids to be?"
"As far as I’m concerned, Burn and Dare are my only sons. You were an aberration. I love your mother, but she definitely raised you wrong."
"We’ll sue you. Right, Tripp?" He looks at my dad, and my dad gives a weary sigh.
"I don’t know. Whatever."
Remy chuckles. "If you know what’s good for you, Felix, you will toe the line and pretend to be a doting son in hopes that I have a fucking change of heart. Who knows, perhaps on my deathbed I will reconsider."
Felix shakes his head, trembling with his rage. He whirls and stomps out of the room, leaving the rest of us to look after his retreating figure.
"Well? Go on then. Get the fuck out." Remy gestures, shooing us out of his office. “Except Dare and Burn. I have something to tell you.”
I glance at Burn, wondering what it could possibly be. He arches his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything as the men leave us.
Clive is there to close the doors to Remy’s study behind us, leaving Burn, Remy, and me. Remy rocks back in his chair, his lips thinning.
“Since you two are in the running for CEO, I figured you are ready to hear all the news about Morgan Oil, the bad along with the good.”
I furrow my brow, trying to figure out what good news Remy gave us. But Burn gives Remy a complacent smile, returning to his favorite perch on the corner of Remy’s desk.
“We’re all ears, Remy.”
Remy looks at him tartly and then opens a drawer in his desk, pulling out a thick dark binder. He waves it at us and then drops it on his desk with a thud.
“You have a decision to make. Our family money is funded through… let’s say less than clean sources. Namely smuggling heroin into the country from Canada.”
My jaw drops. Burn’s expression is one of puzzlement.
“I’m sorry, did you say heroin?” I clarify. Remy must mean something else and I’m struggling to understand right now.
Surely that is it.
Remy looks at both of us with a smug smile.
“What, did you think that I built this whole empire on some oil fields? No. I’m handing down what my father and his father worked their whole lives to build.
Our family has always done very well because we’ve always been able to smuggle in anything we wanted.
Heroin, cocaine, girls… I’ve made a lot of money loan sharking, too. ”
I choke a little. “Girls? You mean…”
“Like prostitutes?” Burn asks, his tone accusatory. “Loan sharks? What are you talking about, Remy? Are you feeling all right?”
Remy slides his gaze between Burn and me.
“We have always smuggled in the best stuff from wherever we could source it. It’s the backbone of our family business.
The oil fields and fracking and all that…
that part of the business is booming now.
But unfortunately, while I was making that part successful, my business partner was in charge of the heroin and the girls. And he made a mistake.”
I straighten, a buzzing sensation in my head. “Mr. Adams? Mr. Adams was your business partner in this… side business?”
Remy nods and flips the binder open. He pushes it across the desk, pursing his lips. “Not a side business. It was the main business when I took up the reins. Now it’s mostly in the rearview, but we have a huge problem.”
Stepping forward, I pull the binder close. The very first thing I see is a huge picture of the inside of a shipping container. The doors hang open and inside, there are bodies.
Twenty or so that I can see, mostly dark haired, mostly slumped on the floor of the container.
All dressed casually, in jeans and lightweight jackets.
One of the young women is posed, turned with her face out, her head leaning on her arm.
Her complexion looks ever so slightly blue and her pupils are cloudy.
There are no other signs of her being dead aside from her not moving.
Below the picture, a headline summarizes. 23 People Found Dead After Being Trafficked By Human Smuggling Ring; Police Say They Are Closing In On Perps.
“What the fuck?” Burn murmurs. “What is this, Remy?”
“A mistake,” Remy says with a shrug. “Charles Adams was here earlier, falling all over himself to explain how it happened on his watch.”
I scoff. “A mistake? This is… this is murder, Remy.”
Remy points a finger at me, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Do you two really want to get into the nitty gritty details of who did what? Or do you want to know why I am involving you?”
That sucks the air out of the room lightning fast. “Ideally, we’d like to know both.”
Remy grips his cane and shoves to his feet with some difficulty, snarling.
“You fucking brats. I provided you with everything you ever wanted your whole goddamned lives. Now you’re going to look at me like you had no idea?
If that’s true, then be glad.” He whips the binder off the table and it flies to the wall with a whap, falling with a thunk.
“Be glad that I sacrificed for you two! I didn’t have to. I chose to!!”
