Chapter 31
NOLAN - ONE MONTH LATER
Back in San Francisco, I sat in the private wine cellar dining room of the restaurant my family owned in Fisherman’s Wharf. I needed privacy for what I was about to do. Privacy, with the illusion of it being a public place for my invitees.
I sipped on my glass of scotch and waited.
The liquor kept thoughts of Val from intruding too much, but in the month since I’d left Hale’s Peak, she sprinted through my head at all hours.
Seeing tabloid pictures of her and Anton, blissful and huddled close together, felt like hot needles shoved under my fingernails.
Even after everything, she still went through with her plan.
And it had worked brilliantly. The rumor mill was squarely focused on their fling, giving Cressida and I the opportunity to quietly decouple in the background.
By the end of the year, we’d release a joint statement about our breakup. Things were working out well.
But I was an idiot.
An idiot, and a moron, and I had brought this on myself. And it had taken losing Val for me to see it all clearly.
I’d had so many opportunities to tell Val about the sale, but I’d chosen to remain silent.
It wasn’t because I didn’t trust her—it was because I didn’t trust myself.
Cressida was right. I’d grown so accustomed to people chewing me up and spitting me out, discarding me once they’d gotten their quick fuck or whatever else they wanted.
It had led to a lifetime of superficial relationships, and I was always waiting to get stabbed in the back.
But then I’d met Val. And ever since, I’d been hiding behind my sense of duty to my mother, my career goals, anything to avoid facing the truth—that I had already fallen for Val, and that I was fucking terrified.
I didn’t know how to be in a real relationship with real feelings.
I’d never done it before. So to protect myself, I’d created a situation designed to blow up.
Lying to her about the sale was my ripcord, my backup plan to sabotage the relationship if somehow, we decided to stay together after the ski season ended.
If Val left me because I made her do it, it would be less painful than if I showed her all of me and told her how I really felt, and she rejected me anyway.
Except now that I’d lost her, the whole thing sounded even more stupid.
But I would fix it.
In our month apart, I hadn’t been idle. I’d kept my distance—partially to preserve Val’s cover story and partially because I felt like the scum of the earth—but I was fighting for her, and soon, she’d know it.
I hadn’t earned the right to grovel at her feet, but I would.
Tonight was the first step in winning her back.
And after the board voted in a few days, everything would be set to rights again.
And then I’d go get my woman.
A lot was riding on tonight. If it didn’t go well, my plan for how to deal with the board would go up in flames. But failure wasn’t an option.
As I finished my drink, my first guest arrived.
Cyrus sauntered into the room looking powerful in a black suit with his hair slicked back.
He sat in the seat across from me at the dining table and poured himself a glass of wine.
There were no servers or kitchen staff here today. This was not a dinner meeting.
This was an ambush.
“What is so important that I needed to cancel my meetings this close to the board’s vote?” Cyrus asked.
“Do you need more time to scrape together a half-assed plan in an attempt to depose me?” I asked.
Cyrus pursed his lips and I suppressed a smile. One point for Nolan.
“You must be busy since you haven’t been at Hale’s Peak,” he noted.
I ignored his attempt to dig for information. Then my second guest walked in, right on cue.
“Robert Wilhelm? What’s he doing here?” Cyrus asked, twisting in his seat with barely concealed incredulity to stare at the shorter blond man. He was rattled. I smiled as Robert took a seat and smoothed his tie, helping himself to the wine.
“I invited him. Obviously.” I sat back and waited for the final guest. Five minutes later, a man around Robert’s age walked in.
He sported a military-style buzz cut and a gray suit to match his steely eyes, a toothpick in its customary place between his teeth.
“Jason Jesko,” I said with a thin smile. “Have a seat.”
Jason, my security guy, occupied the remaining chair, looking at Cyrus and Robert with open suspicion. “What is it, szef?” said Jason. “We usually do these things over the phone.”
The word scraped against my raw nerves like a rusty nail.
That singular, damning word.
I put my glass on the table and steepled my hands, ready for war.
“I’ve called you here to give you one chance to confess.
