Chapter 11
Rick
The deck seating at Angelo’s was stunning. I’d never actually been there on a sunny, warm day; most of the time it was impossible to get a table, even on days with shitty weather. But when it came to landing a coveted dining spot, it helped to be friends with Will Ellison.
The outdoor section was cantilevered out from the fourth story of the soaring office building and featured see-through railings, and huge sections of the floor beneath us that were plexiglass cut-outs affording a dizzying but exciting view of the street below. The food was outstanding, the view even better, and the clientèle top shelf. Most especially my dining partner, looking dapper in a navy single-breasted suit that a man of his imposing size shouldn’t have been able to pull off. But Will did.
He was a tad grayer than he was the last time I’d seen him, many months prior, but he was still lean, tall, and just about as ruthless a son of a bitch—and yet one who still managed to stay just this side of the law—as I’d ever met.
Five years ago, we’d crossed paths in… not the best of circumstances. But it had worked out, in the end, and a well-timed assist I’d lent him in a bid to find some dirt on a hated corporate rival had resulted in me traveling in his circles from that point onward. It had been a profitable business relationship, and one that had evolved into a good friendship over the years.
“You remember the Clandes Group trade? The one Becker got pinched for?”
It was an insider trading rap, one that I only had passing familiarity with, but a situation Will had been inextricably tangled in, since Becker’s company and Will’s had been in an ongoing—and quite bitter—competition in a takeover bid for Clandes.
“Becker was looking at five to ten in the gray bar hotel last time I heard.”
Will grimaced, stubbing out his cigar in a sparkling cut glass tray. “Don’t know how, but that slippery son of a bitch wriggled out of it. They dropped the fucking case.”
I hated tobacco, but Will allowed himself a fine Cuban now and then. He’d called it a vice, as if it was one of the only ones he indulged.
But I knew better than that.
“Made a deal?”
Will nodded, sipping from a glass of water, the stem catching the dazzling sunlight.
“How does that, uh, look for you?” We both knew the answer. Becker loathed Will, and any deal he made with the SEC probably meant the prick would try to drag Ellison Industries down into that cesspool with him.
“Not great, but it’ll go away, eventually. Nothing there. I’ve already had a sit down with the lead agent. Went nowhere.”
Fortunately, Will had an ace in the hole too. Namely his brother, Stanton—who just happened to be a senior attorney for the Department of Justice.
I’d always had to keep Will at a little bit of an arm’s length, due to who his brother was. Fortunately, Stanton was most definitely not a Boy Scout either. But considering the clients I was tasked with assisting, my need to stay well away from even a tangential association with a Fed was, well, it wasn’t even a question.
Fortunately, Will understood that, and accepted it without issue.
“Need your brother’s help on it?”
Will shrugged, gazing out over the city. “Not unless I need to—which I won’t. I used up… quite a few favors with him with what I had to do for Alyson.”
One of the reasons he and I were friends was that we were so similar in outlook and temperament. Like me, Will would—and did—do whatever it took to get what he wanted. But he would fiercely protect those he loved, and anyone in his inner circle. Though it had always gone unspoken, it was a quality we did admire in one another.
“Do you plan on telling me why you wanted to meet for lunch?” Will gave me a wink, laying an elbow on the beveled glass of the tabletop. “You and I go back a ways, and I don’t ever remember you being the sort given to shooting the shit over a one o’clock and some drinks. I’d have brought Alyson along if I’d known this was just going to be a friendly chat.”
“How is she, anyway? Haven’t seen her in months.”
“Oh, she’s at home. You know, doing the kept woman thing.”
She’d managed to get herself in quite the jam that Will had needed to extricate her from. Aftermath of her piece of shit ex screwing the pooch royally with the sort of men who didn’t take kindly to even a single fucking dime of their money going missing.
Will had rescued her… then decided to keep her for himself. For good.
The man absolutely adored her—and her young son—but she was not only his wife, she was a very strictly controlled, owned plaything too.
Will’s most prized possession.
Ellison plucked up his phone from the tabletop, punching something in. Then he slid it across the glass to me. “Have a look.”
There was a quick video of Alyson playing on the screen. It was in his kitchen, presumably. She was very pregnant.
“How far along now?” I asked, not lifting my gaze from the screen, entranced at what I was watching.
“Thirty-two weeks. Be thirty-three in a couple days.”
