Page 56 of Lust & Lies

“I think he does. He’s still childish as hell. But he seemed genuinely worried about her today. He had her come to him, and now they’ve gone to his house out in the country. It looks like he cares for her to me.”

“At least she’s safe. What happened after the cops came?” Julian asked.

“They picked up father and son for questioning after taking witness statements. Junior wasn’t at the office. They had to go to his home to find him. My sources tell me they found him high as fuck, and he started telling the cops everything before his lawyer even showed up.”

“Fucking idiot.”

“Yeah, he’s always been an idiot.”

“So now we just have to wait and see if Aaron Clark retaliates.”

“He’ll be going down, too. When the police come here to ask questions about the staffer who was killed by Junior, I’ll review the footage with them of her last day on the job.

I’m sure we’ve got Senior on camera entering our facilities.

That’ll prove he helped Junior cover it up.

And since Louis is a no-show this morning, I’m sure I can help the cops figure out his connection to it all and make it seem like the bastard ran off with some money to escape the Clarks. ”

“It looks like this may be wrapped up nicely. But we both know things never go as planned.”

My life was proof of that. My gaze drifted to the security screen. Noe was awake. She’d gone downstairs and gotten herself a book and a bowl of cereal. She was now relaxing in bed, eating and reading. Not once had she come to check on me or tell me good morning.

I could be dead in one of these rooms, and she wouldn’t even know or care. Despite knowing that, I’d still rather be beside her than in here, half asleep, trying to handle business. In fact, I was tired of staring at her on this screen. I needed to see her face in person.

I muffled my yawn before telling Julian, “You’re right. Things don’t always go as planned. So, be careful. I’ll call you if the recording picks up anything you should know.”

“Thanks, Aiden.”

I ended the call and was just about to go check on Noe to see if she needed anything, but my phone rang. Fuck. My. Life. I answered the call, which led to a video chat with my hotel manager.

That call lasted longer than I’d intended. But that was my fault. I wanted to know how something like this could’ve gone down in our fucking hotel and we’re just now finding out about it.

We had policies in place, just as other hotels did, that were meant to prevent shit like this from happening and also prevent human trafficking.

We had teams in place that monitored hallways in our hotels to see who entered and exited rooms, making sure no women or children entered but didn’t leave the room.

A few years ago, an agency offered classes that trained staff on how to spot suspicious activity that could be associated with trafficking, domestic violence, and child abuse. I sent my entire staff to those classes, even the kitchen staff.

So how had those women gone into that room but didn’t come out alive without anyone noticing? Though we wouldn’t take the fall for the murders, this would affect our reputation.

And it should, because we’d failed those women and our staffer. We’d have to work on a statement to let the public and our board know that we were actively putting procedures in place to prevent such things from happening in the future.

The management team and I went over countless possibilities and questions the police could ask when they came to do interviews. I wanted to make sure the managers were prepped on what to say and, more importantly, what not to say.

When lunchtime rolled around, I thought about going to eat with Noe. Then Ethan called to fill me in on something he’d overheard by listening in on the conversations going on at Clark Constructions.

A new problem had arisen, and this one would affect Julian and Cattaneo Constructions. So instead of going to eat with Noe, I had to make another call to Julian Cattaneo.

While waiting for him to answer, I watched Noe on the security cam as she went downstairs, heated some of the food Dolores had brought us, and ate alone. She was perfectly content without me by her side, while I was over here going through withdrawals.

“What happened?” Julian finally answered the call, already sensing something was up.

I sighed, massaging my forehead, sick of dealing with this shit.

“The bug has picked up on something you need to know.”

“What is it?” Julian asked.

“Aaron Clark has another son.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah. It’s a bastard kid who usually handles his dad’s grunt work.

Work that required him to get his hands dirty so that Junior wouldn’t have to.

He’s a year older than Junior. His mother was the family’s maid, so the Clarks kept his identity a secret and hired him on as a guard.

His name is Scott Pollard. Looks like he sees this as his chance to make a move.

Though Clark Construction isn’t open for business, he was in his father’s office, making calls, trying to convince some of his father’s business partners that he would be the one taking over the family business. ”

“Did he think it would be that easy to convince them?”

“He quickly learned that it wasn’t. Since asking nicely didn’t help, he decided to use force. He wants to go after his old man’s enemies to prove he’s really the one in charge.”

“Let me guess. He’s starting with me,” Julian stated.

“Cattaneo Concrete Solutions is first on his list.”

Our hotels were next. But Tristan was already working on that and searching for Scott Pollard. He wouldn’t be the first or the last person to try to go against us. People like him were the reason we had the Watchdogs in the first place.

If my grandfather knew about this, he’d want to send Noe after Scott. Luckily, he didn’t know, and to him, Noe was now dead. She was no longer someone he could order to take care of the family’s dirty work.

“He’s bold,” I told Julian. “He’s not as smart or conniving as his father, but he also isn’t as reckless as Junior.

I don’t know him personally. However, after listening to him talk, it seems this is something he’s wanted to do for a long time to show his father he’s better than Junior, that he should be the one who inherited the company.

He’s holding a grudge and carrying years of pent-up rage.

He’s like a ticking time bomb. That makes him dangerous. ”

“I’ll deal with him. Alone. You work on making sure Aaron Clark and his son go down for what they’ve done. I’ll make sure the bastard doesn’t get a chance to prove anything to his father.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Julian told me. “I’ll handle him. Thanks for the update. Let me know if anything else comes up.”

“Will do. You know I can help you take care of this guy, right?”

“I know. And thanks. But I’ll handle it.”

“Alright.” I ended the call.

I’d tell Tristan to hold off on approaching Scott Pollard. Julian wanted to handle it. But if Julian failed or took too long, we’d take care of it. We had too, before my grandfather found out about this and started meddling.

If he started investigating, he’d want to look at the hotel footage from where the bodies were found. And if he found the footage missing, he’d start asking questions I didn’t want to answer.

Damn. I’d hoped to have this shit wrapped up by the end of today. It seemed it would be a while before this was done. There would be no leaving the country for me and Noe anytime soon.

Which meant I had to beef up security around the estate, just in case Noe tried to leave me. I knew Noe well. Her silence meant she was definitely planning to leave me. Or kill me. But to me, those things were two sides of the same coin. Not having Noe was like dying a thousand deaths.

I never wanted to experience that type of agony again.