I am speechless. Burn swallows hard and glances at me.
Remy falls back in his chair, appearing disgusted with both of us.
“This whole mess has to be put on somebody’s shoulders.
We are going to turn someone into the cops and they will probably go away for life.
So I called you two ungrateful bastards in here because I would like you two to be a part of the decision making process.
I’m leaning away from Charles, because there is a ton of shit about company business that he could tell the cops.
” He winces, flip flopping his hand. “There is always the possibility of killing Charles and letting the cops find his suicide note… but I think it raises more questions concerning the company than it answers about his mistake. So I’m asking…
who do you think should go down for this? ”
“Remy, I don’t think I have an answer for you,” Burn says.
Remy slams his hand on his desk. “You’d better! I’m thinking that your father or your uncle Felix would work, but there are fifteen people in the company that this fiasco can be put on.”
I clear my throat. This whole situation is bizarre. Could Remy be making it all up just to fuck with us?
“Just so I’m clear, whoever we suggest would probably end up murdered as well, right? That’s what we’re talking about? Murder for hire?”
Remy inclines his head once, something dark flickering in his eyes. He checks his watch then shrugs.
“My next conference call is in a couple of minutes. I have to hit the head. You two can see yourselves out.”
He reaches over and pushes a buzzer on his desk, using his cane to get to his feet. He lurches toward the bathroom and doesn’t give us another glance.
I look at my brother, mouthing, what the fuck?
Burn shakes his head. In a second, Clive rolls the pocket doors open, his expression apologetic as he shoos us out of the room.
"Mr. Morgan has several more phone calls this afternoon. It is unfortunate that he cannot see anyone for the rest of the day."
Crossing my arms, I shoot him a glare. "It’s nice that you care about us enough to explain anything, Clive. But we’re not fools. We know exactly who Remy is."
Burn snorts but does not say anything. He just turns, looking for Daisy. She comes tripping down the hall, a greedy smile on her face. She throws herself into Burn’s arms.
I feel my own arms tensing. Not that long ago, I was the recipient of Daisy’s attention. Now I am just another bystander, sentenced to watch her fawn all over my twin. A sick feeling pervades my stomach, making me disgusted by everything I see.
Burn doesn’t even notice that I am watching. Instead, he grabs Daisy and swings her around, making the kind of eye contact that makes the rest of the world fade away. There are only Burn and Daisy in their happy little bubble.
"So? What was the meeting about?" Daisy asks, her voice excited.
"The old man declared that whichever of his grandsons marries and has a baby first gets the entire business. Since we're already engaged, that means that I’m going to run the company.” He gives her waist a squeeze. “You hear that? I’m going to run the company, baby."
She is less excited now, but still lets Burn hug her.
I notice that Burn doesn’t say any of the stuff about dead prostitutes in shipping containers to Daisy. Then again, if I were in his position, I wouldn’t either. I’m not even sure if Remy’s story is true.
He could just be playing us against each other, seeing who would do his bidding the fastest.
Daisy makes a kissy face and Burn leans in to kiss her, seemingly already lost in Daisy charms.
"You two idiots," I snarl. They turn and look at me, their eyebrows both rising in surprise. It’s like they really forgot that they were in front of an audience.
Daisy rolls her eyes delicately. "Dare…"
"You’re going to lose, Burn.”
Burn scowls at me, his neck heating slightly. "It sounds like you’re scared, Dare."
He kisses Daisy on the lips again, looking deep into her eyes once more. "Do not listen to his lunacy. He’s just a lone man, howling angrily into the wind."
She glances at me, then slides her eyes back to him.
She grins and kisses his lips, smacking them passionately in a way that is overboard and disgustingly sugary.
She hugs him, burying her face in his jacket.
As soon as she is not looking, Burn looks dead at me and draws a finger across his throat, imitating a knife.
I shake my head, not interested in inflicting their happiness upon myself anymore.
I leave the estate, huffing all the while, more determined than ever that I will destroy their relationship.
I will get Talia on tape, describing the sex with Burn.
Then I will show it to Daisy and sit back as Daisy rejects Burn.
Then I’ll figure out if any of this dead prostitutes business even happened and decide what to do about it from there.
I leave the house and get into my Porsche, gunning the engine and heading towards town.