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“Then why did he show up at the house acting like I’d gotten him fired?”
“Because I did fire him but he couldn’t talk to your dad for a few hours. When he finally got ahold of him, he offered him more money to stay and finish the job.”
“This is insane,” Mick cried, throwing up his hands. “And you were going to let me shoulder the blame and throw me under the bus professionally?”
“You weren’t going to be blamed for the fire. It would just be one of those things that wasn’t worth the expense and aggravation. Once we got the insurance money the company would be in the red again and your dad was going to send you on to the next big project.”
“We have dozens of multi-million-dollar corporations as clients and we’re so far in debt we couldn’t operate without this insurance payout?” Mick was shaking his head. “It doesn’t make sense, Pat. There has to be more to it.”
“Of course there’s more to it.” Loren stepped out of the shadows shaking his head. “You’re a real pussy, Uncle Pat. Why the fuck would you tell him what’s going on?”
“It was time to come clean,” Pat said wearily. “Mick isn’t stupid and if he went to the authorities or to the clients directly, we’d be even more fucked.”
“This project is toast, I made sure the insurance adjuster will sign off and there will be a nice check on the way,” Loren spoke in a monotone. “There’s nothing else to say.”
Mick laughed. “Dude, you really think you’re shrewder than I am? You think a few years as a thug-in-training makes you prepared to outsmart me in business? This isn’t just what I do—it’s who I am. I know this company, this business and this project inside and out. I know every line of accounting, every inch of the buildings we were going to build, and I can recite the tiniest details of this whole project. I also know how much was budgeted for this, which was more than enough to cover us for the next year. The insurance policy we had wasn’t nearly as much as what was in the account when I left San Francisco.”
Pat’s face looked almost ashen but Loren was smirking. “Dude.” He mimicked Mick’s tone of voice. “Do you think you can outsmart a man like your dad? Who’s been in the industry for, like, a hundred years? Don’t you think he knows what he’s doing? You’re fucking naïve if you think this wasn’t planned right down to the last detail.”
“There’s more than one insurance policy,” Mick groaned. “He somehow convinced the carrier to cover him both personally and professionally, and this whole thing was a con, wasn’t it?” Mick’s head was spinning. They hadn’t gotten far enough into this project to get any significant return from the insurance carrier, which meant the whole point of the Santorini project was to keep everyone in the company in the dark about whatever scam his father was trying to pull off.
“Now you’re catching on.” Loren winked. “See, getting your smarts on the streets isn’t such a bad thing after all.”
Mick wanted to strangle the little bastard but instead just shook his head. “I guess I’ll be calling the insurance company and letting them in on my dad’s plan.”
Loren scowled. “If you do, the whole company goes under.”
“Bullshit.”
“Mick, he’s right.” Pat looked pained. “Your dad personally financed that resort in Arizona and it went belly up. There were no clients, that was all him, using company money. We had operating capital and we got a nice chunk of change when you finished the project in Japan, but your dad wiped us out. It was a billion-dollar resort and the whole thing fell apart.”
“Jesus, Uncle Pat, you have diarrhea of the mouth or what?” Loren was shaking his head. “Shut up already, will you?” He started walking away.
“Where the hell are you going?” Pat demanded, following him.
“I’m taking the four-wheeler and going home.”
“You can walk.”
“Fuck you.” Loren grabbed the helmet off the seat.
“I said, you can walk, you spoiled little shit.” Pat tried to snatch it back but Loren held on.
“Oh, this is rich,” Apollo murmured under his breath as he and Mick moved towards them.
Loren was pulling the helmet but Pat was holding on tightly.
“Knock it off,” Mick snapped. “Loren, let your uncle have the fucking four-wheeler, our car is right up the street and we’ll drop you off.”
“Fuck you!” Loren yanked at the helmet with all his strength, pulling it out of Pat’s hands just as his feet slipped out from under him. He flailed and let out a yell as he tumbled over the cliff.
22
Pat cried out and both Mick and Apollo ran to the edge to help. Loren was gone, though, his body crashing down somewhere out of view, either on the rocks or into the deep sea below.
“I’ll get help,” Apollo cried, yanking out his phone.
“Loren!” Pat looked stricken as he yelled for his nephew. “Oh my god, what am I going to tell my sister? Oh my god…” He sank to his knees.
