Chapter twenty-five
The Level Boardroom
Harrison
Marshall, Damon, and Hunter all sit around the boardroom table in The Level. Each of them holds a bottle of beer. As I walk into the room, they lift them in my direction. “Congratulations,” they yell in unison. “Mission accomplished.” I laugh and shake my head.
“Albeit with a few blips,” Damon adds.
“But we got her out, and she’s alive,” Hunter says, taking another swig of his drink.
“How is she?” Marshall asks.
“Shaken but all right. Not happy at having to move in downstairs.”
I shrug out of my suit jacket then lay it over the back of a chair before getting myself a beer from the fridge.
I snap the cap, drain it, and pick up another one before sitting down opposite them.
Hell, I’m tired. It’s been a stressful weekend and today in the office was no better.
Our boys’ Wednesday evening has been moved to Monday, as Violet is being discharged tomorrow.
I plan to spend the day with her, ensuring she is settled in Mrs. D.’s apartment.
Tonight, we’re getting back to the job at hand—dirty drugs and how the fuck Aiden Marley is wrapped up in all of this.
With everything that’s been going on, I’ve lost sight of the current situation.
Hopefully the team will get me up to speed.
“I’m not surprised she’s annoyed, and I would guess confused too,” Damon says.
I glance at him. He’s sitting in the leather chair, leaning back and watching me.
With the darkening London sky behind him, the sunset creates an orange glow around him like an aura.
The top three buttons of his shirt are undone, and his tie hangs loose around his neck. “You’re giving her mixed signals.”
“Mixed signals? Is rescuing her from an arranged marriage not enough of a sign that I care?” He laughs out loud. “I’m trying to do the right thing by not forcing things between us.”
“Waite, do you not think the situation is complex enough without throwing in a few more curveballs? You tell her you love her, try to rescue her and fail, then manage to extract her on the second attempt.”
He turns to Hunter who is nodding along at his summary.
Marshall listens with a blank expression on his face, not giving away his thoughts.
“There’s a crash, she ends up in the hospital. She then wakes up and finds you asleep at her bedside. I’d assume at this point you were the doting potential lover.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And, amid all those pheromones swirling around the room and feelings…”
Hunter lifts his fingers to his throat and fake gags.
The men all snort with laughter. “You tell her…yes, Violet, I love you, but you can’t move in with me.”
“Are you watching me on a fucking camera?” I mutter, miffed by his assessment, which is on point.
“Violet told Samantha, who told Connor, who told me,” he says. “And yes, she’s pissed at you.”
“Samantha speaks to Connor? Since when?” I say, perplexed by the connection and mildly disturbed that my love life is being discussed freely by those in our group and on the outskirts of it.
“Since her little power play up here,” Damon advises. “He’s quite smitten with her. Though, I don’t think anything has happened. He maybe wants some tips from her on how to control Russ.”
“No one can control that maniac,” Hunter pipes up, and we all gape at him.
“Ever heard of the phrase ‘pot and kettle’?” I ask him. He shrugs, then goes back to skinning a banana with his pen knife. What is it about him and knives? Actually him, knives, and fruit. I do wonder how the fuck I ended up here, working with him.
“Are the Chase brothers gracing us with their presence?”
Marshall says, diverting the topic of conversation.
“We have a lot to discuss. Some of us want to get the business out of the way so we can drink beer and get plastered. My nerves are still shot from last Friday, then my weekend was filled with idiots.”
“What happened to you?” I inquire.
“Jumped-up men that I pay a small fortune to close business deals failing to do what they’re paid for. It’s cost me four million due to one missing signature and not completing on time. Typically, they are all blaming each other rather than sorting out the fucking problem.”
He blows out heavily. “Fuck the beer, pass the whiskey.”
The decanter of the amber liquid sits at the center of the table surrounded by six glasses ready for us. Mrs. D is an angel—everything is prepared as it always is. She’ll be in soon with a mountain of food for us to munch on while we discuss tactics.
“So, are Russell and Connor coming or not?” Marshall prompts, his irritation at being kept waiting obvious, and in complete contrast to his normally calm manner.
“They’re coming,” I tell him. “I left them arguing in Russell’s office.”
