Mogul (27 page)

Leo had only been a paid stooge for Baxter up
to that point. Here was his ticket to becoming Graham Baxter
himself. All he needed was access to Vanni’s money and his mind,
and he could get that stupid Guido to branch out on his own,
relying heavily on the only “expert” he knew to manage the new
label.

He had gotten so close in New York, when
Holly managed to convince him she was pregnant the first time. He
was such a blithering idiot to believe her, which proved once again
he was emotionally ready to be pillaged and plundered.

Unfortunately for all of them, Andy had
always been Vanni’s Achilles’ heel. She fucked it up then, and now
Vanni was way too happy and way too strong to reach. He was getting
married and having a baby with that cow… and had somehow managed to
convince Graham to put him on a show destined to be a big hit.

He’d no longer need the likes of Leo – unless
he lost everything that was precious to him first. Giovanni
Carnevale was a weak pussy of a man. He’d never be able to
withstand the loss of his beloved Andy, especially if she took
their bastard child with her when she went.

(And Leo had fantasized a great deal how
bloody and gory that would ultimately be.)

But Leo knew the carnage couldn’t ever come
back to him or to Holly and Julian. He needed a patsy, someone
stupid enough to go through with the plan who wouldn’t give a rat’s
ass about dying himself in the melee. He had to find someone who
was psychotic enough to be both homicidal and suicidal… but stupid
and emotional enough to be manipulated.

Thanks to some interview footage, Leo knew he
had found the perfect fall guy. Donny Wilke was a psychotic kid
with a singular focus, which just so happened fit Leo’s agenda like
a glove.

He wanted to make Vanni pay for what had
happened to his sister so much, he’d die for the cause in the
process. All they needed to do was stoke his rage. They could spin
him tight like a top and let him go, hopefully taking Andy Foster
with him when he went up in his own ball of flames.

Leo had already started greasing the wheels.
He had met Donny a few times, to get into his head and find out
what he was thinking. He played the part of a working class guy who
had been screwed over by the rich, entitled asshole who thought
poor people were his to use as he saw fit, and then easily
discarded. It hit the bulls-eye of Donny’s deeper issues. Growing
up poor in Florida, he was no stranger to finding alternative means
of survival. It started with petty crime when he was just a kid.
But when he got caught by some rich store owner, Donny was no
longer a petty criminal. He was the victim of something far more
sinister. The guy didn’t turn him into the cops like he feared.
Instead he started to make demands of his own. He had a specific
clientele that would pay anything for a good-looking, desperate
kid. It started with photos, and then graduated to video.
Eventually the fat cat rich guys couldn’t keep their hands to
themselves, and Donny was in no position to say no.

Baylee hadn’t been the only prostitute in the
Wilke family.

It had stoked a rage in him that would never
truly be quelled. Leo knew this could work out to his advantage, as
long as he played the kid carefully.

So he had planted all the seeds about how
Vanni had used him, but worse – took advantage of a poor girl who
was much like Baylee. She was young, she was poor – she was
desperate. When he had seduced her, she made the mistake of falling
in love with him, but he had left her for some other social climber
who was just as much an elitist as Vanni himself.

He painted Vanni, Andy and Graham as the same
kind of thoughtless rich people who had raped and abused Donny most
of his adolescence, which nearly had the kid breathing fire.

Now that Holly had miscarried, it would
certainly be the last nail in Andy’s coffin.

He brought Donny to see Holly that afternoon.
She was out on the morphine, and looked even smaller and more
childlike in her sleep. Leo hoped it would remind Donny of Baylee,
which – by the look on his face – it probably did.

“You think Carnevale is going to care she
lost his baby? He’ll probably be relieved. That’s probably why he
forced himself on her last night. He thinks women are his to use,
and he doesn’t care what happens to them when he’s done.”

And of course, with what happened to Baylee,
Donny latched onto that with a furor. “That motherfucker should
die,” he seethed under his breath.

“Dying’s too good for him. Too quick. What
you want to do is take something that is far more valuable to him.
Make him feel what you feel.” He motioned to Holly. “What she
feels.”

