Zander
five
“Please tell me about Harlowe, I’m begging you,” Javi pleads.
I give him a measured look across the booth we are ensconced in with Luca and Diego at Dionysus, where we gathered after work for drinks.
It’s an upscale place with an impressive liquor list and discreet employees, close enough to walk from Olympus Tower that it’s a frequent haunt for us.
I sip my Underworld Spirits bourbon on the rocks before lowering my glass as my mood cools.
“There’s nothing to tell.” I don’t want to share any of her with anyone. Every part of her that was mine stays that way. And it’s safely locked in the vault.
“Why are you so interested, Javi? Other than your absolutely childish crush on her,” Luca says, tracing a bead of condensation from his own glass and eyeing Javi with glacial indifference.
Luca’s icy persona thaws a bit when Payton’s warm, golden retriever personality is around to temper him.
Neither of my brothers joined us tonight, so we get the frosty version that matches his cool-blond hair and arctic blue eyes.
Hayes, of course, wanted to go home to Paige, who owns the distillery that makes this incredible bourbon.
Payton said he had more work to do. He’s been putting in extra hours the last year as we recover from the industrial mining accident that was part of a corporate sabotage plan intended to take our company down a year ago.
We managed to bring the responsible parties to justice, but not before our company image had taken a beating, which has lasted, and we lost a newly acquired property, along with the lives of twenty-four of the mine employees.
While we were able to turn over information on the group who orchestrated the fiasco and get the main people arrested, Payton has been expecting more subterfuge.
The shadowy network of disgruntled former business owners set on seeing the demise of Olympus International is large.
Partly due to our penchant for hostile takeovers and ruthless business acquisitions, and partly because we have what others want—power.
There’s always the possibility of another fucker out for revenge looking to take us down.
“He probably wants to relive a special time in his life,” Diego quips, smirking over the rim of his drink at Javi. “Lord knows he hasn’t had many dates in the last five years to distract him from his Sports Illustrated subscription.”
“Y’all are no fun. Haven’t you ever had a list?” Javi asks, gesturing at us with his tumbler.
“A list?” Luca asks, disdain dripping from his clipped words. He cocks his head to the side as he narrows those unnervingly light eyes at Javi. He looks like a fucking Husky. Shrewd and wolf-like. Ready to howl or hunt. A little psycho. Don't leave him alone or your furniture will end up shredded.
“Yeah, a list of celebrities you would do anything to get with if the opportunity presented itself. Models, actresses, singers, that kind of thing.” He looks around at all of our faces, my own kept carefully neutral.
“Oh, come on, you have to know what I’m talking about!
” he says to our silence. Javi would definitely be a chocolate Lab.
Something loveable and loyal. Maybe a little dumb, but intelligent when it counts.
I bark out a laugh, freeing him from his embarrassment. “Of course we know what you’re talking about. We just usually clear the list and are left with conquests instead.”
Luca and Diego nod in agreement, to Javi’s obvious shock.
“You clear the list? How?!” Javi asks, perplexed. He looks to Luca and Diego next. “I know Zander clears it just by fucking everything that bats an eyelash at him, but what about you two? You’re not fuckboy billionaires.”
“But we’re hot as shit millionaires. And it’s all about who you know,” Luca answers, sitting back with a satisfied grin.
“I’m in PR. I have the contact details for pretty much anyone who is connected in some way to a woman I may want to cross off the list. How do you think I met Keira Jansen?
” His mention of the model half-sister of the Kartwright sisters, a notoriously media-friendly family with a reality show, is a good start to the conversation.
“Or you go to galas and fundraisers and get introduced by mutual acquaintances, which is how I found myself in the bed of none other than Samantha Jeffries,” Diego adds, mentioning one of the hottest up-and-coming young politicians Georgia has seen in years.
“You’re telling me I could have been clearing the list rather than fantasizing about them this whole time? Fuck!” Javi says, dropping his head in defeat.
I chuckle at his abject despondency for all the pussy he has missed out on when it could have been handed to him on a silver platter due to his employment at Olympus. Money and power can indeed get you a whole lot in this world if you want it.
