Til Debt Do Us Part (Married At Midnight #4)

Chapter 11

Eleven

Dare

S tanding in the middle of the echoing hallway, I watch Talia’s retreating figure as she practically sprints out of the mansion. I let her go, feeling as though she will come around. Maybe Talia will be mad for a couple of days. But money motivates her. Like all the other women I’ve ever known, she will eventually fold and take my money.

I look to my left and find Clive standing there, hands behind his back, his eyes narrowing on the door. I jerk my head toward the entrance to the house. "Can you send one of the chauffeurs after her and offer her a ride home? Otherwise, I think she’s actually stubborn enough to walk the whole way despite the weather."

Clive bows his head and wordlessly bustles off toward the driveway.

No sooner do I watch Clive disappear do I hear a low rumble of the pocket doors to Remy’s study opening. "Dare! Gather all the family. Tell them all that I need to see them now. I expect that they will all be waiting in my study in an hour. I have an announcement to make that I think everyone will find important."

I feel a flutter low in my belly. It may be something like anxiety—a feeling of uncertainty that I usually don’t have. I narrow my eyes and push the feeling down, pushing my shoulders back and tensing my jaw. I believe that a person is exactly whatever they want to be; if I want to be confident and ruthless in my business dealings, then by wanting that I shall be. It doesn’t work for everyone, I find. But it works for me.

I make my own destiny.

A while later, I’m sitting, drumming my fingers against the dark leather of the couch when Burn arrives with Daisy on his arm. I straighten my posture and cut a glance toward them as they enter. Burn scowls at me. Daisy looks at me, her eyes brightening and a smirk forming on her beautiful lips.

She sashays over to me, her hips swinging, her long hair a dark mass that wraps around her nearly like a cape. She comes right up to me with a hand on her hip and stops to pose and toss her hair.

"Hello, Dare." Her eyes twinkle with a dark kind of mystery.

I struggle not to express my true feelings, which are anger and annoyance at her presence.

"Daisy," I say with a nod. "Don’t you have lives to ruin somewhere else?"

She smiles, showing me a hint of her teeth. "Come on now, Dare." She touches my arm, which is honestly almost painful. She rejected me. Doesn’t that mean that she doesn’t get to pass off such friendly gestures anymore?

I study her, not giving her the satisfaction of knowing that she is having any effect on me. I tilt my head to the side and give her a once-over with a glance.

When I don’t say anything, she gives me a little smile and turns, stalking back across the room to where Burn stands with my Uncle Felix, talking about something dastardly, no doubt.

The big surprise is my father showing up. He comes into the room, his suit rumpled, his graying hair sticking out oddly. He looks around the room with a watery blue-green gaze, his smile wobbly. He’s drunk, as usual. But he seems like he’s only just begun drinking. Usually on any given day, he starts off jovial, then a few hours later he turns morose, and for his final act, he’s like a toddler that’s gone too long without a nap.

He is a man that’s furious with the world and is not afraid to let everyone know it.

"Burn!" he exclaims. He ambles over to his favorite child, giving Burn a rousing clap on the back.

I look away because otherwise I will sneer at this show of filial love.

Burn gives my father a bland smile and slides his arm around Daisy, using her like a shield.

"Dad," Burn says cordially. "I didn’t really…"

My father’s eyebrows fly up in surprise. He raises his arms, looking around the room as if puzzled. "Do I not belong? I would think you would be glad to see me."

Burn’s grip tightens on Daisy’s waist. He forces a smile and says, "Of course. Welcome, of course."

My dad laughs; the sound is hard and calloused. “Thank you for your approval of my being here in my own father’s home, son.”

He claps Burn on the back again, making Burn flinch. Before he even bothers noticing what effects he just had on his child, his gaze swings around to me. A large group of my cousins, aunts, and uncles come in, their faces lighting up as soon as they lay eyes on my twin and his perfect fiancée. I glare at Burn, wishing for a second that I were not part of this family.

