“Goodbye, my pretties.” Mo removed the pumps and placed them back in their box. “You’re a meanie,” she said to me.
“If you want a box of shoes, you can snuggle up to Reid tonight at dinner. I’m sure he’ll be happy to oblige you.”
“Ha! He’s clearly already smitten with you, if this”—she gestured to what she called shoe porn—“is any indication.”
Smitten with me? I held back a slight smile at the thought. He wasn’t smitten. He only wanted something.
Which was why I hated the fact that a small part of me wanted Mo to be right.
10
Reid
A hundred million.
That was what Wolfe Enterprises would have to pay to get this contract back on track.
Some meeting.
I was pissed.
Really pissed.
Rock had already flown back to New York, and though he was the CEO, he had given me authority to do whatever was necessary to get things moving as we were already losing millions per day because of contractor issues.
I could sue.
Indeed, I wanted to sue, because this contractor had screwed up. Why should we pay the price? But as a businessman, I knew a lawsuit would ultimately cost us more money. Some system, huh?
My father taught me one thing very early in the game. When you had money, people would constantly try to take advantage of you. The trick was to pay them off if it would ultimately cost you more money in the long term. Then never do business with them again.
Las Vegas Ace Construction was now on my short list.
Wolfe Enterprises had a lot of business in Nevada, and after this current project was over? LVA would never get another penny of it.
Rock had been holding out. He’d been a loner too long. A rebel too long. He didn’t understand that sometimes, it made more sense to pay than to fight.
He wouldn’t be happy, but I had the authority, and in the end, Wolfe Enterprises would come out on top, and Las Vegas Ace would pay.
Yeah, the Wolfes had a lot of power.
I’d watched my old man destroy one business after the other once he’d gotten what he wanted out of them.
LVA was next on that list.
“Fuck it all,” Rock said, when I told him the news. The jet was an hour outside New York, and Rock and the others were in flight when I called.
“You gave me the power.”
“I did,” he admitted. “It’s a fucking shitload of cash, though, man.”
“Cash we can well afford, and LVA will get what’s coming to them.”
Silence for a few seconds, until, “I still can’t quite wrap my head around how much we’re all worth.”
“I get it. One day, you will, and you’ll see I made the right decision here. There are still some kinks to work out of the deal. I’ll be here for a few more days to make sure it all goes as planned.”
“Thanks, Reid. This should be your show. Don’t think I ever forget that.”
“I know.”
Our father’s snub still stuck in my gut, but he’d taught me another valuable lesson when I was starting out. Don’t ruminate on things you can’t change.
Good advice, coming from a psycho bastard.
“So Rock…”
“Yeah?”
“Nieves says she has information for us.”
He scoffed right into my ear through his phone. I could see his face in my mind, green eyes rolling and all.
“She says she found something at your place that she never told you about.”
“She’s lying.”
“Is she? Did you have anything that might indicate your relationship with Dad?”
“Are you kidding? I tried to never think about the asshole.”
“Think,” I said. “Did you notice anything missing from your place recently?”
“Nieves and I broke—” He stopped abruptly.
“What?” I demanded.
“She and I broke up a while back, but my gun—the same model that killed Dad—was stolen.”
Bingo. “You think Nieves might have taken it?”
“I’m trying to remember. We broke up, but she showed up from time to time. I didn’t think anything of it. We ran in the same circles.”
“Was she ever alone at your place?”
“No. Not that I know of, anyway.”
“What does that mean?”
“Fuck.”
His tone reeked of defeat. I wasn’t going to like what was coming.
“She had a key. She gave it back to me after we parted ways, but…”
“But…she could have had a copy made.”
“Yeah.”
What were you thinking? I wanted to demand of my brother. But the fact was, he hadn’t been thinking about Dad at all. He all but admitted he tried never to think of the bastard. Most ex-girlfriends weren’t mercenaries, so he didn’t bother changing his locks.
Made perfect sense.
Except we were all fucked now because of his little faux pas.
“She never had the combination to my gun safe, though,” Rock said.
“Okay, that’s good. But think. Did you put the gun back in the safe the last time you went to the shooting range?”
Silence.
He wasn’t sure.
Fuck.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Fuck, man. It’s not a no. But the thing is, I just don’t remember.”
“Shouldn’t you always replace a gun in the safe?”
“Of course, if you have small children around. Or you fear someone living with you might be suicidal. But I lived alone, Reid. I wasn’t going to blow my own head off, so I didn’t worry about shit like that.”
My mind raced. “So she could have taken your gun. But we already know your gun wasn’t used to blow Dad’s head off. It was just the same model.”
“Right, so who cares if she took it?”
“Well, you should.”
“I do. She’s a conniving little shrew. But the fact that my gun is missing doesn’t implicate me any further, because it’s not the murder weapon.”
“No, you’re the only one with a seemingly ironclad alibi.”
“What do you mean seemingly?”
“The cops still think you could have had it done.”
“Why would I do something so stupid as to have it done with a gun that’s a duplicate of mine?”
“Good point. Honestly, I’m not sure why they haven’t ruled you out. Something’s fishy about all of this.”
“It has been from the get-go, bro.”
“I know.”
“Honestly, Nieves could have taken my gun. Or she could have taken something else that