“What about?” Damon asks.
“Their father and what to tell him. He knows they were involved in Violet’s removal from the maternity clinic. Their phones are ringing constantly—he’s demanding to speak to them. He wants retribution.”
“Has he contacted you?” I shake my head. “Do you expect him to?”
“No, I doubt I’ll hear from him. He’ll probably try to manipulate my situation in some way or make things difficult for me in the firm. Whatever Violet decides will dictate what happens next.”
“What do you mean?” Damon’s brow creases in thought.
“I told Russell that if Violet decided she didn’t want to be with me, I’d give him and Connor my shares in the company and walk away. Our relationship has been gradually getting worse since my career overtook his. Day-to-day work is hard, and we don’t gel anymore, but I needed his help to free her.
So, I played the only card I had. The firm.”
Damon’s jaw drops open. “That’s why I’ve told her she’s to stay with Mrs. D. I need to be sure if she chooses me, she chooses me because it’s what she wants.”
“You can’t do that,” Damon growls. “And you can’t be expected to. That business is as much your success as it is the Chase family’s.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “So what you’re saying is, you’ve gambled it all on the decision of a woman. A woman who has been through more shit in the past few months than most people in their lifetime. And…”
He pauses, focusing on me with shrewd eyes.
“She is currently six months pregnant with hormones raging fucking everywhere.”
“Her being pregnant won’t affect her decision.”
“Pregnant women are fucking crazy. Their opinion swings from day to day, minute to minute. Trust me, I lived with one. None of them can be trusted to be lucid. This is one hell of a gamble you’re taking.”
“Well, I have to hope when she says she loves me, she means it,” I tell him.
My three friends gawk in unison, obviously stunned.
The law firm has been my life since I was a young man.
Becoming a lawyer is what defines my success.
Thousands of hours of work to build it up, and I’ve risked it all for love, the one thing I said wasn’t required in my life, the experience I was adamant I didn’t need.
That belief flew out the door the minute Violet Chase walked back through it in June.
When I stepped out of that elevator and saw her in the lobby, all the old feelings came rushing back. The ones I pretended to never have.
For years, I filled my life with work and women—chasing the thrill of earning more, winning always, and having a good-looking woman in my spare room.
I loved how they hung off my every word, the way their eyes danced as I pulled out the gold credit card.
Now, as I accept how I feel about Violet, how I’ve always felt, it all seems so meaningless.
Selfish and pointless. If I’d contacted her after our first time together, perhaps we both could have been saved from all the heartache.
But then again, maybe we would have ruined it anyway.
This is our chance to be happy—I won’t run again. Hopefully, she won’t either.
Raised voices divert my attention from my thoughts.
The door swings open; Russell and Connor stride in, side by side.
Connor sits down beside me, then leans forward and pours out two large measures of whiskey.
He passes the bigger one to his brother.
“Fucking sit down and drink that,” he snaps. “You really are a dickhead.”
“He deserved to be fired,” Russell shoots back. I look between them, confused. Who the hell has he fired now? I hope it won’t be another case of unfair dismissal we need to navigate—the last one was bad enough.
“He ate your sandwich,” Connor says, slowly and deliberately. “It was in the staff fridge and didn’t have your bloody name on it. What do you expect to happen? And why the fuck are you bringing lunch to work like an intern?”
“It was my favorite one. Mrs. D. made it for me from the leftover meatballs,” he replies like an adolescent schoolboy.
Russell raises the glass to his lips and drinks greedily, then refills it before sitting down.
He places himself at the top of the table, ready to be in charge as always. “It was theft.” Connor rolls his eyes.
“Who did you fire?” I ask.
“Kevin in the administration department,” Connor responds. “For sandwich theft. That’s the fucking reason that idiot wrote in the email. How he ever became a lawyer, I don’t fucking know.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Russell interjects, crashing his fist down on the table.
“Are you all quite finished?” Damon says, taking advantage of a pause in the conversation. “Perhaps we could start talking about something other than sandwiches.”
Not waiting for a challenge, Marshall hands us all a sheet of paper with the details of a company on it: Aimsbury Holdings Ltd. We all stare at it, scanning the address and known directors, and my eyes land on one name. Aiden Marley. “What’s this?” Russell says, snarky. “Are we meant to guess?”
