Byron-4 (8 page)

“There are these insurance policies that they are collecting the interest off of. I’ve been noticing the same amounts being deposited into their account for a few weeks now. Can they do that?”

“Yes, of course. A lot of firms set up these accounts or have the customer set them up so that when they die, there is some money they can use to pay the firm’s legal fees.

I’ve seen a couple of them exceed the amount of the policy and then it goes into the estate at the time of death,” Ronnie said.

“Yeah, but if their dead, what then?”

“Well, then the next firm would take the monies and do the same thing. There is usually a waiver in the policy in case that happens. But normally, the lawyer’s estate will take care of that.”

“No, I mean what if the policy holder is dead, as in has been for some time, and the money is still coming to the firm from the account?” Taylor heard Ronnie draw in a deep breath. Taylor closed her eyes and waited for the blast—telling her that she was jumping to conclusions and that she needed to stop looking for problems when there were none. But Ronnie didn’t do that.

“Taylor, you need to bring me what you have. The company you’re working for is committing insurance fraud. And if you have anything to do with the accounts, including knowledge, when the Feds step in, you’re going to jail with them. How sure are you that this is going on, and how deep are they?”

“Deep, as up the creek without a paddle and the boat has a big hole in it. I don’t want to go to prison. I have...I...I’m going to be sick. You have to...can you tell me where I can go to get rid of this stuff?”

“I’m sending Devin for you right now. And don’t you dare argue with me. Bring everything you have right now.”

“No, I can’t. They...your family won’t like that I’m bringing this to you too. Let me have the name of someone you think will help me and I’ll go there now. Please?”

“You’ve already involved me, Taylor. If you don’t let me help you, I’m going to prison too. Where are you? Neither Devin nor I will tell a soul where you are or that we talked to you.”

“I’m at the Y on Tenth.”

Devin didn’t say much when he helped her into his SUV some thirty minutes later.

He simply put her backpack into the trunk and drove them to the hospital. Taylor felt as if she was going to her execution and Devin and his wife were the executioners.

~CHAPTER 8~

Byron watched the room before him. The people playing were enjoying themselves, yet he couldn’t bring himself to join them. Several women, all Subs, were fucking each other and a man lying on the bed beneath them. He had one female spread across his face as he feasted on her pussy, another on his cock pumping up and down while she suckled on the pussy of a woman straddled over the man’s chest in front of her. There was a fourth woman who was on her knees to his right finger fucking herself as she went back and forth between the two women at his cock. It should have been something Byron would have joined in on. His cock ached and he was hard as stone, but all he could think about was the woman back home.

“If you’re thinking of getting out of the game, I’ll buy all your clubs at whatever the asking price is.” Byron looked at the man standing to his left, both shocked and intrigued by his generous offer. Marc Davidoff was a very good friend he had met in college.

When they had graduated, Marc moved back to Paris to be with his family to work in the vineyard. They had kept in touch over the years and whenever either of them was close enough to visit, they made sure that the club was open to them as well. Marc had been the one to introduce Byron to the Dom/Sub world.

“No, not selling. Though if I do, I’ll let you know. I have something else on my mind tonight.”

“Well, since I know it’s not your lack of sales—congratulations on that, by the way—it must be your family or a woman. You’re not bitching about your brothers like you normally do, even though I’ve asked several times tonight, so that leaves the woman. Who is she?”

Was it a woman? Byron didn’t know, but one certainly was on his mind a great deal the last two weeks, especially today. The thought of Taylor coming to one of his clubs and wanting to play with him had his mind wandering at the oddest times.

“Her name is Taylor. She was injured a few weeks ago in another club. Her taste in hard core is rough and I think she got in over her head. She was bit, and bad enough that she had to be hospitalized when it got infected. Damon said it was probably from a tooth infection. She’s incredibly beautiful, and I want her bad enough that others are just not good enough. She’s a good friend of my brother, Jamie. And she lives with him.”

“Jesus, man! You don’t just have a problem. You have a bomb ready to detonate.

