Billionaire Misery (10 page)

They trudged through the lobby. Their finery was bedraggled, and Craig had a hole in his shirt which he covered with his hand. It reminded Jessie that he needed his jacket back. She ignored him. They got into the elevator and ascended, none of them speaking; not even laughing at the guard robot in the elevator.

Jessie opened the room door and Katie followed her in, switching on lights. Morgan and Craig stood by the door, looking around at the giant, stunning room with real bewilderment. She didn’t blame them. She’d never seen such luxury in her life. Even Wilkes’ mansion, while exquisite, had not been so ostentatiously displayed.

They all stood in a corner. Katie and Morgan together, Morgan’s arm draped protectively over her shoulders. It felt like a showdown.

Katie took a deep breath and asked, “So how do we figure out who to trust?”

“We can trust my boss,” Jessie said empathically. “He’s the only person who knew I was here and undercover. I hadn’t been made before I blew my cover because he didn’t go dirty on me.”

“You’re a fucking cop.”

The flat words came from Morgan this time.

Jessie took a deep breath. “I’m a DEA agent, deep undercover. I was here to get information on Blake Wilkes. He’s running an international drug cartel fronted by his family’s very old and legitimate business, which I’m sure is not news to you, Craig.”

Katie frowned. “It’s not. We figured out he was into a lot more than just legitimate business when we went over the files Morgan and I took.”

“Yes, and I wish you’d gotten these files then.” Now that her cover was blown, she had some explaining to do. She decided to lay her cards on the table and hope for the best. She pulled the files out of Craig’s tux jacket she still wore. “Blake Wilkes isn’t just into money-laundering. His company was on the verge of bankruptcy about twenty-four years ago. He went into business with some bad men, and then he robbed them.” Her voice shook with anger as she relived a past she didn’t want to. “Then he went into business with some even worse people. He had them start killing off the first group of men he hired so they could take over their business dealings, which included not just drugs but high-profile thefts: art, jewels, you name it.”

Katie, Morgan, and Craig just stared at her.

So she continued, pacing as she talked. “Then he started washing money for other workers, all through his corporation. Bad stock deals vanished. He went into business with cartels and washed their money in exchange for a cut and for some product. That helped boost his earnings, and he just kept killing off the men he screwed over. Over and over.” She spun around and shook the files in her hands. “He’s slippery as hell. Those files—why he kept them is anyone’s guess. He shouldn’t have. I’m guessing that the only reason he did was so he could show them to you.” Her last words were directed at Craig.

Craig glared at her. “You might be right... maybe. They were the first things he showed me. He said he needed me to start taking over the business, and if anything ever happened to him those files would be what kept his life’s work going.” There was derision in his voice. “All he cares about is power, and money. And keeping things going. He told me I needed to destroy them immediately if anything happened to him, but to read them first so I would know what to do. He said the only thing that matters is that the Wilkes name continues, and that I should always remember that. That the Wilkes name was a name that meant power and wealth, and those things didn’t come cheaply.”

Katie stared at him in shock. “So he just expected you to come in and...and what? Be Charlie again?”

Jessie wanted to know the same thing.

Craig sighed. “I don’t know. The man’s crazy. No offense. He’s also an egomaniac. Yeah, I wanted...” he threw his hands up. “Jessie, please. I know what he did to your family. But I’m not him. Don’t turn on me now.”

Her resolve wavered but she held her ground. “I’m not turning my back on you.”

“No, you’re just going to arrest him. Us too, I expect,” Morgan spoke up and Jessie turned to face him.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I won’t bullshit you. I have a huge file on both you. It seems Wilkes was keeping Craig out of trouble. I think he knew it was all about to come tumbling down. You see, he’s basically running a giant Ponzi scheme. Pay off a debt with product stolen from here, pay off bad stock deals with money taken from a washed stack there. I believe cartels are breathing down his neck, legitimate business investors are threatening to take him to court, and the Feds are on his ass.”

“You’re joking. I’ve worked in his office. I never saw any this.” Katie shook her head.