Jason, due to your criminal negligence, Tamara Keller died on January 12, 2004.
You sabotaged the ski lift, chair number 44.
Tamara got on the chair, a gust of wind broke it, and she fell to her death. ”
Jason’s gunmetal gaze gave nothing away as he waited for me to continue.
“But it wasn’t your idea, of course,” I said. “You were working for someone. And that someone was Robert.”
Sweat beaded on Robert’s upper lip as he adjusted his tie. Guilty.
“I looked back into your career at the time, Robert,” I continued.
“You weren’t doing so well. A newbie in the real estate world.
A rubber ducky trying to swim with the sharks.
Getting Hale’s Peak to finally sell, though, and being the one to broker the deal?
That would launch your career into the stratosphere.
“So, you hired a private security firm—also up and coming at the time—to do your dirty work. Sabotage a ski lift, shut down the slopes, spook Arthur into selling. Conveniently being there to put the bug in his ear about how the property would fetch a handsome price with developers if he thought it was best to cut his losses.”
Uncovering the motivations behind the ski lift sabotage had taken weeks of work, but once I’d found the right names, it wasn’t hard to get Robert’s contacts at Jason’s security firm to sing. And, my team of lawyers threatening them into oblivion helped speed things along.
During my monologue, Cyrus had been growing increasingly agitated, clutching the edge of the table in both hands.
Finally, he exploded. “Except the blowhard didn’t anticipate that my fucking wife would be the one to fall victim to his idiotic schemes,” Cyrus sneered, and I smiled yet again.
The bastard was playing right into my hands, too narcissistic to deny his role in all of this.
“And this is where you come into the story, Cyrus,” I said.
“You’re the true mastermind, not Robert.
You’ve never hidden the fact that you’ve wanted to sell Hale’s Peak for years.
I thought it was because it was a reminder of Mom’s death, but now I know better.
You wanted to sell so that nobody would catch wind of what you’d done. ”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Cyrus’s voice was deadly calm, but his throat bobbed in a nervous swallow.
Got you.
“My forensic accountants found something very interesting in Keller Resorts’ financial records from that year,” I continued.
“Large payments to shell corporations for undisclosed reasons. Which were then traced to two people: Robert Wilhelm and Jason Jesko. Payments made and authorized by you, Father.”
I let the bomb sit and watched as it silently exploded in front of me.
Robert—the slimy snake—froze, his face pinched in fear.
Jason sat back, arms crossed, eying Cyrus.
My father did not relinquish his grip on the table as he locked gazes with me, and it took everything in me to refrain from strangling the bastard where he sat.
“Those payments don’t prove anything,” Cyrus said.
“Maybe not, but the fact that you’re concerned about it does.
I have a witness who can place Jason at the scene.
And I know Robert asked Tess about that night when he was at the gala.
Right, Robert?” I didn’t know for a fact, but it stood to reason that he’d only been at the resort to keep an eye on me and make sure I didn’t discover anything I wasn’t supposed to.
His paling face was confirmation enough.
“What do you want, Nolan?” my father asked. “That case is done and shut, and you may think you have new evidence, but it’s all circumstantial. It’s not enough to reopen it and land a conviction.”
“I want the truth, Cyrus. I want to hear you say it.”
Cyrus’s dark brows lowered over black eyes. “Or what.”
“Or I’ll take this to The Daily Gab. They’ll print anything. And I’m sure Stefan will relish the opportunity to take you down.”
“I’ll sue them for libel.”
“The Alistairs have deep pockets. And by that point, the story will already be out there. It might be enough to get some enterprising young investigators to dig into an old case. I happen to have a few in mind.” I didn’t, but it wouldn’t be hard to find some.
True crime podcasters were all the rage, and they’d latch on to this story in a heartbeat.
Cyrus gnashed his molars together. “You really want this kind of scandal right before a vote? At the tail end of your first year as CEO? You may have dodged a bullet with keeping your broken engagement under wraps—clever, by the way. But this will tank the stocks and the shareholders will have your head on a platter.”
