The Billionaire’s Marriage Of Deception

You have questions for me, and you think I have answers.” The man’s smile had faded into a slight smirk, which Michael was itching to slap off.

“And do you? Have answers, that is?” Michael asked.

“Well that’d depend on the questions. I’ll give you one for free, though I don’t think it’s quite the question you were thinkin’ of. You won’t kill me after you’re done interrogating me.”

“Whoa. Whoa. Nobody said anything about killing,” Michael said holding up his hands in a quelling motion.

“Oh yeah. You abduct me off the street, blindfold, take me to-“, Calvin cut himself off, looking around him, “What is this place?”

“Packaging plant,” Michael said shortly, “And we don’t plan to stain the floors with your blood. Too hard to clean.”

Calvin laughed, “Cute,” he said sarcastically.

“You think so?” Michael asked, his voice hard.

“No,” Calvin said, an unidentified look flickering in his eyes, “I know so. Just like I know that one of your men is pointing a gun at your head and has been for the majority of our conversation.” And with that Calvin propelled himself up with his hands somehow out of his binds, spun around and grabbed a knife from the taller of his two captors before flinging it with startling force across the room where the four heard it sink into flesh and bone with a quiet squish, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. It was all over in a matter of seconds and everyone left in the room was shocked into momentary stillness while Calvin’s chest heaved and he grinned, all teeth. Michael was the first to spring into action, pointing his pistol at Calvin’s rising and falling chest, but not shooting. Calvin’s breathing slowed and his smile returned to, if not normal, then at least to his average. He looked a Michael and raised his hands above his head while he sank back to the floor, this time sitting criss-cross before lowering his hands to rest in his lap.

Michael seemed to understand the man’s intentions and cautiously sat back into his chair, realizing that he didn’t have as much control over the situation as he thought he had.

“Why have you been following Amanda?”

Calvin inclined his head to the side as if thinking over something.

“Florian Valentine is a bad man,” he said.

“So I hear,” Michael replied.

“No. You don’t. You have no idea.”

“So enlighten me.”

“He…came to me a year ago, just when Amanda and I were planning the wedding. He let me know that Amanda wasn’t who I thought she was. I told him to fu*k off…”

Michael waited for Calvin to continue but he just sat and stared into the middle distance.

“I’m guessing he didn’t go,” he prompted.

“Oh he did go. Not far though. Just to my sister’s house. He had her held down. Her new born child in his crib; her husband called out of town on some pretext. They called me and told me to go over. They wanted me to watch. There were five guys. Ready to go.”

Michael kept silent and waited this time. If Calvin didn’t want to tell him what they did to his sister, well, Michael for one couldn’t blame him.

“I told them I would do whatever they wanted. But only if they didn’t touch her or the kid,” Calvin said at last and Michael let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“So now you work for him?”

“He told me to take loans in her name, so I did. He ran my business into the ground so I had no choice but to try. He wanted her to be pulled into debt.  To lose everything her parents had left her and to be left at his mercy,” the distance disappeared from Calvin’s eyes and he looked at Michael. “Wasn’t my fault Amanda found out about it before we could go through with the marriage was it?”

Michael’s eyes widened with understanding, “You love her.”

Calvin shrugged, “She’s a good woman. And I’m not a monster. Whatever we had, it’s nothing like what you have. I can see that now. We might just have been two lonely people clinging to each other for dear life. Who knows?”

Michael gave him a side smile, “You love her.”

“Yeah whatever. That’s not even the point. The point is that Florian is still looking to destroy her. He’s using your…obsession with me to drive a wedge between you. Amanda thinks you’re not in love with her because you’re always away. How long before she decides to divorce you?”

“How do you even know this?”

“Florian has people in her shrink’s office. He reads the transcripts of her sessions.”

“Why? Talk about making me feel inadequate. All this sh*t going on right under my nose…” Michael marveled.

Calvin straightened up, “Michael can I give you some advice?”

Michael spread his hands in a ‘go ahead’ gesture.

“Stop being Amanda’s body guard and start being her husband. If you don’t, you’ll lose her.”

Michael opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again.

“So he has you by the balls. How do we get rid of him?”Calvin stood up, “We don’t. I do. Now hit me hard on the jaw so it looks like I fought my way out of here.”

*****

Calvin slid into the dive bar for the fifth day in a row, his accustomed stool at the bar waiting as if it was there just for him. The bartender nodded in greeting. She was pouring a drink at the other end of the bar but he guessed she was as accustomed to him as his stool. Five days of waiting; would today be the day. Michael had a contact he said, who had some information that might be beneficial to Calvin, he said. But this contact was paranoid; maybe downright crazy. He wouldn’t just agree to meet with Calvin. There were hoops to jump through and coming to this dive for five days in a row was apparently the first hoop. Calvin was getting heartily tired of it. In his peripheral vision he spied his tail; the one Florian had put on him. He was a gorilla of a man and had stopped trying to be subtle about his stalking weeks ago. Anyway the point wasn’t to be stealthy. It was to let Calvin know he had eyes on him the whole time. But even gorilla guy couldn’t keep a state of constant vigilance with the predictability of his habits in the last five days. He was leaning against the wall and if Calvin wasn’t mistaken, fending off the advances of some twink looking guy. It occurred briefly to Calvin to wonder if gorilla guy was gay or if he would punch the twink in the face for assuming.

His thoughts were interrupted by a lap full of female; a tall latino looking buxom beauty who slid onto his thighs like she belonged on them, hands laced behind Calvin’s neck, face close enough that Calvin couldn’t really even tell what she looked like.

“Hey lover,” she said.

“Uhhh,” Calvin hadn’t seen any evidence that this was a strip club. So…maybe she was a wh*re?

“Cat got your tongue?” she whispered, sticking out her own, “Meow.”

“Hey uh, you’re very pretty but could you uh, get off me?”