“Maybe you only saw what he wanted you to see. He bankrupted the company after his father retired. To get it back in good standing, he used a trust fund, your trust fund, as a lynch pin. It’s still the lynch pin for the entire thing.”

“My trust fund?” Katie repeated, clearly shocked.

“He used it as collateral, betting that he could gain more. Only, the trust was unbreakable, so he had to show it was earning, not losing. He started off with drugs, just enough to put an infusion of cash into the company, and claimed it was investments made to a trust fund, one that could not have investments made from it by its nature. He knew that, and his accountants played with the numbers.” She knew all this stuff, had memorized it all while studying before going undercover. “Small potatoes really, but by the end of that first year he was bringing in too much money, and so he began setting up dummy accounts and paying off bad debts through those supposed investments. Over the next five years he began running an international drug and money-laundering scheme, and people started dying by the dozens.”

Katie’s eyes squinted as her eyebrows pressed together. “But why would he leave files where we could get them?”

Jessie set the files on the marble table. “He didn’t. The files you saw were for just one project, the one that would have gone through that new shopping and housing development. It’s important that he gets that because he’s got a ton of cash to wash over the next few years. I mean a ton. The cartels are making it too fast, and they need it clean to keep buying themselves political positions, and he needs it clean to keep building Wilkes Corporation. You see, when he started running it, the company was only based in three states, but it came with a lot of money. Blake Wilkes wanted it to become global, and it is. There’s never been a single trace left behind, because Wilkes puts nothing into a computer but legit stuff. He burns the paper files after he uses them. He’s smart on that front.” On nearly every freakin’ front.

Katie chewed her lip. “The files we took tonight are all financial papers. If he’s so unable to get caught...I mean, why would he keep this stuff?”

Jessie nodded. “They’re payrolls Katie. They’re everyone he pays. Cops, politicians, DEA agents, thugs, cartels, you name it. They’re his leverage. If anyone tries to hit him, he can threaten to bring down hell on everyone. The files and that trust fund are the only things that keep him looking right in the public eye; and untouchable for most of the people who’d love to kill him. Those files there, the ones that aren’t payroll—those have to be the ones that will show us that he had those men killed and why. We need them if Morgan and the others are going to get off on the murder charges against them, so please see what you can glean from them.”

Silence fell. The threat was clear. Jessie didn’t trust them, and she was making it clear that, if anything happened to any of the files, the ones that held Morgan’s future would also vanish.

Katie said, “Let me see them.” Her voice was flat, and her eyes were too.

“They’re right there.” Jessie wasn’t giving up the copies she’d made. She couldn’t trust any of them, and they weren’t willing to trust her either.

Katie still didn’t get it, and it was clear. Craig did, though. He said, “When he made me vanish, he needed an heir for that trust, right?”

She nodded. “Again, think Ponzi scheme. The trust’s not really involved. It never was. It was collateral. It was giving off interest, on paper. But since all of his dummy corporations are set up so that he can loot and close them and pay off whoever he owes the most to right then, the trust is what kept the whole thing actually viable and legitimate backers in line. See it’s written into the basis of the company. Fifty million dollars is not a lot when you’re talking global, but when you’re talking a solid foundation for what investors see—and they never see all of it—then it’s very reassuring.”

Katie stared at her, still confused. “But I took control of it.”

“And that’s why he wants you dead. You’ve reached the age where you control it. As long as you didn’t make waves and didn’t control that trust, and were happy letting him do it, it stayed right there, propping up his company and making it look very respectable. If you had died before you were old enough to claim it, it went to various charities. Now it reverts back to the corporation. That is, back to your dear old dad.”

“Why don’t they—you just arrest him?”

Jessie sighed. “We can’t. We’ve never had a shred of proof before now. Not one single bit. This is what we’ve been waiting for, some sort of hard evidence that’ll allow us to topple the whole thing. The original plan was to get to some of the smaller dealers here in the city, which might lead us to larger ones, and so up the ladder, until we got to someone who might have been willing to roll on Wilkes, and who might have had some kind of evidence we could use. We knew, every agency knows, what he’s doing, but we just couldn’t manage to pin him down. Until now.”

