Page 14 of Omega
I waited a few minutes more in silence as Roth stared out the window, brooding. Finally I reached out and pried his hand open, threading my fingers through his. “Babe? You okay?”
He shook his head. “No. I hate selling that building. I built it from the ground up. I formed the construction company myself, handpicked the foreman and architect, and chose all the subcontractors myself. Every tile, every slab of marble and every board foot of imported wood, every door handle and cabinet pull and roll of carpeting…I chose it all myself. My handprints are in the foundation. I poured the first load of concrete. It was the first place since I left England as an eighteen year-old boy that really felt like home, you know? It just…sucks.”
“You didn’t have to sell it.”
He glanced at me, finally. “Yes, I did. Number one, we need the cash. Number two, could either of us have walked into that library ever again? I couldn’t. I just…couldn’t. I went through the bedrooms, the kitchen, and all the other rooms. But the library…I just couldn’t go in. Couldn’t stand to see the place where she…where Gina….” He shook his head, once, sharply, and then rested his chin in his other hand. “I couldn’t. And, besides, for better or worse, I’m done with New York.”
“So now what?”
“Now…Robert condenses the businesses that remain into one umbrella company.” Another glance at me, this time with a small smile. “We’re calling the new structure St. Claire, Incorporated. You’re on the board, and you have your own majority share.”
“What?” I stared at him; he never ceased to amaze me.
“You and I are the controlling shareholders, each of us owning a third of the shares, with the remaining third split between a few others.”
“So…what does being a majority shareholder entail?” I asked.
He shrugged. “As much or as little as you want. You can become involved in the day-to-day operations of the company, if you want; I can teach you anything you need to know that you don’t know already. Or, you can just sit back and do nothing and collect the earnings, which will go directly into your personal bank accounts.”
Ah, yes, my private bank accounts. Roth had set them up for me after Harris and I had rescued him from Gina. They were my insurance, in case anything happened to Roth, or if—god forbid—I either left or became separated from Roth. The accounts were mine, and only mine. He had no access to them. In my purse there were debit cards, checkbooks, and a slip of paper with series of codes written on it, allowing me access to…six accounts? Seven? I wasn’t sure. There were a whole bunch of Swiss and offshore accounts, each in my name.
They contained, in total, something in the neighborhood of eight hundred million dollars.
Every once in a while, I would remember I had that money, and I would try to imagine what it meant. Eight hundred million dollars. It was a gobsmacking amount of money. Enough that I could live in utterly ridiculous luxury for the rest of my life and never have to work another day, never have to pay taxes—something that was handled without my needing to do a thing. I wasn’t sure how he’d worked that magic, and didn’t honestly care; he wasn’t a criminal anymore, so it was all legal. Of that I was positive.
“I tend to forget about those bank accounts, honestly,” I said.
Roth laughed. “How do you forget about nearly a billion dollars, Kyrie?”
I strived to look innocent. “Out of sight, out of mind? I don’t use the money since you take care of everything for me.” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter, which to me it really didn’t. I had total confidence in Roth’s ability to provide for us financially. “So…why did you add me to the business, and why name it after me?”
He grinned, a cute, sexy tilt of his lips. “Because you’re half of me, sweetheart. And everything I have is yours. All of it is meaningless, without you.” He turned toward me, finally. “I’ve never exactly beenpoor, but I can tell you without hesitation that I would live my life in utter poverty, as long as I could do it with you.”
I shook my head. “Roth, baby. You’re a spoiled brat. You have no idea what poverty is like. But…I believe you.”
He laughed. “I only said I’d do it, not that I’d like it.”
“You would hate it.”
He nodded seriously. “I’m sure I would. I have a taste for the best things in life. But I assure you, my love, if we were to somehow lose everything, every penny, every company and subsidiary and property and stock share, we wouldn’t remain poor for long. I would work day and night until you were provided for as you deserve.”
“I know it, Valentine. I have absolute faith in you.”
He just smiled and squeezed my hand. After another few minutes of silence, the vehicle stopping and starting and weaving through traffic, I recognized that our path was leading to the airport. “So, where next?”
“A private airfield a few hours from the city.”
I furrowed my brow. “Private airfield? Like your own airport?”
He shrugged. “Sort of. It’s nothing but a few acres in the middle of nowhere with a hangar and a landing strip. But it’s owned by a dummy corporation and was purchased through a complicated series of transactions that would be…very difficult to trace back to me. It’s a secure facility, surrounded by razor wire and protected by heavily armed guards from Harris’s security company.”
“Wow.” Roth never ceased to amaze me. “When did you do all this?”
“Oh, I’ve had the airfield for years. I first purchased it back when I was still running guns, but I essentially sold it to myself via a long and complicated process to erase any connection to me personally. And then I just let it sit, kept it maintained, but that was it. Then, a few months ago I had it overhauled, had the landing strip repaved, upgraded the fence, and had Harris set a guard. I had a feeling we might need a place to fly in and out of that was totally off the radar.”
“And where are we going from the airfield?”
“It’s a surprise.”