My dad is looking me up and down like he is deciding whether or not to even greet me. He smiles again, the expression colder now than it was only a moment ago when he was looking at Burn. I’ve always been the disappointment, the one who disapproved of my father and his drinking so strongly that I was rigid, even as a child.

"Dare, I didn’t realize that you would be joining us."

I arch my brow. "Joining who? I have been here for the better part of two weeks. I think that you are just now joining the family now that Remy might announce some kind of asset splitting in his will or something."

Dad looks at me with disgust. "No. That is not why I’m here. Or not the only reason, anyhow." He fusses with his tie, a dark blue piece of cloth that has seen better days and is wrinkled beyond imagination. He makes a sound, flapping his hand dismissively.

"You always were such a little brat. You know, if it were not for me, you wouldn’t even be alive. Your mother wanted to abort you, and I protested her decision. If I hadn’t stuck my neck out for you, you wouldn’t be standing here right now."

I roll my eyes. "Tell me something I haven’t heard you drunkenly rant about five thousand times, Dad. Seriously. I can smell the whiskey coming off you in waves. It’s unpleasant to be around.”

He shoots me a black look and wags his finger at me.

"You know what you are? You’re no fun. And on top of that, you have a bad personality. I have no idea where you got it from. Must be your dead mother."

I bare my teeth at him. "You better walk away now, Dad. Besides, I purposely sat on the other side of the room from the bar cart. I figured that if you showed up, you would be too busy pounding bourbon to bother with me.”

For once, the truth is laid bare between us. It feels electric at first, but the feeling quickly goes stale. My father sniffs and walks away, making a beeline for the bar cart now that I’ve brought his attention to it.

I stand up, and my Uncle Felix crosses the room, frowning as he watches my father pour himself a drink from a crystal decanter.

"That was quite a showdown," Felix says.

I give a tiny shake of my head. "He was asking for it."

"No doubt. That always seems to be his idea of family bonding. He probably thinks he is doing well."

A dark kind of laughter escapes me. I look at Felix, leaning closer so that my voice will not carry. "Any news on the drilling rights?"

Felix just shakes his head and puts a finger to his lips. "Later."

I run my tongue over my teeth, screwing up my face. "Any idea why we are gathered here? Remy didn’t really give me any clues."

Felix shakes his head. "No. But I have a bad taste in my mouth, like I am not going to enjoy whatever Remy has to say."

"Shit, I always feel that way too. And more often than not, I am right."

My uncle laughs and looks away. I am left wondering what Remy’s announcement could be about. Could he be announcing something related to Talia in some way? It seems unlike Remy to react to talking to someone of her low stature for just a few minutes. But I can’t shake the fact that Remy told everyone to gather just after Talia ran out of the house.

Clive enters the living room, looking around and then carefully dropping a bow. "Mr. Morgan is ready. He asked that only the men of the family gather in his study."

Out of the corner, I see Burn comforting Daisy, who looks rather unhappy. He grabs her hand and kisses her knuckles, smiling at her. "Darling, when you’re finally a Morgan, when we have tied the knot, then you can protest all you want."

Her face twitches, and she leans in close, whispering her displeasure into his ear. He nods and kisses her knuckles again. I try not to gag as I exit the living room, following Clive and my Uncle Felix as they make their way to Remy’s study. Remy is sitting behind his giant desk, his brow furrowed as he watches us all filter in.

There are maybe twenty people that enter the space, the room is no bigger than twenty by twenty. My father and uncle drop into the seats before the desk, leaving the rest of us to stand awkwardly. I take up a position near the window where I like to stand. My brother takes his usual position by Remy’s desk, sitting on its corner.

The little fucker , I think.

The view out the window, which affords the best view in the entire house, just below, the ground that the house is situated on falls away, giving a glimpse of the town of Harwicke below. Remy drums his fingers and waves rather impatiently until we are all in the office, then motions for Clive to close the pocket doors. It all seems pretty ominous, and I have that feeling again, that flip-flop in my stomach that indicates some anxiety. What is he going to announce, exactly?