Katie sat and opened the files. Morgan took a seat next to her. Seeing the two of them so close and so obviously in love, and Morgan’s clear protective attitude toward Katie, made Jessie sad.

Everything she and Craig had, and might have had, was gone.

None of them would ever trust her again. She’d just told them everything the police had been looking for and hiding undercover. The cops would never trust her again either.

Craig moved into the large hotel room. “Jessie, I want to talk to you.” His eyes were steady and serious. He wasn’t backing down.

She didn’t want to have this conversation with him. She knew how it would play out. She didn’t want to hurt him, and she didn’t want to be hurt either. All she wanted was to love him and have a life with him, and now that was entirely impossible. She had hoped that she might have been able to figure it all out and keep it all, but she knew that was a foolish hope and that eventually it would all fall down. And that had been before she knew who he was. She sighed. “Okay.”

They headed into a bedroom. Craig closed the door. He looked at the floor for a few moments, obviously gathering his thoughts.

She waited, her fingers twisting round each other while her heart beat far too fast and heavy in her chest. What could he say really? “How’re your ribs?”

He touched them, and winced before quickly hiding the pain on his face. “Fine,” he said in a stunted voice.

“Sorry I shot you,” she said lamely, stalling for time. “I was just trying to protect you.”

“Did you know I had a vest on?” He rolled his eyes. “Of course you would; you’re a cop.”

Should she tell him she hadn’t known? “I took you out of the line of fire.” It might be best to just say why she’d done it.

He looked like he wanted to press the argument and then stopped. He pressed his lips tight together before finally letting out a long sigh. “I used to think I loved Lisa. Then, after you came, I realized it wasn’t love at all. I just wanted someone to need me; except, you don’t need me. You can’t even look at me right now. I wanted to tell you. I did. I didn’t know Blake Wilkes had your family killed. I didn’t know you were a cop with an agenda of your own. I fell in love with you and I’m still in love with you, but the person I’m in love with might not even exist. So I want to know, who are you really? And—”

“I’m nobody you want to be with.” Her words were flat and hard. “I’m a DEA agent. I’m...my name is Jessie, yes, and the whole background story I put out is true. None of that is made up. I never talked about what happened when I left foster, so
that
you don’t know. I went to college and I joined the good guys.”

He stared hard at her and she looked away. “How do you know we’re the bad guys?”

“Don’t.” The word came out sharply. “Just don’t. I can’t choose between you and this, Craig. It isn’t even fair to ask me. I can’t have you and my career. And I won’t choose you over it. I can’t. There’s too much at risk.”

“You mean the revenge you’re dying to get? You’re letting that get in the way of us, and that’s crazy.”

“It’s not just about revenge!”

Or was it? Did she even know anymore? Her entire career had been based on making those people responsible for her father’s death pay for it. Her father’s death had led to her mother’s, and all the terrible years after. She closed her eyes and took a long breath. “This isn’t about revenge. It’s about justice.”

“No, it isn’t. You want Wilkes. I get it. Do you think I don’t? Do you think what he did to me was right or fair? Do you think what he did to Katie was okay? Do you honestly think I don’t know how much blood is on his hands, and that I don’t want to see him pay for what he did to Morgan and my brothers? Revenge is one thing, and justice is another, Jessie. I know the difference. So do you. What you want is revenge.”

It
was
what she wanted. It always had been. She didn’t just want it, though; she needed it. She’d never left that tiny space behind that wall where her father had told her to hide, and she knew it deep down. She also knew that the only way to ever leave it behind was to make the man who’d caused it to lose the very thing he had killed her father for.

Billy and Thomas were long dead. Wilkes had them killed not long after they’d killed her father. That angered her too. She’d wanted to see them suffer. Her lips parted and she said, “He should have to suffer.”

Craig closed the distance between them. He put his hands on her arms, slipping his tuxedo jacket off her shoulders. “He will, but, Jessie...you’re suffering too. Can’t you see that? You know, I wanted revenge for what happened to Lisa so badly that I couldn’t see how much of it was her fault...”