Chapter 17 #3
Leo dropped his volume to match Simon’s, and Simon chalked up yet another little victory in his head. “I just got off the phone with Phil.”
“Did he have news about the case?” Simon asked, drawing on his deep well of patience as Leo took the seat across from him and snapped his fingers at Perry.
“Bring me a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred—I’ll be able to tell the difference—and make it extra dirty.”
Thankfully, Perry was paid well enough to do what he was told, as well as to have the discretion to leave the dining room as soon as he’d delivered Leo’s drink.
“So, the judge wouldn’t dismiss the ‘evidence’”—he paired the exaggerated air quotes he’d made with an equally exaggerated eye roll, even though the evidence in question was literally his own DNA that he’d been too stupid not to leave behind—“even though Phil tried. It’s bullshit, because everyone knows I didn’t do anything and I’m being set up.
Some dirty cop probably planted my DNA there so he could try to take me down.
That Markswell guy, I bet. He looked shady AF. ”
Maxwell, Simon silently corrected before reining Leo back in. The judge had made her ruling days ago, and Runner had told Simon about it less than an hour after the ink had dried on the court documents. He needed updates, not history. “Did Phil have anything new to add? Maybe about the DNA?”
“Right, yeah.” Leo paused for a gulp of his martini, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Heathen. “He doesn’t think that’s going to matter, because according to his sources, the fire at the lab was catastrophical.”
That Simon didn’t blink at Leo’s condescending tone or his use of a word he’d invented in order to look smarter was a true testament to his patience. “Catastrophic.”
“Exactly,” Leo crowed. He slapped a hand on the table, sending a slosh of briny liquid from the martini glass onto the pristine cream-colored tablecloth.
“If the fake evidence was destroyed, that’s easy.
Done. That bitchy A.D.A. can’t take me down with DNA that doesn’t even exist. No proof, no charges.
Without the DNA to back it up, she can’t even mention the fact that it once existed. It’s, like, gone.”
This had been the driving factor in Simon’s plan. Forensic evidence might not lie, but it also didn’t talk, like judges or jurors who’d been bribed. Taking the DNA out of the picture by torching it had been the smartest play, although not easy by any means.
Also, not one hundred percent foolproof. “What if the evidence wasn’t destroyed?” Simon asked, but Leo waved a dismissive hand through the air.
“Simon. My guy,” he tsked. “You’re such a wallbanger of doom.”
Simon closed his eyes, just briefly, as he prayed for patience. “I think you might mean harbinger.”
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty smart about this stuff.
Anyway, I’m not worried about the DNA. Phil said that lab is fucking toast, and the fire department has no leads on who torched it.
The best part? It wasn’t me. I was here at the restaurant all night.
But it’s crazy luck, right? Someone else sets a huge-ass fire and takes care of all my problems.”
“I engineered your luck,” was what Simon wanted to say, while hitting Leo in the face with a brick until what little brain he possessed leaked from his ears.
But he locked down his control and held his tongue.
As badly as he wanted to, he couldn’t tell Leo he’d been the one to orchestrate the whole thing.
He’d spent hours examining the building’s layout, planning the most careful way to set the fire.
While Simon would’ve strongly preferred to do everything himself, he’d had no choice but to enlist Runner’s assistance with the security system.
The loop—a rather good one, if the price tag was anything to go by—had given Simon the time he’d needed to get into the lab undetected and the access to strategically place the ethanol, then ignite the fire.
Everything he’d needed, right down to the accelerant and the HazMat suit that had protected him from both the fumes and the heat, had been right there on-site.
The risk had made it impossible for him to stay long after the blaze had begun.
Getting away with the whole plan only to be caught in his getaway wouldn’t do.
But the video footage Runner had been able to tap into once the loop had been removed was proof enough that the blaze had served its purpose.
The fire had been catastrophic. And Leo’s DNA kit had burned the longest. Which meant Simon got to keep Leo just where he wanted him.
Under his thumb, where the arrogant little shit stain belonged.
Simon looked at Leo, returning to the moment. “Some guys have all the luck,” he agreed.
The buzz of an incoming text on his cell phone, discretely tucked into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, snared his attention, his pulse escalating the tiniest bit at the burner phone number listed on the screen.
“I have some matters to attend,” he murmured, the deference in his voice tasting rancid, even though it was necessary.
Leo laughed, throwing back the last of his martini. “I guess that is what I pay you for,” he said as Simon retreated to his office, pulling his phone back out to make the call.
“Go ahead, caller, you’re on the air with Gray,” came a low, pleasant voice, and Simon huffed in frustration.
“I’m responding to your message. I assume this line is secure.”
Runner snorted. “You’re paying me to be a smartass, not a dumbass. Anyway, I want to go to prison about as badly as you do, so, yeah. This line is fucking bulletproof.”
“Point taken,” Simon said. “What do you have for me?”
“Could be nothing,” Runner said, but Simon shook his head.
“You don’t deal in nothing, and you don’t call me for fun. Talk.”
Runner let out a single bark of laughter. “I like you, Simon. You cut right through the shit. There was a bit of interesting activity at the lab yesterday afternoon.”
Simon inhaled, keeping his voice perfectly metered despite the unease brewing in his gut. “I’m listening.”
“Two people showed up at the scene, a man and a woman. He had a badge.” Runner paused, and Simon could hear the soft click of a keyboard. “They masked up and went in for a look-see. Stayed less than an hour, then took off.”
“I thought you said the arson investigation was complete,” Simon said.
“It is,” Runner said. “Or it was supposed to be. This could just be one last sweep of the building to see if they missed anything. The place has been quiet ever since. But I haven’t seen these two before, so I thought you’d want to know.”
Simon knew this was likely nothing. A formality.
A last-ditch attempt at putting fresh eyes on a scene in order to find a trail he’d been too smart to leave behind.
But he needed complete control over the situation if he was going to fix Leo’s fuck up.
Leaving anything to chance, even a small detail, wasn’t part of his plan.
“Find out who they are,” he bit out before ending the call. No one was going to stand in the way of him and the empire that was rightfully his.
Not if they wanted to live.