He coughs when he looks at us. "Family…" He gasps and he coughs again, the sound ragged. "Family is all that matters. And not this namby-pamby, neo-liberal bullshit either. I mean, your blood in your veins is identical to mine. I want you to remember what’s most important when I consider who should inherit the company."

Everyone straightens at once, their eyes widening. Whenever Remy says anything remotely like inheritance, you can be damn sure that the sycophants and followers in my family are ready to listen.

Remy clears his throat. "Your grandmother would have wanted to be here to see you get married, Burn and Dare."

I narrow my eyes and tilt my head, trying to puzzle out what he’s saying. My grandmother did want her grandsons to marry well. She told us so many times. But she’s been dead for years now.

“So why is this suddenly so important?”

Remy holds up his hand, stealing my thoughts. "I know that everyone here is interested in controlling interest in our family company. You’re all bloodthirsty bastards, so I don’t have to ask what you are thinking. You’re thinking of yourselves. Which…… You don’t have to explain anything to me. I am as capitalist as they come." He looks around, his eyebrows rising. "I am going to give the reins of the company over to one of my grandsons. Whichever of them marries and has a child first."

"What?” my father asks, sounding horrified. "What about the rest of us?"

Remy jabbed a finger at him, halting his words. "Shut up, Tripp. You cut yourself off when you all but killed your wife with your drinking. You and your brother will both get a token amount of my money and not a penny more."

With my mouth hanging wide open, I try to take in Remy’s demands. My pulse thunders loudly in my ears.

Married? I never thought about getting married, not since Daisy left me. And now I’m supposed to do it just because my grandfather makes it part of an inheritance race?

Remy glances between my brother and me. My brother appears to be the polar opposite of frozen, which is how I am feeling. He looks at me, smirking.

Nothing has to be spoken between us for me to understand just what he is thinking. He has already asked Daisy to marry him. That’s the very first step. He is already light years ahead of me, and I know it, which makes my blood boil.

Remy makes a gesture, like he’s being perfectly reasonable. "Look, twelve months to put a grandchild in front of me. Perhaps eighteen months, if you really have to try." He gives me and my brother a cold smile. "You shouldn’t have to. When I married your grandmother, she was pregnant within a month."

"If we don’t follow through with your orders?" I find myself asking. "What if we have trouble?"

He sits back in his chair, regarding the room with pursed lips. "Well, then I would have to start looking outside the family. Maybe even selling the company and giving the proceeds to charity when I die." He leans forward suddenly, almost seeming as though he is going to fall out of his chair. He stops himself on the edge of his desk, peering around the room as if issuing a challenge. "Don’t make me give the money I worked so hard for away. Bring me a grandchild, both of you."

"Don’t you mean a great-grandchild?” my dad asks.

"God dammit, Tripp!" My granddad wheezes. "I am skipping a generation, obviously. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like you all to get the fuck out of my office. Burn and Dare have some sweet-talking to do. And the rest of you can get out of the way of men who were actually working."

I stand here, completely shell-shocked by my grandfather’s demand.

A family? Kids? Marriage? My whole life, my grandfather has always been so staunchly pro-money, pro-capitalist, and anti-charity. And now this sudden threat to give away everything he worked so hard for?

My Uncle Felix stands up, pointing a finger at Remy. "You’re unwell, Dad. You sound like a madman."

My grandfather smacks his lips, giving Felix a heavy dose of side eye. "You. You’re the worst one in the whole family. You’re a leech and a money grubber. In my will, you get one hundred thousand dollars and not a cent more. Not a cemetery plot, not a vacation house, not the deed to this mansion. You can rot for all I care."

Trembling with fury, Felix glares at his father.

"If I am fucked up, it’s only because of the way that you raised me. Look at me. Look at Tripp. Is that the way that you want your own kids to be?"

"As far as I’m concerned, Burn and Dare are my only sons. You were an aberration. I love your mother, but she definitely raised you wrong."

"We’ll sue you. Right, Tripp?" He looks at my dad, and my dad gives a weary sigh.

"I don’t know. Whatever."

Remy chuckles. "If you know what’s good for you, Felix, you will toe the line and pretend to be a doting son in hopes that I have a fucking change of heart. Who knows, perhaps on my deathbed I will reconsider."