Donny nodded. It was the only way.

As they left the hospital, Leo thought to
himself maybe this miscarriage was the best thing that could have
happened to all of them.

He stopped by to see Julian, who was still
out from his bender the night before. Blood was smeared all over
the bed, which turned Leo’s stomach. Julian was a loose cannon too.
He was fairly easy to control when he was high, which is why Leo
tried to keep him that way when they’d talk about their future
plans. Julian was the only one with his foot in the door of Vanni’s
business, especially when Vanni had proven himself ready to walk if
Graham hadn’t accepted Julian as part of the band.

So what if he wasn’t “technically” a member?
That would come.

The problem with both Julian and Holly is
that they had no patience.

Kids
, he thought. Stupid, stupid kids.

When Julian woke up he freaked out at the
sight of his body, the bedroom and, of course, Holly’s absence. Leo
was watching the sports channel in the other room when Julian ran
out, fastening his jeans over his dirty body. “Where’s Holly? Is
she okay?”

Leo tipped a glass of whiskey. “A little late
to be concerned about that, don’t you think?”

Julian rushed Leo and knocked the glass from
his hand. “You motherfucker!” he screamed, but Leo easily knocked
him back with both girth and experience. Julian ended up sprawled
on the floor underneath the towering man.

“Back off, boy,” Leo told him in a deadly
growl. “You fuck with me and I’ll knock your dick in the dirt.”

“Where’s Holly?” Julian asked again, although
this time quieter.

“Holly’s fine,” Leo informed him. “Baby’s
dead, though.”

Julian fell back on the floor and covered his
eyes. He had really done it this time.

Leo kicked Julian’s bare foot with the edge
of his boot. “No need to cry over spilled milk. Turns out it may be
the best thing that could happen.”

Julian sat up. “What do you mean?”

Leo went for another glass. “Let’s just say…
I have another plan.”

Holly was still dozing when her cell phone
rang that afternoon. She fumbled for it, then sat up a little
straighter when she saw that it was Vanni. She answered it in a
small voice. “Hi.”

“Hey, Hol,” Vanni said, sounding so happy in
his blissful ignorance of their loss. “I just wanted to see how you
were feeling.”

She swallowed the lump in
her throat.
Feeling as shitty as I’ve ever
felt, thanks
, she thought to herself.
“Tired,” was all she said. “I was sleeping.”

She could practically hear the smile in his
voice. “That’s good. You’ll need it. I hear that there’s not much
sleeping after the baby’s born.”

She gulped again and squeezed her eyes shut
to fight back the tears. “That’s what they tell me,” she eked
out.

“How’s the little linebacker?” he asked.

Her hand went to her empty
tummy.
Gone
. “He’s
fine,” she found herself saying, finding comfort in the lie. “He’s
sleeping,” she said, imagining a plump, pink baby boy slumbering on
a cloud. “Like an angel.”

Angelo
.

He laughed. “Did you get a nurse arranged
yet? Because I’m more than willing to do that for you, you
know.”

“No need,” she said quietly. “I’ll take care
of it. You have a lot to do with your own family.”

“You’re part of my family too, Hol,” he said
softly and with such sincerity it broke the last remaining piece of
her heart. “Should I come over tonight, make you dinner?”

She shook her head. “No, I have something
arranged. I’ll call you in the next few days to keep you updated,
though.”

He didn’t sound convinced but he didn’t push.
“Okay. If you’re sure.”

She wasn’t. “I’m sure.”

“Tell our baby boy Daddy loves him,” he said.
“And take care of yourself, Hol.”

“I will,” she promised in a small squeak of a
voice. “Bye, Vanni.”

She hung up before she burst into tears.

In Burbank, Vanni sat in his trailer,
cradling his phone. He didn’t know why but he felt something was
wrong. Maybe he’d go by the apartment and see her anyway. She
sounded down. Maybe she was feeling overwhelmed by the pregnancy,
or perhaps she thought that she was somehow a failure because there
had been a problem.