You’re brother’s girlfriend is a Sub that you want to fuck that is into harder core than you are. Maybe you should just stay here; it’ll probably be safer for you.” Marc laughed.

“Jamie said she’s just his friend, that there is nothing between them other than that.

I believe him. As for harder core than me, I think not, my friend. I can still show her a thing or two about pain and pleasure.”

Byron went back to his hotel room soon after that. His friend teased him a bit more, but their friendship was strong enough to take it. Besides, he wanted to go back to his computer and read what Bobby, his manager of “Tightly Bound,” had said about Taylor.

Taylor had requested an invitation to check out the club and Bobby wanted to know how he should proceed. Byron wanted her to wait until he was home, which was still another week away, and told Bobby to do a complete background check, as usual. And to send her to the clinic to have the blood work done. He was also to send her the options sheet and tell her to bring it back in with her on Saturday night at seven o’clock.

Byron was to arrive on Friday morning and figured after jet-lag, he would be ready for some fun with her.

Byron was in the shower when he thought about how she had responded to his command at the event. She had even called him “master” without any prompting. His cock stiffened when he thought about her voice when she had said it, soft and submissive.

Fisting his cock, he thought about how it would feel to have her tied before him, down on her knees and her hands behind her back. He would demand that she lick him, only the tip, and watch her tongue lap at him. Moving his hand along his shaft, he closed his eyes and could almost see her there. Running his thumb over the tip, he imagined her lips wrapped around him, her wet, hot mouth sucking him. He felt his balls tighten up and he reached down and squeezed them with his free hand, causing just enough pain that he moaned harshly. He would fuck her mouth, holding her head tight as he touched the back of her throat with is cock. Then before he exploded, he would bend her over his bench and ram his cock hard into her over and over until he came.

His climax shot out of him; long streams of his cum hit the shower wall as he continued to jerk his cock as he imagined being buried deep into her pussy. When he was finished, he leaned against shower wall while his body became his own again and his heart began to calm down. Turning off the water, he smiled. Just six more days and this would be a reality, he thought.

~~~

“How many people have you found in the files that you know are deceased? I know you have more information than you told us, spill it. I can’t help you without that,” Devin asked.

It was nearing one in the morning and Devin had started out with short, clipped questions. Now, while they were not as clipped, they were no less demanding. Maybe it was too nice-sounding to be a demand, but they both knew that was what he was doing. He was a smart man, much smarter than she had given him credit for. Ronnie was sweeter at her demands, but no less effective.

“I never wanted to get either of you involved, you know. I just wanted to get some information so that I could figure this out on my own. I’m terrified and you’re not helping. The sooner you back the fuck off me; I’ll be able to think.” He smiled. Damned Grant men. Why did they have to be so friggin’ sexy when they did that? She could see a bit of Jamie in Devin’s smile and even a little of Byron there.

She wasn’t going to think of either man; she so didn’t want to cry again.

“No, you didn’t. But we are involved now. And tomorrow morning, I’m going to give you a contract dated for yesterday that says that we are now representing you. You need us. Now quit stalling and tell me the whole story.” Glaring didn’t faze him either, she realized.

“On Thanksgiving, I was inputting some checks when I realized I had put in the same amount several times. I did a ‘find’ on the sheet and found the same dollar amount more times than I thought was a coincidence. I pulled the account numbers of those deposits then pulled the corresponding files. That’s when I saw that they were dead.”

“How many times and the names on the files?” he asked without looking up. This was the tricky part, she thought; now she found out how much trouble she was in.

“I have...would you like to see them?” Ronnie and Devin exchanged looks and Taylor stood to leave. “I knew this was wrong. When the Freedoms told me to put the payments in the ledger, I should have just done it and kept my mouth shut. But, oh no, not Taylor Bennett. She had to just dig deeper until she uncovered more problems than her ass could cover. Which you would think would be an ample amount being as my—

” Ronnie’s laughter had her stop. Taylor wasn’t even aware she had been speaking out loud.