Felix shakes his head, trembling with his rage. He whirls and stomps out of the room, leaving the rest of us to look after his retreating figure.

"Well? Go on then. Get the fuck out." Remy gestures, shooing us out of his office. “Except Dare and Burn. I have something to tell you.”

I glance at Burn, wondering what it could possibly be. He arches his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything as the men leave us.

Clive is there to close the doors to Remy’s study behind us, leaving Burn, Remy, and me. Remy rocks back in his chair, his lips thinning.

“Since you two are in the running for CEO, I figured you are ready to hear all the news about Morgan Oil, the bad along with the good.”

I furrow my brow, trying to figure out what good news Remy gave us. But Burn gives Remy a complacent smile, returning to his favorite perch on the corner of Remy’s desk.

“We’re all ears, Remy.”

Remy looks at him tartly and then opens a drawer in his desk, pulling out a thick dark binder. He waves it at us and then drops it on his desk with a thud.

“You have a decision to make. Our family money is funded through… let’s say less than clean sources. Namely smuggling heroin into the country from Canada.”

My jaw drops. Burn’s expression is one of puzzlement.

“I’m sorry, did you say heroin ?” I clarify. Remy must mean something else and I’m struggling to understand right now.

Surely that is it.

Remy looks at both of us with a smug smile. “What, did you think that I built this whole empire on some oil fields? No. I’m handing down what my father and his father worked their whole lives to build. Our family has always done very well because we’ve always been able to smuggle in anything we wanted. Heroin, cocaine, girls… I’ve made a lot of money loan sharking, too.”

I choke a little. “Girls? You mean…”

“Like prostitutes?” Burn asks, his tone accusatory. “Loan sharks? What are you talking about, Remy? Are you feeling all right?”

Remy slides his gaze between Burn and me. “We have always smuggled in the best stuff from wherever we could source it. It’s the backbone of our family business. The oil fields and fracking and all that… that part of the business is booming now. But unfortunately, while I was making that part successful, my business partner was in charge of the heroin and the girls. And he made a mistake.”

I straighten, a buzzing sensation in my head. “Mr. Adams? Mr. Adams was your business partner in this… side business?”

Remy nods and flips the binder open. He pushes it across the desk, pursing his lips. “Not a side business. It was the main business when I took up the reins. Now it’s mostly in the rearview, but we have a huge problem.”

Stepping forward, I pull the binder close. The very first thing I see is a huge picture of the inside of a shipping container. The doors hang open and inside, there are bodies.

Twenty or so that I can see, mostly dark haired, mostly slumped on the floor of the container. All dressed casually, in jeans and lightweight jackets. One of the young women is posed, turned with her face out, her head leaning on her arm. Her complexion looks ever so slightly blue and her pupils are cloudy. There are no other signs of her being dead aside from her not moving.

Below the picture, a headline summarizes. 23 People Found Dead After Being Trafficked By Human Smuggling Ring; Police Say They Are Closing In On Perps.

“What the fuck?” Burn murmurs. “What is this, Remy?”

“A mistake,” Remy says with a shrug. “Charles Adams was here earlier, falling all over himself to explain how it happened on his watch.”

I scoff. “A mistake? This is… this is murder, Remy.”

Remy points a finger at me, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Do you two really want to get into the nitty gritty details of who did what? Or do you want to know why I am involving you?”

That sucks the air out of the room lightning fast. “Ideally, we’d like to know both.”

Remy grips his cane and shoves to his feet with some difficulty, snarling.

“You fucking brats. I provided you with everything you ever wanted your whole goddamned lives. Now you’re going to look at me like you had no idea? If that’s true, then be glad.” He whips the binder off the table and it flies to the wall with a whap , falling with a thunk . “Be glad that I sacrificed for you two! I didn’t have to. I chose to!!”

I am speechless. Burn swallows hard and glances at me.

Remy falls back in his chair, appearing disgusted with both of us.

