Chapter One

Chapter One

H

e had been called old-fashioned—hardly surprising, perhaps, since he’d been in this business since the first Bush took his presidential oath. Charles Stafford had been a member of the Pegasus board for over two decades and also many others over the years. He’d headed up various other companies and held leadership positions in all of them, as well as a dozen charitable foundations and even a couple of Minor League baseball teams.

It could be said that this defined who he was. After all, he’d done it for as long as he could remember. His secret was respect. People respected his opinion. They knew he was there to make the business go well and smoothly, a voice of reason to help anchor every generation’s free thinkers.

While it wasn’t a job everyone wanted to do, it was one he excelled at—and even reveled in, from time to time.

But at the center of his success was the respect he had for the people he worked with and they had for him. Even those who had been forced into conflict with him had always thought of him as a worthy opponent. He didn’t like the politics that came with running a business, and he always tried to keep everything he did out in the open. He wanted people to know he had outsmarted them, plain and simple.

Of course, it wasn’t always like that, but it was a nice footnote to have on his legacy that he always tried to play the game as respectfully as possible.

Given all that, the reason he was pissed right the fuck off as he marched his way into the Pegasus building was a matter of respect—or, rather, the lack of it in this case. If you called a meeting of the board, it was only respectful to be there in person when they convened. He understood not being in the country when things were happening to genuinely prevent one’s presence. Attending an emergency board meeting via a camera and a microphone was acceptable. People couldn’t be in two places at once, and those running operations like Pegasus certainly had many other responsibilities across the globe.

And in this situation, having lost two board members—one to death and one to widely publicized arrest and subsequent resignation—in as many months certainly spelled emergency in his book.

But if Dr. Courtney Monroe wanted to assemble the members of the board herself, she could at least extend them the common courtesy to be there.

He wasn’t being fair and knew that as he stepped into the elevator with his assistant—a young woman who knew to keep her mouth shut when he was in a mood like this. Monroe had proved surprisingly competent, and now that her little war with Carlson was over, Charles really wanted to see what she could do.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t off to the best of starts if this was how she intended to continue.

The elevator pinged to announce their arrival at the appropriate floor. He immediately scuttled off as fast as his limbs could carry him to the conference room where the meeting would be held. He was generally the first to arrive at these events, and the fact that he had arrived late was a deliberate protest against the circumstances.

Most of the members of the board were present, which made Monroe and Anderson notable in their absence. The others sat calmly around the table as Charles dropped onto his seat and tried not to groan. Old golfing injuries had begun to tell on his body, and he didn’t much care for it. He needed to see his doctor about upping the dosage of his pills. Being in pain was for people who couldn’t afford the best doctors in the country.

“Right, then,” Monroe said from the TV screen at the head of the room. “Now that all the members have been assembled—thanks for joining us, Stafford—we can start with the agenda for the meeting. You’ll be pleased to hear it’s short and to the point.”

He chafed at the way Monroe seemed to talk down to him and treat him like he was a freshman in this business, but he let it slide. Instead of a response, he opened the folder that waited in front of his seat, which contained the agenda for the meeting. She wasn’t wrong. It was short and to the point.

“Carlson’s resignation from his position as CEO of this company has left something of a power vacuum, and especially since the sudden surrender of his shares in the company to…uh…pay for legal fees.” Monroe settled her glasses firmly on her nose. “His shareholding was substantial, and as you all undoubtedly know, leaving that large a section of the company without ownership for too long will kill the share prices. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it’s not a good thing. As such, I will make the executive decision to take control of the shares for the time being.”

Charles jerked his gaze from the folder when alarm bells shrilled in his head. The board wouldn’t ordinarily stand for a power move like that, but the reality was that they had little say. Since the takeover, their power in the company had been reduced to a mere shadow of what they had once wielded. If Monroe wanted to take control of the shares Carlson had left vacant, there was nothing they could do to stop her.

“Of course, I can’t keep control of those shares for long,” she continued. “We’ll hold a selective sale of his position to various trusted members of allied organizations like the Monroe Foundation, among others. Until that point, I will appoint an emergency member to this board, to be announced before the week’s end. They will hold the position until it is filled by members more suited to the responsibility.”

Stafford wanted to protest. He wanted to tell her that she was a newcomer and needed to respect the opinions of the people who had run this company for years. They had been there since long before she had ever decided to poke her head out from the confines of that jungle she currently visited. But he reminded himself of what was necessary and managed to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t like playing the politician, but sometimes, it was critical. It was, he reminded himself, important that Monroe not think of him as opposing any of her plans—not yet. He knew two of the people who had openly butted heads with her, and it hadn’t ended well for either of them.

He hadn’t known Covington aside from a few meetings, but the impression she’d left was of brash and impulsive arrogance. She had always come across as someone who had so many good ideas that she no longer thought she was capable of any bad ones.