~~~

“You work for the Freedom brothers? Well, that explains a lot. I don’t suppose you have it in writing that they gave you permission to update the accounts, do you?” Ronnie asked with a smile.

“Yes. I seldom see them and they are always leaving...you still want to help me? I don’t understand. I thought that once you found out that I was using my own computer and keeping copies, you’d just wash your hands of me.”

“No, we’d never...wait; did you say you’ve been using your own computer? Do they know this too?” Devin said as he walked over to the bassinet with his daughter in it.

Taylor had little experience with kids. She had been an only child and when her parents were killed when she was seven, she had gone to live with her maiden aunt.

Taylor had never even held a kid.

“Well, sure. When the one they gave me died, I emailed them to let them know and asked them until I got a replacement, would it be all right if I used mine? Jason Freedom said yes and then I heard from Paul a few days later saying it was okay with him too. But that was four months ago and I’ve still not seen a replacement. So every day, I drag mine on the bus to work and then home again.” He was smiling. Not a good one either, but one that made her think of a beast just realizing his prey was within his grasp.

“Taylor, I think I could fall in love with you. You have those emails, don’t you?” She nodded. “Good girl, let’s see what you have.”

The head nurse came in at three to run her off. She packed up her things to leave immediately. Ronnie had been asleep since Taylor had pulled out her laptop. Devin was scribbling notes and looking over the copies of the files she had made the first day. She was nearly to the door when she realized he was right behind her.

“Come on, I’ll take you home. It’s too late for you to be out on the streets alone. If anything happened to you, Ronnie would kill me.”

“No, that’s all right, I can just take a bus. There’s a hotel just down on Hudson that is cheap. Besides, I need to stop by the bank on the way in tomorrow—well, today—to give you those other drives. You go back to your kid and wife.”

“Car, Taylor. And I’m not taking you to a hotel. I picked you up at the Y and that’s where I’ll take you back.”

“The Y locks up at eleven. Seriously, I’ll be fine. I’ve been doing this for some time.

Go back upstairs and...shit, what the hell?” He grabbed her elbow and led her to his car before she could protest anymore.

“Why can’t you just do what you’re told? Damn it all to hell, woman! Do you have any idea what these men could do to you if they found out what you’ve been up to? Do you think that with this sort of money involved that they wouldn’t take you out in a heartbeat to keep you from reporting them?”

“Let go of my arm.” When he released her, she turned back to the street, but didn’t move. “And what makes you think I give a shit?” She walked away then, toward the open street, and didn’t look back.

Taylor didn’t know how long she walked before exhaustion took her to the donut shop. She hurt, her leg was getting better, but she knew she had over done it tonight.

She ordered a large cola and a cruller that she didn’t want. Sitting in the booth, she stared out the window without seeing anything.

Christmas was in two weeks and she didn’t know what to do with the gift she had for Jamie. Devin and Ronnie were now her lawyers and Damon was her doctor.

Caitlynne Grant was the investigating officer on her bite mark and she had no idea what to make of Byron. Tears went unnoticed down her cheeks before she pulled out a notepad and began making lists.

The first thing she did was make a list of what she owed. It wasn’t much. Rent at the Y was less than fifty bucks a week and there were no utilities. She did have to go to the Laundromat, but the only thing she really needed to wash right now was her under things and she thought she could wash those in the bathroom. She didn’t have to buy food, not that it would do her any good. There was no kitchen she could cook it in and she didn’t know how anyway. And she didn’t have a cell phone, not that she didn’t need one; she just couldn’t afford it—especially now. That left her personal items. She was okay on tampons and shampoo, but she did need to get deodorant and toothpaste.

The car was her biggest thing.

The guy at the shop had told her it would be over seven hundred dollars to fix it; he said that the book value was less than that. He told her if she scrapped it out, she might get around five hundred for it. Putting that into her credit list, she put down three hundred just to be on the safe side then found the card he had given her to call. With the cash she had now, not more than five hundred, she thought, that would still give her less than a grand. She thought about selling her computer and ditched that idea. She figured she wouldn’t get much and, besides, it was all she had in the world right now.