The blonde-haired beauty wore nothing but a form-fitting bodysuit thing that showed off her huge belly, her very generous breasts nearly falling out of the wide-open bodice. The long, tight cream skirt she wore forced her to move somewhat slowly. Her hands were bound in front of her, the leather cuffs clasping her wrists linked by a short length of chain. She had a black leather collar around her neck, while she haltingly swept the tile floor of the kitchen.
“With her boy at school now—I got him into Bradenton Academy—she’s got a lot more idle time on her hands during the day,” Will said. “Once a month or so, I’ll assign her a whole page of chores to do—and make it a tad more challenging for her to complete them on time. When she fails—and most of the time, she does—she gets disciplined for it.” Will chuckled softly. “It’s just one of the things that we do that I get off on, and she gets excited by it, too.”
“Don’t you make any concessions for her, ah, condition? Safety and all?”
Will smiled. “Those are the concessions. Normally on those days she’s in cuffs and her ankles are hobbled too—and she’s tottering around on six-inch heels. I usually have her in a four-point harness too—which means the central chain isn’t long enough for her to stand up straight. Either she can extend her arms, which means crouching, or she can extend her legs, which draws her hands down to her waist. But she doesn’t get to do both at the same time. Not until I get home and unlock her, anyway.”
“Makes it a little tough to reach things up high, don’t you think?”
Will tipped his head. “She manages well enough.”
I was totally entranced by it, but in my mind, I couldn’t help but imagine Geneva in that very same outfit, under similar restrictions. I even pictured her being totally swollen with my babies and how that might work. A big man like me, impregnating someone like her, the tiny little slip of a woman giving birth to my children.
My cock was suddenly so hard I had to shift my position in order to conceal it under the glass table.
Where the fuck did all of that come from?
I realized then that I’d been thinking an awful lot about the girl. Why had she already gotten so far under my skin?
You’re ridiculous.
Will seemed to pick up on it as I handed the phone back to him. “Let me guess—it’s about a girl. What’s on your mind, chief? There’s something going on with you.”
I sighed, unaccountably uneasy about bringing the subject up. “I’ve got this new intern.”
Will grinned. “So, it is about a girl.”
“Who said she was a girl?”
One of Will’s eyebrows shot up. “You saying she isn’t?”
“Well, no, it’s a girl.”
We both laughed at that.
“I, uh, didn’t want it but Chester kind of made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Chester?” Will scratched his chin. “His last name wouldn’t happen to be Nantes, would it?”
“Yup—the same.”
“Interesting…”
“You know the guy?”
Nantes was knee-deep in construction, with a ton of city contracts to boot. But he did plenty of work for other, less than legitimate businesses too.
Which was typically where I got involved.
“No, but heard of him. Nasty, from what I’ve been told. Kind of a throwback. He a client of yours, I take it?”
“A big one, yeah.” I finished my scotch, the burn pleasing and invigorating. “Anyway, he wanted me to take her on for a while. Show her the business, do whatever I needed done around the office. That kind of thing, you know?”
Folding his white cloth napkin, Will dumped it on the table. “Let me guess. She’s easy on the eyes.”
The cityscape shimmered in the early afternoon heat, a subtle layer of brown haze hovering just above the horizon. “She’s gorgeous. Unfortunately. But definitely not my usual type. Very slight. Tiny thing, actually.”
Will’s look was knowing, with perhaps a hint of wariness too. “She’s young, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. I think she’s twenty, or twenty-one?”
Will whistled softly. “Oh, boy…”
“Yeah, pretty much says it.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you’re either fucking her, or considering it.” Will pointed at me. “Am I at least in the ballpark?”
“Might be.” I hated not telling him, but it wasn’t technically lying.
Will blew out a breath. “Well, I’m the very last person who’s going to be chucking stones from the porch of my glass mansion. But I’d have to assume Nantes isn’t the sort who’d approve of one of his business partners having a romp in the hay with his…?”
“Niece.”
“Right. So… I guess you’d better be careful then, hadn’t you?” Will rubbed the back of his neck. “Because before you even know it, they can steal your fucking heart.”
I grunted. “Trust me. My heart’s not involved in this at all. But the other parts of me sure are.”
We both laughed again.
Will raised his hand, addressing the server nearby. “Ma’am? Gonna need the check.”
Heart’s not involved? Do you really believe that—or are you just a liar?