He’d done some research that morning and he
had a better idea of what to expect from her condition. He felt
confident that they could take care of her properly so she could
deliver a healthy baby boy by September. He thought about Andy, who
was thriving with her own pregnancy. In days they’d be moved into
their new house and decorating their little Bean’s nursery. He
couldn’t wait to meet both of his children, whom he loved so much
already.

There was a knock on his trailer door. He
opened it to find Kelly, who looked distressed. “What’s wrong?” he
asked.

Her hand shook as she pushed away a stray
strand of hair from her normally neat ponytail. “I think you should
come with me.”

He followed her to the security office, where
a package for Andy had been intercepted. It was a box like those
formerly left on his doorstep. It had a doll of an adult woman,
broken into pieces, as well as a beheaded baby doll.

Vanni’s stomach turned when he saw it. “Did
Andy see this?”

Kelly shook her head. “I opened the package
and brought it straight to security. The return address is invalid,
and the postmark is somewhere in East Los Angeles. Graham’s people
are on it, but it looks like your stalker found a new way to harass
her.”

“Where is she?”

“She went home early to rest. She’s been kind
of tired today. I told her I’d be there in about two hours to start
dinner.”

He nodded. “Well, we have the cameras there
so that should be safe,” he said. “But I can’t wait for her to move
into the new house.”

“You may want to consider her working from
home,” Kelly advised. “This is a warning.”

He nodded again, and then he reached for his
phone to call her. It went straight to voicemail. “I guess she’s
asleep,” he said. “Why don’t you go ahead and head out there? I’ll
feel safer knowing she’s not alone.”

She nodded. “Thanks, Vanni.”

“No, thank you, Kelly. You did good.”

She gave him a smile before she left the
room. Vanni glanced back at the dismembered dolls. Kelly was right.
This was a warning.

Vanni knew they couldn’t afford to ignore
it.

He went back to his trailer and called the
contractor, to check up on the status of the safe room at the new
house.

When Andy approached the front door of their
beach house, she didn’t notice that the security camera mounted
above the front door had anything at all wrong with it. In those
early days after it had been installed, she generally checked to
make sure it was working every single day. But as uneventful weeks
passed she had grown complacent. There were so many other things
that required her focus. There was the show, of course, but also
all the preparation she had done in regards to their new home and
preparing for her daughter’s arrival. After a while she felt safe
enough to come and go without ever checking for those things that
normally pestered her, like stalkers leaving packages on her
doorstep, or the paparazzi milling around trying to get pictures of
her baby bump.

Now that they went public with their
relationship, there was no real need to hound them. Their having a
baby was not breaking news anymore. She’d been delegated to a
footnote, nothing more than “and fiancé” on any caption from red
carpet events she was now allowed to attend.

It was a safe, almost normal, world for her.
She’d even begun to wonder why she’d ever been so concerned in the
first place. All the things she had fretted over prior to “coming
out” as Giovanni Carnevale’s future wife didn’t seem as
overwhelming in the clear light of day.

So she was completely taken off guard when
she opened the door and found her love nest completely trashed.

Furniture had been slashed, the piano had
been overturned. Ashes from their fireplace had been scattered all
over their pristine walls, spelling out “Rich Pigs” everywhere. She
dropped the bag she was carrying and turned around to sprint from
the doorframe, only to find a masked intruder standing two inches
from her, blocking her passage.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you
want?”

With one broad hand he pushed her face back
as he forced her into the house, slamming the door behind them. She
stumbled off the step of the foyer and fell onto the floor in the
kitchen. Instinctively she covered her stomach with her hands to
protect her child. “My money’s in my purse,” she said. “You can
have all of it. Just take it and go!”

“I don’t want your money, you pig,” he
snarled, taking care to mask his voice – like had tissue stuffed in
his cheeks.

Her panicked eyes widened. “What do you
want?”

He laughed as he took her leg and dragged her
down into the living room. Each step sent waves of pain through her
back and around to her womb. She suppressed every cry as she
struggled to free her foot from his strong grip.