Sterling I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t knock. I absolutely did not ask fucking permission. I just pushed through the glass doors like I owned the building, which I could if he gave me a reason to, and stormed straight to Douglas Barnaby Saxon’s sleek corner office. The man was the banker of choice for the upper class and a master manipulator of markets, but I wasn’t here for financial advice or investment opportunities. I’d come because he was also the father of the socialite who had declared war on my wife. Vincent flanked me on one side, his badge hanging around his neck but half-hidden by his jacket. On my other side was another detective, an older man who hadn’t even told me his name, but Vincent had assured me we could trust him, and frankly, his presence was enough to make it clear that we were delivering a warning. The guy had a stare that could melt concrete and that kind of grisly expression that had made me wonder just what exactly he’d seen. I was curious to talk to him. He seemed like he had some stories to tell, and if he was someone Vincent trusted with this, then obviously they were good friends. It made me want to get to know him, but that would have to wait. Right now, I wasn’t Laney’s Sterling. I was the fixer. The bulldog. The Ice King. That newly discovered softer side of me didn’t exist here. As we marched past Saxon’s rec eptionist without sparing her a glance, I shut down every part of the man I’d become when I was with her. He had zero role to play in what we were about to do. The rec eptionist jumped as we passed her, but she didn’t try to stop us. Smart girl. When we reached his door, I strode in as easily as I did my own office and the two detectives followed. Douglas leaped to his feet at the unexpected intrusion, his eyebrows drawn. He blinked a couple times as he recognized me, but then, stupidly, he seemed to relax a little. “Sterling,” he said, smoothing the lapel of his blazer. “I didn’t know you were n —” “Save it.” His expression soured like someone had stuck something foul-smelling under his nose. Like his daughter, he had those striking, regal features that made him look more important than he was. His once-blond hair was now wispy and graying, combed just so in an attempt to make it look fuller. As Vincent’s friend clicked the door shut behind us, his gaze finally strayed to them and he balked visibly. I just didn’t know if it was because of their badges or simply their hard, no-nonsense faces. “Is there a problem?” he asked, a de ep frown settling into his features. “Sterling, who are they?” “That’s none of your concern.” I stopped a foot from his desk. “There is a problem, Douglas. Are you aware of what your daughter has been up to for the past forty-eight hours?” He glanced at Vincent and the other man before he brought his gaze back to mine. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly and his chin came up a fraction of an inch. “Whatever Cassandra’s gotten herself into n —”
“Stop.” I leaned forward, bracing both palms on his desk and ke eping my eyes leveled on his. “This wasn’t some teenage prank, Douglas. It was a targeted, organized smear campaign against my wife and her business.” He scoffed and lowered himself back into his chair. “Look, Sterling, I understand that you’re just trying to stand up for that girl you married, but Cass didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure she was just trying to get your attention, son.” “First, I’m not your son. Second, that girl I married is my wife. My family. She’s a Westwood and your daughter should’ve known better than to fuck with my family. I do agree with you, though. She’s got my attention now.” I straightened up and crossed my arms. “There were anonymous posts, bot accounts, memes designed to humiliate her. Fake Yelp reviews that dropped her rating by two stars in under twelve hours. There were lies. Threats of what would happen to her if she didn’t just disappear.” I didn’t give him the opportunity to speak again. “My people have been able to find evidence that Cassandra was behind it all. She and her little friends, who were undoubtedly doing her bidding. Some of those friends are from families who are your clients, right? I wonder what their parents would say if their daughters went to jail because of yours.” His features contorted into a mask of fear. “Jail? What the hell are you saying?” “I’m saying that Cassandra is many things, but an IT whiz isn’t one of them. She was sloppy, Douglas. Embarrassingly so, actually. And sure, there were many real people who jumped on the bandwagon once she set it in motion, but we have evidence that it all started with her. Harassment is a crime.” For the first time since we’d walked in here, he finally seemed to realize that he wasn’t going to be able to talk his useless daughter’s way out of this and that I wasn’t just going to back down. Having him right where I wanted, I drew my phone out of my pocket. “One of the photos went viral. Would you like to see it?” I unlocked the screen and turned it toward him. While I couldn’t see the picture myself, I knew exactly what he was looking at—exc ept this was the digitally enhanced version. In it, Cassandra’s foot was perfectly visible, clearly showing that she’d tripped Laney. She was also standing far enough away that no one would mistake it for an accident. Douglas stared at the screen with his brow furrowed, but I didn’t give him time to wonder where I was going with this. I just told him. “That’s assault, Saxon. Under normal circumstances, it probably wouldn’t go anywhere. The police would laugh if I went running in there with a photograph of one woman tripping another, but considering everything that happened after, I’ve been assured the charge will get added onto the other ones.” “This is ridiculous,” he said, but his voice lacked any real fire. “No one is going to jail because someone else fell over their foot.” “If that was what had happened, I would agree with you, but we also have eye witnesses, and according to my attorneys, this, combined with everything else, should be enough to get us to malicious intent.”
