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SEVENTEEN
GIANCARLO
“I got it,” I said,storming into Bastien’s office the morning after my punishment scene with Becca. “Get Anthony on the phone.”
“I’m not your secretary, Gian,” Bastien snapped, closing his laptop. “And I have a meeting in five minutes.”
Grunting, I stuck my head outside his office. “Cancel Bastien’s meeting and get Anthony Messina on the phone.”
His secretary, an older woman who looked like she didn’t take shit from anyone, stared at me with her resting bitch face. “Excuse me?”
“Please?” I flashed her a smile because everyone thought I was the nice guy.
“Mr. Daria?” she called out from her desk.
He lowered his head in his hands. “Do it, Beth. Please. And on the secure line.”
When she shook her head and got on her phone, I closed Bastien’s door. I glanced around his office, messy because he was a lawyer or he was just a slob. He and his father worked out of a moderately updated Midtown Manhattan office building. Taupe carpets, basic cherry furniture, and ergonomic-looking desk chairs. The artwork on the walls stunned in comparison to everything else ordinary around me. Richard Daria was a fan of bright colors and abstract scenes, apparently. Most looked like blood splatter, to be honest. I wasn’t sure if these were all an inside joke.
“Wanna give me a preview before we get the maniac involved?” Bastien’s tense voice turned me around from checking out his office.
I stared at him, unsure if I needed a close ally in my plan. I kept reminding myself, he loved Becca. Anything I suggested that would really hurt her made him my enemy. I also worried his answer to the indictments we faced would be to drag her to his house in Belize and let our worlds go up in flames, including his own. Then this might turn into every mob boss for himself. Did he love Becca enough to throw away his family fortune? I bet they’d fuck their brains out until they didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone.
My chest felt like someone had kicked it at that thought. It took all my strength not to fuck her so deep the way I did last night and keep my heart out of it because I believed the inevitable would happen and she’d end up married to Anthony. At first, I loved having my sex games with Becca to laud over Messina if he gave me shit or cornered me. My playtime with Becca had turned into something else. Something more. I’d been wanting to kiss her. So fucking bad, I couldn’t hold out much longer.
“No preview,” I finally responded.
“Scumbag,” Bastien bit out.
“Mr. Messina on Line 4,” Beth called out. “He’s pissed off because I made his assistant pull him out of a meeting.”
Meetingsounded like he’d been fucking someone.
“What?” Anthony said, all grouchy. “I’m busy.”
“We’re all busy, Messina,” Bastien sneered. “We have a problem we’re dealing with, if you recall.”
“Am I on speaker?”
“Yeah, I have Giancarlo here. No one else is in the office.”
“Gian?” He didn’t trust Bastien.
“No one’s here but me,” I answered.
“Fine. What?”
“Gian has an idea,” Bastien spoke for me, if anyone could get to Messina it was him.
“And you went to fucking Bastien before me, Giancarlo?”
“Relax,” Bastien huffed. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Anthony,” I said. “I hate your fucking office. That neighborhood smells like blood and piss.”
“Yeah, well it’s where my father opened the office thirty years ago. Now, what?” He definitely sounded like he’d been pulled away from having sex.
I didn’t think for a minute that would stop once he married Becca.
“Fine, I’ll make it quick since you’re not really into details.” I stared at Bastien.
Why had I gone to his office instead of calling them both on the secure line? Anthony would agree to this without a second thought. I needed to see Bastien’s eyes when I told them what we should do to Becca.
“Rebecca has the original presentation proving our fathers are direct owners in Sunrise.” I paced in front of Bastien’s desk. “If we don’t get our fathers to walk away and stop the bulk shipment, she’s handing that over. When the drug hits, the Feds will know who exactly to implicate.”
“Unless I untie everything.” Bastien leaned back and twisted fingers behind his head, stress lines all over his face. “But I need to see those exact subsidiary names.”
“Bastien, she’ll do a deal with the Feds,” I reminded him. “That means they’re gonna put Becca on the stand, right?”
He grunted. “That’s true. Her evidence not only implicates her dad, who’s out of reach, but her in some way. She’s his CFO. So what do we do?”
“We discredit her.” I folded my arms watching Bastien twitch. “It’s all we have.”
“Discredit her?” Anthony asked in a deep voice. “She’s about the closest thing to an angel. Not even a parking ticket.”
“What are you saying, Gian?” Bastien stood to his full height.
From my briefcase, I took out my iPad. I flicked on the calendar app. “We have a dozen or so events coming up. Galas. Benefits. Premiers. We... We each bring her to these.”
“At the same time?” Anthony asked.
“Becca won’t bother with any of those invites now that her father’s out of the picture,” Bastien said, sounding confident.
Her annoyed face a few weeks ago at the Warwick suggested she hated them.
“We don’t give her a choice. And no, Anthony. We each bring her as our date to a different event. Make people see her with each of us. Make people think she’s dating all three of us.”
Bastien’s right eye flickered. “No one will—”
“We have to play hardball with her.” I fixed my palms flat on Bastien’s desk, staring him down, knowing any second his fist could come flying toward my jaw to pummel me. “Be lewd with her. Make her look like a slut. And then we each publicly dump her for cheating on us with each other.”
“Make her look scorned,” Anthony said, low and gravelly over the speaker.
“If she moves against us, we get our defense attorneys to present reams of video and photo evidence showing she dated us,” I went on. “And when we dumped her, she wanted revenge.”
Bastien shook his head. “And my guess is with their star witness shamed, they’ll decline to prosecute. They might not want to risk a public trial. That’ll give us a chance to plea. I can show due diligence of trying to get out of it.”
“Anthony?” I asked.
“Sounds good. I get her first,” Messina replied.
I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t matter who gets her first, but listen, the plan is she’s cheating on us. We all can’t be at these events together anymore.”
“Fuck,” Anthony grumbled. He loved gala season.
“And... You can’t be seen with anyone else, Anthony. You’re publicly dating her. This will only work if each relationship looks real.”
“Hmmm,” Anthony said, sounding like he considered the consequences for him. He really wanted to marry her. This plan might wreck those chances. If Becca got shamed so badly, his father may not let him marry her. It was better than prison, though. “What if she doesn’t agree?”
“Valid question.” Bastien sat back down, crossed his legs, and ran a pen across his lips. “She can’t look coerced.” He brought his feet up on his desk. Geez, the guy must wear size fourteen. “Then it won’t look like the dates are real.”
“Bastien’s right, Gian. What do we have to force her to do this?” Anthony cleared his throat. “We’re gonna have to threaten her sisters.”
“We don’t have to threaten her sisters,” I said, letting a grin spread across my face at the surprise I had for them. “I found her father.”