“Cheer up, man. At least now you’ve met Harlowe and can cross her off your list and start working on the others.” I don’t want him fantasizing about how he could get with Harlowe now. She’s off-limits to everyone.
Except for that huge Condors tight end, an insidious voice reminds me.
The smile slides off my face with that truth.
Harlowe is dating fucking Knox Contraire, and that means he’s had his hands all over her.
My stomach sours and I set my bourbon down.
The Atlanta Haute List says they have been linked for the last few months, which means he’s already surpassed my ability to stick around, making him a much better choice for her, realistically.
But a feral part of me doesn’t subscribe to reality and wants to make a call to an associate, one who doesn’t mind cracking kneecaps, and have him take care of Knox, so he’s no longer a rival.
What the fuck am I even thinking? I’m not looking to get back with Harlowe, so I don’t have any rivals that I should be considering taking out, hypothetically or not.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and saves me from the back-and-forth struggle in my brain where Harlowe is concerned. “Wishing you joined us, after all?” I say when I see Payton’s name on the screen.
“I could use you guys back at Olympus,” he says, a note of urgency lacing his tone.
A wave of dread passes through me and I press the phone tighter to my ear to block out some of the bar noise. “What happened?”
“Olympus is under a cyber attack. We’ve had over fifty attempts to breach our servers in the last half hour, and our team is scrambling to keep our firewalls and protections in place.
I already called Hayes. He’s on his way back to the office now.
We need a plan for if they succeed. The team here has started moving assets around so they’re not in danger if the hackers get in, but it’s tight. ”
“We’re leaving now. Give us five and we’ll be there.” I hang up and turn to the guys. “Sorry to disappoint, but we have to go back to work.”
I throw some bills down on the table and stand as they gather their jackets without argument. We’re all attuned to the needs of the business. If even one of them had made a disparaging remark about the time of night or the shittiness of being called back in, they wouldn’t be senior vice presidents.
“Payton says our servers are under attack,” Luca says, reading a text on his phone and filling in Javi and Diego as to why we’re on our way out of the bar and back to work at eight in the evening.
“Do you think it’s the same group that targeted Olympus last year with the South Africa mines?” Diego asks.
“Didn’t they all go to jail? Who would be left to fuck with us now?” Javi answers.
“You think three people organized and executed that level of destruction?” I pose to the three of them.
We shoulder through the doors and out onto the sidewalk. My long stride takes me away from the bar as I look up at the glass and steel skyscraper that houses Olympus International a few blocks over. A feeling of foreboding looms larger than the building itself.
“Gage Geological alone had over a thousand employees unceremoniously let go. Kilowen Industries was torn apart and filtered into our own conglomerate without sparing a single thought for the generations that had created and nurtured it. Don’t even get me started on Donner Investments.
We took their portfolio, but dismantled the whole organization within months of acquisition. ”
“I hear what you’re saying. We have plenty of enemies from those three acquisitions that could be continuing the work of those who headed it up.” Javi’s voice carries a note of anger, and I look over at him. “It’s just business. They didn’t have to take it so personally.”
Luca laughs, the sound ringing coldly around us as we enter the tower lobby. “I think they showed us just how personally they took it last year when they collapsed a mine and killed twenty-four workers. They don’t fucking care who suffers in their attempt to take down Olympus.”
When we enter the boardroom, we find Payton waiting with a group of whoever was left at work when the attack started, and more are filtering in behind us.
My brother is intently watching a screen of code flow by which means nothing to me, but Luca stiffens.
He abruptly turns and rushes out of the room only to return a moment later with his laptop.
Luca sits at the table and begins typing furiously, along with the others from our tech department.
Luca and Payton met at MIT and share a tech background, along with their unusual affinity for marketing and PR that typically wouldn’t mesh so well with their computer science backgrounds. Fucking weird as shit combination, if you ask me, but at least they’re on our side with it.
“Want to fill me in on what you’re watching, since this isn’t my area of expertise,” I say as I come to stand next to Payton.