“This whole mess has to be put on somebody’s shoulders. We are going to turn someone into the cops and they will probably go away for life. So I called you two ungrateful bastards in here because I would like you two to be a part of the decision making process. I’m leaning away from Charles, because there is a ton of shit about company business that he could tell the cops.” He winces, flip flopping his hand. “There is always the possibility of killing Charles and letting the cops find his suicide note… but I think it raises more questions concerning the company than it answers about his mistake. So I’m asking… who do you think should go down for this?”

“Remy, I don’t think I have an answer for you,” Burn says.

Remy slams his hand on his desk. “You’d better! I’m thinking that your father or your uncle Felix would work, but there are fifteen people in the company that this fiasco can be put on.”

I clear my throat. This whole situation is bizarre. Could Remy be making it all up just to fuck with us?

“Just so I’m clear, whoever we suggest would probably end up murdered as well, right? That’s what we’re talking about? Murder for hire?”

Remy inclines his head once, something dark flickering in his eyes. He checks his watch then shrugs.

“My next conference call is in a couple of minutes. I have to hit the head. You two can see yourselves out.”

He reaches over and pushes a buzzer on his desk, using his cane to get to his feet. He lurches toward the bathroom and doesn’t give us another glance.

I look at my brother, mouthing, what the fuck?

Burn shakes his head. In a second, Clive rolls the pocket doors open, his expression apologetic as he shoos us out of the room.

"Mr. Morgan has several more phone calls this afternoon. It is unfortunate that he cannot see anyone for the rest of the day."

Crossing my arms, I shoot him a glare. "It’s nice that you care about us enough to explain anything, Clive. But we’re not fools. We know exactly who Remy is."

Burn snorts but does not say anything. He just turns, looking for Daisy. She comes tripping down the hall, a greedy smile on her face. She throws herself into Burn’s arms.

I feel my own arms tensing. Not that long ago, I was the recipient of Daisy’s attention. Now I am just another bystander, sentenced to watch her fawn all over my twin. A sick feeling pervades my stomach, making me disgusted by everything I see.

Burn doesn’t even notice that I am watching. Instead, he grabs Daisy and swings her around, making the kind of eye contact that makes the rest of the world fade away. There are only Burn and Daisy in their happy little bubble.

"So? What was the meeting about?" Daisy asks, her voice excited.

"The old man declared that whichever of his grandsons marries and has a baby first gets the entire business. Since we're already engaged, that means that I’m going to run the company.” He gives her waist a squeeze. “You hear that? I’m going to run the company, baby."

She is less excited now, but still lets Burn hug her.

I notice that Burn doesn’t say any of the stuff about dead prostitutes in shipping containers to Daisy. Then again, if I were in his position, I wouldn’t either. I’m not even sure if Remy’s story is true.

He could just be playing us against each other, seeing who would do his bidding the fastest.

Daisy makes a kissy face and Burn leans in to kiss her, seemingly already lost in Daisy charms.

"You two idiots," I snarl. They turn and look at me, their eyebrows both rising in surprise. It’s like they really forgot that they were in front of an audience.

Daisy rolls her eyes delicately. "Dare…"

"You’re going to lose, Burn.”

Burn scowls at me, his neck heating slightly. "It sounds like you’re scared, Dare."

He kisses Daisy on the lips again, looking deep into her eyes once more. "Do not listen to his lunacy. He’s just a lone man, howling angrily into the wind."

She glances at me, then slides her eyes back to him. She grins and kisses his lips, smacking them passionately in a way that is overboard and disgustingly sugary. She hugs him, burying her face in his jacket. As soon as she is not looking, Burn looks dead at me and draws a finger across his throat, imitating a knife.

I shake my head, not interested in inflicting their happiness upon myself anymore. I leave the estate, huffing all the while, more determined than ever that I will destroy their relationship. I will get Talia on tape, describing the sex with Burn. Then I will show it to Daisy and sit back as Daisy rejects Burn.

Then I’ll figure out if any of this dead prostitutes business even happened and decide what to do about it from there.

I leave the house and get into my Porsche, gunning the engine and heading towards town.