Page 98 of Sweet Chaos

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Boys like that will only break your heart.

34

Dylan

Icouldn’t fix all the shit that was broken or mend all the relationships that had been destroyed. But what kind of man would I be if I didn’t at least try?

After delivering the iced coffee to Scarlett, I drove to LA to visit Daddy Dearest in his steel and glass office building in the Financial District. Pompous ass that he was, he thought I came to grovel. His daughter might be Mother Teresa, but I sure as hell wasn’t. I came to finish the warhe’dstarted. Armed with enough information to do serious damage to his reputation and his bank account, I knew that this time I would walk away the victor.

Whoever said that revenge wasn’t sweet had never tasted it.

The beauty of my plan? He’d never tell anyone it was me who brought him down. His pride wouldn’t allow him to admit that he’d been bested by a “worthless little shit.”

“Those are my conditions,” I concluded after I’d laid it all out for him. I slid the document across his polished mahogany desk, so it was right under his nose.

Read it and weep, motherfucker. I’d wait. I especially appreciated the way his face turned an alarming shade of beet red when he read the fine print.

“You’re out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m going to sign this over to you.”

I kicked back in my chair, used his desk as a footstool for my boot-clad feet, and laced my fingers behind my head. If not for the hermetically sealed windows, and the fire alarm on his ceiling, I’d smoke a celebratory blunt.

“Not to me. To Scarlett,” I clarified, in case he’d missed her name written in bolded letters. “The way I look at it, you have two choices. I turn over all the information I have on you. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a reduced sentence in a white-collar prison. I hear it’s a lot like that country club of yours.” I laughed, knowing that was bullshit. There was no such thing as a country club prison. “Or you sign this over to your daughter.” I tossed a pen at him that I’d stolen from the receptionist before I’d barged into his office.

“You little shit.” Yeah, that was getting old. He needed a new line. “I guess you think you’ll get my daughter to marry you, so you can get your hands on it.”

“This is probably a concept you’d never understand. But your daughter… neither of your daughters are merger and acquisition deals. They’re fucking people. You don’t own them. You don’t get to barter their love for money.You’rethe piece of shit for treating them the way you do. And I wouldn’t take a single penny of your money if I was homeless and dumpster diving for my next meal. Been there. Done that. And guess what? I survived. That’s the difference between you and me, Simon. You wouldn’t have lasted a day in my world whereas I could survive a fucking Armageddon.”

“Get out of my office, you little cockroach.” Points for originality. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. You don’t have anything on me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I dug deep and unearthed a few skeletons. Or should I say shell corporations.” I sat back and let him chew on that for a minute. His face paled and beads of sweat gathered on his forehead, that’s how fucking scared he was. I lapped this shit up. Sat back and fucking reveled in it.

“I’m sure your investors would love to hear about all the money you skimmed off the top. You got greedy. Dipped your fingers into too many pies.” I tsked and shook my head like I was disappointed in him.

Ironically, Simon ran a dirty business while mine was squeaky clean. I played by the rules, made sure not to piss off the IRS, and every single penny was accounted for. I didn’t rob my clients blind, didn’t so much as write off a coffee on my expense account. The skeletons rattling around in my closet were personal, not business-related, and the only thing he could hit me with that would hurt had already been done to me.

As I suspected, Simon Woods signed on the dotted line. “If you mess with me or my business or the people I care about again… if you so much as breathe one bad word about me, I’ll turn over every single piece of evidence I have against you and you will lose everything. That’s a promise.”

“This is blackmail.”

“This is me giving you a chance to do the right fucking thing.” That was a lie. If he did the right thing, he’d own up to his investors. But they were multi-million- dollar corporations, not personal investors, and eventually he’d get caught with his hand in the cookie jar. That was his problem, not mine.

I slapped a Post-It note on top of the page. “Write Scarlett a nice note. Tell her you love her and that you’re fucking proud of her for being who she is.”

He clenched his jaw and wrote a note that was a bit frostier than what I’d had in mind, but she probably wouldn’t have believed it if he’d sprinkled it with unicorn dust and rainbows. Good enough.

“I hear Nicaragua is the place to be,” I said, giving him a helpful tip before I strode out of his office, leaving the door wide open.

On the way out, I stopped in Cecily’s office. Nice set-up for a PA. She was blonde and blue-eyed and bore an uncanny resemblance to his eldest daughter. No wonder Sienna had daddy issues. “How’s it going?”

“Um… fine?” Her hand wrapped around the phone on her desk. She was two seconds away from calling security and having my ass hauled out of here. “Can I help you with something?”

“I need an envelope.” I held up the papers in my hand as proof that I came in peace. Sort of.

“Okay.” Good old Cecily was efficient. She produced said envelope and slid it across her desk, withdrawing her hand quickly as if she was afraid I’d bite it off. “Thanks. And top tip. Fucking your married boss is not a good career move. You can do better.”

Her jaw dropped. I was laughing as I swaggered out of her office.

On the drive back from LA, I sucked it up and called Shaggy Doo. I’d gotten the number off Scarlett’s phone and since I was going down this road, might as well go all the way. No sense in half-assing this shit.