Carlson was a different beast. Charles remembered working with the man’s father, and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He was as sharp as a new suit and equally presentable. The company had thrived under him, too. He was charismatic and knew all the right decisions to make and how to talk people into siding with him.

The man was, quite simply, a force of nature. The fact that he had been arrested was unfortunate. While his methods might have been somewhat unorthodox, he got things done. He’d made the company what it was, and without the interference of that woman and her ex-military sidekick, he would never have been discovered. One could only admire a man who knew what was required and had the balls to do whatever it took. Ruthlessness was something Charles greatly admired.

Monroe and Anderson were, unfortunately, midgets in the shadow of the giant they’d deliberately demeaned. He lacked sufficient words to properly define how abhorrent and inconsequential they were in his eyes. The fact that they so brazenly believed in their moral superiority was sickening.

“I’ll announce who will take the position when I return from the Zoo,” Monroe continued with a small smile. “Either in person or through our current CEO, James Anderson, who should return to Philadelphia in the next couple of days. And that wraps up my section of the agenda. Are there any questions?”

Charles studied the other members of the board with veiled interest. He knew that each and every one of them had questions they wanted to voice regarding what they had heard. His scrutiny confirmed, however, that none of them would get involved in this. They all simply chose to keep their heads down and hopefully survive this whole debacle without being pushed out themselves. They were all scared of Monroe, not angry at her. That was…pathetic. No, perhaps appalling was preferable.

“Very well, then,” she said with another smile as the silence threatened to drag on for too long. “I will be in touch with each of you before the sale to ascertain whether you are interested in acquiring a portion of Carson’s shares. Please watch for my emails.”

The screen went black and Charles leaned back in his seat, adjusted his four-thousand-dollar suit, and regarded his fellow board members.

“Well,” he said to end the sudden silence. “Carlson has been forced out—yes, I know he apparently resigned, but he wouldn’t have done so if Monroe hadn’t forced him into it somehow—and now, he’s locked up. Covington’s dead, and you are all hiding in your little turtle shells hoping the big bad doctor doesn’t come for you next. What a bunch of cowards.” He added a derisive snort to punctuate his statement.

The others simply stared at him in confusion, and some even appeared to be angry. He didn’t care. They wouldn’t stand up for the man who had all but carried Pegasus into some of its most productive and profitable quarters since its founding. All they saw, now, were the negative repercussions of the bold and ruthless decisions the man had taken. None of that would have been an issue if they’d been able to continue to pretend innocence—or, at the very least, to not be aware of them. These people would merely duck their heads and take whatever the interlopers threw at them. If that was truly their intention, he didn’t really give a shit about what they thought.

“It’s not cowardice to realize there’s a new apex predator in town, Charles,” one of the women said. Her expression seemed to suggest that he had single-handedly given all the puppies in the world cancer. “While nothing’s been said and there’s no way to prove it, we all know she was behind the whole Carlson debacle. Given the timing, you’d be an idiot not to see it. And we’ve all heard the stories of how she and Anderson use their friends from the Zoo as muscle to force people into making decisions they don’t want to make. I don’t need to tell you that people who come out of that shit-heap of a jungle are crazier than usual. Keeping our heads down and our mouths shut until all this blows over and Monroe oversteps herself is merely the smart move.”

“Smart move?” Charles pushed to his feet and glared around the table. “Is that the term you choose to describe your bending over and taking whatever she wants you to take? No, you need to understand something right now, Madeline. I’m the apex predator around here. Your weakness is what allowed Monroe to take over in the first place, and that weakness shows me that it’s my time to take over. You’re afraid of her when you should be afraid of me.”

He shoved his chair away and stormed out of the conference room. The dozen or so board members stared at the door he had slammed shut behind him.

“I have to say,” Brian Steward said and closed his folder. “That man seems more off his rocker than usual. I think he’s taken Carlson’s arrest a little too hard.”

“He’s taken it personally,” Madeline Forbes grumbled and shook her head. “I think he always saw Carlson as the little brother he never had or something like that. He’s not happy with how it happened and now, with Monroe taking liberties with the company stock, he thinks it’s his time to make a stand. The problem, though, is that he clearly also thinks we’ll stand with him because we don’t like it either.”

Brian chuckled softly. “Well, I only hope the asshole doesn’t try to pull us into his stupidity when he realizes we won’t join his little revolution.”

It took her a moment, but Madeline found herself sharing his laughter. It was infectious, and a few of the other board members joined in before it died down.

“Well, I don’t know who he thinks he’ll go after,” the lean career executive said and brushed her short hair behind her ear as she stood. “But either way, I’ll bet you he’ll tender his resignation as well within the next couple of weeks.”

“Or he’ll be dead,” Madeline said under her breath as the others stood and prepared to get on with the rest of their mornings. Just like poor Andressa, she thought. The woman had been as tough as nails but had never really understood the kind of woman she had gone up against until it was already too late.

