She saw it as a way to save them, but I saw it as a cheap, easy way to make money.
I’d been right and most likely would be right again after this meeting.
I stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows in an office atop the Stonewood Tower, overlooking the calm but deceptively deep waters of Lake Michigan. That lake hid secrets just like I did. “You asked for a face to face, Paolo. You got it for the next twenty minutes.”
I looked over my shoulder to see Paolo appearing anxious today in a gray suit that clung a little more loosely than in the past to his tall, thin frame. He’d always had distinctly high cheekbones, but his skin seemed to sag more under his dark, beady eyes now. He was sitting at the table with his brother at his left and his niece right behind him. She had a calm, cobalt gray gaze that was locked on the man beside me.
Cal held her stare in his black on black tailored suit, his silhouette sharp against that Chicago skyline. My brother was always diplomatic but also more alert than me, his training embedded in him. He’d watch Paolo’s men and women because he knew to trust me, knew to have my back even when he wanted peace.
“I appreciate you finally seeing me even if it’s under these circumstances. I shared my frustration with Cal about the school shooting, although I had nothing to do with it …”
My brother didn’t speak, move, or confirm Paolo’s words. He just watched, and as I looked Paolo over, I saw how my brother’s silence made him squirm more. He’d expected an ally in my brother, but my brother was truly only ever loyal to me.
“And yet you’ve worked closely with O’Connor for years.” I lifted a brow and walked to sit across from him at the large table. This game of chess was one I’d been playing for a long time, and I wouldn’t be outmaneuvered. “You might not havebeen at the scene, Paolo, but are you saying you didn’t know O’Connor’s plans? That you let someone that close to you do something so stupid?”
His eyes flashed with a bit of fear. It was the first crack in his breakdown. I might have been the only one to catch it, but it was all I needed to see. I fed off finding the cracks in someone’s armor. He swallowed. “It would have never served me well to go after your daughter. O’Connor knew better. I told him not to use any sort of force to get his way—”
“You told him, did you?” I locked eyes with him.
He glanced away. “Look, I … I’m not here to waste time with small talk, and I know you aren’t either.”
“Is my daughter small talk to you, Paolo?”
“No, n-no … Of course not,” he stuttered. “I just wasn’t at all a part of what happened. You understand? I want this time between us to be mutually beneficial and …” He leaned forward, folding his worn hands together and clearing his throat. “I’ve wanted to discuss a merger. I help you and you help me. All I need is port access again. The updated international pharma-trade legislation has limited us.”
“That’s not my problem,” I stated flatly, shrugging because I didn’t care.
He bristled. “You helped push it through.”
“My partners at Stonewood Enterprises have always been clean. They invest in by-the-books pharma companies. We do what’s best for them.”
“Fine, but you know how strong we once were. If legislation had grandfathered in older import-export lanes or could revise their stance—”
“Not happening.”
He scoffed. “Then give us a clearance window or two through one of your bonded warehouses so that we can move synthesis-grade precursor chemicals. One or two shipments a month, noquestions asked. With your warehouses having medical classification clearance and my cargo routed through as a biotech subsidiary, we could move millions, and I’d give you a fifty-fifty cut.”
I waited to hear if he wanted to add any additional benefit and, of course, he didn’t disappoint.
“I realize it’s somewhat of a risk, but …” He cleared his throat. “It’d help Lex’s family’s company.”
There it was.
“Wilshire & Co.?” I asked, more to confirm he had the gall and audacity to bring up my late wife, confirming my suspicions.
“Well, you know how Lex was.” He smiled like we both had shared memories of her. “Your wife always wanted them to do well, you know? I tried my best to keep her dream alive after she … passed. A gesture of sorts.”
“A gesture for who?” Listening to a man with an ego talk normally always led to more than they wanted to say. So, I pried, keeping my tone even rather than correcting his statement. Paolo kept her dream alive because he’d fallen victim to loving and blindly investing in whatever she wanted.
My late wife had loved him and the idea of partnering with him. I knew that. She’d had relations with him before our marriage and probably after. I didn’t really care one way or the other. Her family had the pharma company us Diamonds wanted access to. They were tied to the FDA and politically valuable. My marriage was arranged, and it was a power move for both parties.
Even still, we enjoyed one another at first. Enough that she got pregnant, enough that I wanted what was best for her and my daughter.
When scandal around her family’s pharma company hit, though, we pulled back. The fact that she had never confided inme that they were distributing contaminated meds along with falsified trial data for cancer patients meant I couldn’t see a benefit to having her as a partner either, except with Franny.
My daughter was in love with her mother. And I was in love with having a perfect family for my child. Those were the only two reasons I afforded her a chance to be faithful to me and to Franny. Instead, I saw how she changed, how the strategy in her bled out, how she desperately tried to outmaneuver everyone to keep her family’s company alive.
I didn’t give in to the demands of aiding her family, of partnering with Paolo, who had bigger ties to the FDA at the time.