“It’s details of a limited company,” Marshall replies with a sly smile. Russell mutters something under his breath. “This is the company which owns the kitchen located in Devon. As you can see, our friend, Mr. Marley, is a director and also the majority shareholder.”
“Is this the building on the farm we found?” I question, and he nods. “But not the main kitchen located here in London. Do we know who owns that?”
“My men have been monitoring both properties,” Hunter says. “The Devon farm is dormant as of this weekend. The building is empty, and no one has been at the site for days. We set a match to it so they couldn’t return and use it again.”
“That’s subtle,” Connor replies sarcastically.
“Not subtle, effective.” Hunter’s face lights up, and his eyes dance.
“The main kitchen is located in an industrial unit outside the city. It’s a run-down estate—very few businesses still operate from it. They’re using a delivery firm as cover. Vans and lorries move at all times of day. HBK Removals, I think it’s called.”
He pulls his phone from his pocket and swipes at the screen.
“Yes, that’s the name of it. The industrial park is out toward Basildon.”
“What information do we have on them?” I ask.
“This is where it gets interesting,” Marshall says. “Hunter phoned me with the details when we uncovered where it was. The company itself isn’t registered to anyone of interest—a few low-level criminals that dabble in a bit of this and that. What was interesting is who owns the building.”
“Marley?” Russell suggests and Marshall shakes his head.
“No, your mother.” Silence falls across the room as the words sink in. “The industrial park is owned by a company called Hesdale Assets, and your mother is the sole director.”
“No fucking way,” Connor growls, standing and slamming both hands on the table. The glass vibrates frantically. “This is a joke. My mother would never be involved in something like this.”
“I’m not suggesting she is,” Marshall continues, completely unflustered by the outburst.
Russell’s jaw hangs open—he’s speechless.
There’s a first time for everything. “But what I am suggesting is your father has assets lodged in her name and is using them to push drugs around the country. I believe that the man we’ve been searching for, Michaels, is actually Edward Chase.”
“You’re suggesting my father has been playing us this whole time?” Connor asks.
“I’m saying that the evidence shows he is involved in some way.”
“I don’t believe it,” Russell argues. “My father is a lot of things, but he’s not a drug dealer. He might undertake corrupt business deals, but he wouldn’t allow young people to be murdered by dodgy drugs. It’s not his style.”
“Anything that makes him money is his style,” Connor says to his brother.
“If this is true, it changes things. I always knew my father was involved in the underworld, but never did I think he could be behind something like this.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Or at least he wouldn’t have an operation of this caliber and we wouldn’t know about it. If he’s hidden this, what else could he be hiding?”
“We’re not involved in all our father’s business arrangements.”
“Obviously,” Connor shoots back. “First Marley and now this. Russell, we need to consider breaking ties with him.”
“What about Mother?”
“Perhaps we could encourage her to leave him? She’s not safe there. If he is involved in the drug business as deep as we think he could be…” He trails off. The brothers stare at each other, conversing silently.
“What is it?” I prompt, confused.
“She’ll kill him if he’s been dealing drugs. It was her one stipulation when they married,” Connor explains, but it doesn’t make the situation clearer.
“Stipulation? How was your mother in the position to make that?” This is a story I’ve never heard. How Mr. and Mrs. Chase met has never been discussed. I always assumed it was young love.
“She was payment for a debt,” Russell says, solemnly.
My skin crawls. “Her father owed my father a lot of money. He was young and powerful and took a liking to his debtor’s daughter who had just turned eighteen. He chased her, but she rejected him, over and over again, until the debt came due and my grandfather couldn’t settle it.”
“My mother sacrificed herself. She agreed to marry him if he wrote off the debt. Her only other stipulation was he didn’t deal in drugs. She lost a cousin in a similar fashion to how Hunter lost his brother. As far as we were aware, he never has. Money laundering, corrupt business deals,
loan sharking, and murder, yes, but never drugs.”
Connor speaks slowly as we all listen on.
“We need to find out,” he states plainly.
“We need to know if our father is the man behind all this.”
“And if he is?” Russell says, for once following his younger brother’s lead.
“We take him out.”