Calls were made to drivers by the group of assistants who waited outside to have their cars ready within in the next five minutes, and most of the men and women on their way out were already making lunch plans. She had paperwork that needed her attention, and she would go to her office on the nineteenth floor.

Jeremiah wasn’t sure if he looked forward to the morning with dread or with relief. On the one hand, he knew to expect what would probably be an awkward conversation, but it would also mean a resolution.

If he wanted to apportion blame, he knew he could throw some at Dr. Jessica Coleman. It hadn’t been an unpleasant breakup—although he wasn’t entirely sure that the concept of breakup was appropriate. They had only shared a couple of nights of passion, after all. The most recent of those had been after a heavy night of drinking and the first had been after a night of mayhem and gunfire and barely escaping with their lives.

They’d had the talk she’d wanted but it hadn’t gone well the morning after. Jessica had decided that good pillow talk afterward was to say that Monroe had offered her a job in one of the locations on the west coast and she couldn’t exactly tell him where.

He had put up as much of a fight as he could, but they both knew there was an expiration date on the relationship. She was a scientist who would put her work ahead of any relationship she was in, and he was a killer who wouldn’t stick around anywhere for too long. It was doomed to fail. All in all, it was best to take control of the implosion and leave before anyone’s feelings were hurt.

That had been the idea, anyway. But Jeremiah couldn’t come up with a better explanation for his bad decisions over the past couple of weeks.

He knew that it wasn’t fair to blame Jessica for his bad choices, but she wasn’t around to correct him, and it made him feel better. So long as nobody was hurt, what was the problem?

The shower was steaming hot when he stepped in. He gritted his teeth as the scalding water rushed over his scalp and down his back. It found all the scars across his torso and arms, old and recent, and made them feel like they were new and tender. He drew in a deep breath and vigorously scrubbed himself clean of the previous night’s exertions before he stood and allowed the water to wash the suds away. Finally, he turned it off.

Some habits never went away. The old “navy shower” was one of them. He was in and out in under two minutes and dried himself off quickly with the towel the hotel provided. He dressed inside the bathroom because he somehow felt that it would be wrong to do so with someone else in the room.

He had been given the option to take his drunk date back to his place or hers, but his newly acquired paranoid ways told him that neither was ideal. A hotel room seemed the best choice. With the money Pegasus paid to keep him on retainer, it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it.

Fully dressed in a gray bowling shirt, jeans, and light boots, he stepped out of the bathroom. She was already awake.

Pearl, she’d said her name was. He really hoped she had been careful enough to give him a fake name too. She pushed herself up from the bed and the covers dropped away to reveal that she hadn’t bothered to put any clothes on since the night before. The long, brown hair, the athletic body, and the obviously enhanced breasts told him that appearance was very important to her. It was a nice ego boost to realize he had made the cut in that way, but as the rest of the night had proven, they were incompatible in more ways than one.

“Morning, handsome,” she said, pushed her hair back, and yawned. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

“I have a thing I need to get to,” Jeremiah replied with a nod and made sure he had all his accoutrements—wallet, keys, phone, and all in the right pockets too. He wasn’t sure why that was important to him, but it was. It felt odd to wander the city without a gun, but he didn’t have a permit and couldn’t afford to be busted with one of his weapons, especially since they were sans their serial numbers.

“Oh, okay,” she replied, pulled the covers away, and stepped out of the bed. Nobody woke up looking that good, he noted. Most likely, she had heard him get into the shower and touched herself up. She moved lightly over the carpeted floor and stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the lips. “Well, you have my number. Come again soon. Oh, a pun.” She giggled. “I’m punny.”

“Right,” he said and forced a laugh, suddenly reminded of two things. Why he knew he wouldn’t see her again, and why he had come to this hotel room in the first place. He pulled away and moved toward the door in an effort to escape any further morning-after small talk.

“Being dead sucks,” he grumbled to himself as he strode down the hallway towards the elevators. “Being without someone sucks harder.”

Jeremiah paused as the doors opened and a hotel employee stepped out. He moved inside and waited for the doors to close before he pressed the button for the ground floor.

“Being with an airheaded bimbo sucks hardest yet,” he continued, still talking to himself. “Oh, a pun. See, I’m punny too. Maybe we’re more compatible than I thought.”

He wasn’t serious, of course. He doubted that he’d actually saved her number or that he would use it even if he had.

“I need to up my game,” he said as the doors opened, stepped out onto the marble floor of the lobby, and moved purposefully toward the front desk. “I suck ass.”

They weren’t compatible, but he wasn’t a monster. He would pay for the room and the raiding of the minibar that had happened the night before, but he wouldn’t allow his credit card to be charged after he’d checked out. He wasn’t an asshole, but he wasn’t stupid either.