“If it means you go down with me, I’ll do it.” And I will do whatever it takes to win Val back. Because destroying what remained of my family and its fortune, I could handle. But losing Val forever? Unacceptable. In every vision of my future I’d had over the past month, Val was beside me.
My eyes bored into Cyrus’s, unblinking. I wanted to throttle him for allowing his narcissism and greed to deprive me and my brothers of a life with our mother. He deserved everything that was coming to him, and then some.
After an interminable moment, Cyrus let out a growl.
“Yes, all right? Yes. Various buyers have been approaching us about Hale’s Peak ever since we built it, but Arthur never wanted to sell.
Back then, I had a buyer set up, but I was working through Robert so it couldn’t be traced back to me.
Arthur was still the CEO, and I didn’t want to risk my job by openly moving against him.
So Robert and I came up with a plan to orchestrate a ski lift accident.
“It was just supposed to be a few loose bolts. Just a close enough call to scare people off and show Arthur the resort was too much of a liability. Nobody was supposed to get hurt—least of all Tamara. There was a high wind advisory that day with gusts over forty miles per hour, and it’s the only reason the chair broke off the lift.
It was easy to get the whole thing ruled as a freak accident, especially with no witnesses and no evidence to the contrary.
” Cyrus rubbed a hand over his face. “But I loved your mother, and it crushed me that I was the reason she was dead. Fucking Robert and Jason too.”
At Cyrus’s molten glare, Robert shifted in his seat, but Jason sat in a stone-cold silence.
But Cyrus continued as if the two of them weren’t there.
“That’s why Robert’s never made a name for himself.
Erica is as close as he’ll ever get to any kind of fame since I can’t outright murder the bastard—that would get back to me.
But I can make sure he never accomplishes anything for the rest of his miserable life.
And Jason, I assured he was doomed to only work small jobs for our family.
He’s blacklisted everywhere else. We have him by the balls.
Keep your enemies closer, and all that.”
Finished, Cyrus sat back and showed me his palms. “So there’s your truth, Nolan. What are you going to do with it?”
I’d known I was right, but hearing it from him directly had my blood boiling. How could one man be so fucking selfish?
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t have enough proof to get you convicted.
I do, however, have a video I’ve just recorded of this entire conversation”—I pointed to the hidden security camera with state-of-the-art, crystal-clear audio receptors mounted in the top corner of the room—“so it’s enough to ruin all of you, even though the recording won’t hold up in court.
The internet doesn’t much care about that. ”
It wasn’t the justice my mother deserved, but it was the best I could do. For the first time tonight, my father looked genuinely afraid. Jason’s toothpick had ground into shrapnel between his teeth, and Robert, the spineless jellyfish that he was, looked petrified.
My father’s lips thinned with barely restrained fury. “Name your price.”
“Jason and Robert, you’re both to leave town immediately.
As added incentive, I’ve instructed some of Cressida’s media contacts to publish damning stories about how you’ve swindled your clients and abandoned the city.
Probably not too far from the truth, am I right?
” At their shifty looks, I savored the triumphant feeling buzzing in my chest. “If I catch a whiff of either of you anywhere near any of my circles, I’ll use every resource at my disposal to pick you apart piece by piece until you have nothing left. ”
Then I turned to my father, who watched me with narrowed eyes.
“And Cyrus, you’ll retire from your position as CFO, effective immediately.
You’ll go to some faraway island where I never have to see your fucking face again.
And you will personally tell Arthur and my brothers about what you’ve done.
You’ll also sway the board to approve my proposal and withdraw your competing offer. ”
“I can’t tell the board what to do. They still have to approve by a majority.”
“You will persuade them.” I knew he had pull with the old fuddy-duddies on the board.
They could always vote to sell the place to another buyer, but lining up a new sale would take time, and my plan could be put into action right away—once I hammered out all the details.
I was still waiting on a few things to fall into place.
“Do we understand each other?” I gave each man at the table a loaded glance filled with all the menace I could muster.
It wasn’t difficult—these assholes should all be wearing concrete boots and sinking to the bottom of the bay right now.
I was letting them off easy. I waited until I received a verbal “yes” from each of them.
“Good. Now get the fuck out.”