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“I need a full work-up on two individuals—addresses, family members, business contacts, names of their fucking pets, whatever you can find. And I need it in twenty-four hours.”
We both know I pay well enough to jump to the head of the line. I hear Asher draw on one of his cheap cigars, sucking hard before he says, “Tell me what you’ve got, boss.”
“Names,” I say. “Klaus Herzog, Jonas Herzog, and Ansel Herzog.” No one knows Klaus is dead. I’m not going to spill the beans to Asher. “They’ve been present in Delaware in the past three years, but I don’t know if they’re living here. There’s a chance they’re German nationals. They may be involved with drug distribution in the mid-Atlantic.”
“Got any photos?”
“Not yet.”
“Last known location?”
In my fucking computer. I could send Asher the email, but he’s more of a shoe-leather kind of guy. “Nada,” I say.
“Twenty-four hours?” he confirms.
“Faster, if you can make it.”
“Got it, boss,” he says. He hangs up without more small talk—that’s another reason I keep him on my payroll.
I’m tempted to pull up the video again, to check the fucking countdown. But there’s a clock on my computer screen, and I can see I’m three and a half hours closer to life as I know it falling apart.
I debate bringing the Diamond Ring into the loop now. But what would I actually say?
Hello—just wanted to give you a heads-up that you might be getting a call from the Dover PD, or maybe the FBI.
Hey there—thought you should know that the million-dollar deposit I made to your freeport account back in June is prime evidence that you’re an accessory after the fact to murder one.
Yo, rich guy. Pay your share or the video goes public.
Fuck. I’m not contacting my best clients until I can offer every one of them a real solution.
I close my eyes, and I’m back in the warehouse, standing outside Herzog’s gallery with my hand on Alix’s back while she pukes up her breakfast. I felt so goddamn helpless, like someone had my balls in a vise.
No. Not like that at all. Because if someone had ahold of my balls,I’dbe the one in pain. That chair and all the fucking crap on the shelves hurtAlix.
I’ve never felt this way before. Like I’d gladly plant my palm on the steaming wreckage of a torched metal door, just to keep her from being hurt. Like I’d hand over a painting worth a quarter of a billion dollars to guarantee I’d never have to see the look of terror on her face when she discovered that fucking chair.
I’m a mean-hearted bastard who’s spent the last twenty years figuring out fucked-up ways to manage the world around me. But watching Alix battle the pain of the past three years leaves me feeling like a helpless little kid.
A kid…
I glance at my computer. There are a couple hundred items demanding my immediate attention. Emails have flooded in since last night’s auction—congratulations from freeport clients, queries about setting up sales on other assets, inquiries from outsiders who know nothing more than rumors.
There’s a backlog of work from the past two weeks, which I spent sitting around, missing Alix like a starry-eyed teenager with a wicked crush.
I have a stack of long-term projects—a presentation I’m supposed to make in Geneva next January, a pitch to the Dover airfield for a hangar dedicated exclusively to freeport clients, progress reports on the nearly-finished freeport racetrack and its underground garage, complete with storage bays for clients’ investments in luxury vehicles…
I don’t want to do any of them.
I want to cross the parking lot to my house, find Alix, and bury my face so deep in her sweet pussy that I can forget I ever opened Diamond Freeport.
But as much as my cock likes that idea, I know I won’t do it. Not this morning. Not when Alix was forced to face video proof of the asshole she saved herself from. Not when she had to see that goddamn chair, had to relive memories brutal enough to leave her puking in the hall.
Any other day, I’d gladly forfeit the freeport’s share of the Monet Alix auctioned last night to keep her tied to my bed for a week or ten. I’d make her happy to stay there, too.
But she’s spent enough time chained for any man’s desire.
She needs something else. Something entirely different. Something away from the freeport, away from any reminder of what happened here.