“What are you talking about?” “Oh, you thought I was just here to tell on her? That’s cute.” I felt my lips tug into a coldly amused smirk. “No, Douglas. Cassandra caused a significant amount of damages to my wife’s business and she defamed her. That’s a good start for a civil suit, but she’s also looking at criminal charges for slander, defamation, assault, harassment, and potentially even extortion due to the content of some of the posts.” Douglas grimaced and let out a slow, measured breath through his nose, like he was mentally racing through his options. “I’ll talk to her, Sterling. She’s impulsive and spoiled, but she’s not a criminal.” “That’s exactly what she is.” I dropped my phone into my pocket. “I didn’t come here to acc ept a half-assed apology or to listen to you justify her behavior. I’m here to tell you exactly how this is going to go.” His nostrils flared. “Is that so?” “Yeah. It is.” I circled his desk slowly and deliberately, watching him try not to flinch as I stalked closer. The man was old money, but if he thought that would shield his family from me, he was sorely mistaken. Cassandra had brought them directly into my path, into my orbit, a place where people like him begged for my favor behind closed doors. “Your daughter has two options,” I said quietly. “She can disappear. Quietly and gracefully. She doesn’t deserve mercy, but I’m not allowing it for her sake. I would allow it for yours. My father says you’ve been loyal to him.” I perched myself on the edge of his desk. “Perhaps you can book her a one-way ticket to some yoga retreat in the Swiss Alps where she can find herself. I hear soul-searching is all the rage these days. It seems to me that she could benefit from some of that. Either way, she’s done in this town.” “Done?” I shrugged and brushed a piece of invisible lint off my pants. “You’ll find that her membership to all sorts of establishments has been revoked. It’s amazing how fast people reached out to ensure my family’s continued patronage. Of course, we won’t set our feet anywhere someone might be who attacked our family, so...” Lifting my gaze to his window, I sw ept an arm out toward the city. “There’s not an exclusive spa, gym, club, or bar down there that will allow her entrance. No maître d’ has a table for her. I’ve heard the country club is even reconsidering your wife’s membership. A real pity, isn’t it?” Every last bit of color had drained from his face. “What’s the other option?” “She can stay here, trying to claw her way into mid-tier places and watching you lose every client whose portfolio I’ve reviewed in the last twenty-four hours. And she’ll face every criminal charge and civil suit she deserves.” His jaw clenched. “You’re bluffing.” I pulled a folded paper from the inside of my suit jacket and laid it on his desk. “I’m really not.” Cautiously raking it closer, he opened it and scanned the audit r eport inside, his pallor suddenly tinged with green. “I’ve known about this for a while,” I said. “You skirt the law just closely enough not to break it, but the second any of what you do becomes public knowledge, you fold. No one will trust you, Doug. Until now, you haven’t been worth the trouble to push, but I’m already here. Your daughter has already cost me
two days. Taking the time to make another couple of phone calls won’t kill me at this point.” Vincent gave a grunt that might’ve been approval and the other detective simply narrowed his eyes, looking around Douglas’s office in a way that told me the man was now officially on his radar anyway. As for Douglas, he knew he’d been beaten. I could see it in the sweat dotting his brow and the hatred in his eyes. “You’re going to rein her in,” I said with finality in my tone. “Today. There won’t be any interviews given about where she’s going. No cryptic posts and certainly no weak, false apologies. It’s simple, really. You’re going to make sure she gets the fuck out of my city, out of my wife’s life, and out of my sight. If so, we can all move on.” He swiped his tongue across his lips, eyes darting this way and that before he sighed. “You’re threatening me.” “I’m offering your spoiled brat mercy.” I strode back to the other side of his desk. “I don’t make a habit of it and I won’t extend the courtesy again. Cassandra didn’t just cross the line this time, she burned it to the ground. She embarrassed me. She came after my family, and if I ever see her face or even so much as hear her name whispered in relation to that girl I married, I will destroy everything and everyone around her.” I strode to the door and he picked up his phone. By the time I opened it, his daughter was on the other end of the line. “Cassandra? Pack your things. I’m putting you on the red eye to Switzerland tonight. No arguments.” Vincent raised an eyebrow at me as we walked out of the office, but I didn’t respond. The only thing on my mind was Laney—and what I would have to do next to protect her from a world I’d dragged her into, but was much too ugly for a beautiful, kind-hearted person like her. “I need a drink,” Vincent muttered once we were on the sidewalk. He slid a pair of cheap sunglasses over his eyes and turned to me, hands on his hips in a way that made his jacket flare open. “Beer?” “Sure.” All I really wanted was to head home, but this was something else I had to fix. Our marriage had come between Laney and her father and the chasm between them was hurting her. “I know a place not far from here.” He scoffed and shook his head. “I don’t want a two-hundred dollar scotch in a place with a dress code. I know a place too. We’re going to mine.” I didn’t argue, simply following him down the block when he started walking. We lost the other detective somewhere along the way. He didn’t even say goodbye, just disappearing from where he’d been walking behind us. “Is he okay?” I asked Vincent as we walked into a dark, dingy bar that I was loathe to admit was a much better fit for my mood than the place I’d had in mind. “I didn’t even get to thank him.” Vincent grunted. “He didn’t do it for you, Westwood.” We ordered a round of beers from the bar and went to find a quiet table tucked into the corner once we had them in hand. My father-in-law stared at me, took a sip of his drink, and then stared at me some more, the lines etched into his face seeming so much de eper in this low light than I’d ever realized before.
“You’re a good man, Sterling,” he said finally. I was so surprised I nearly sprayed the sip of beer I’d just taken all over him, but he wasn’t done. “I’m still not too sure I like you for Laney, but you handled this well. You took care of my daughter the same way I would have, and that matters.” “Thank you, but I never should’ve let it happen in the first place. She was targeted because of me and I’m sorry.” He let out a sigh so de ep, I was surprised one of his lungs didn’t come out with his breath, but then he chuckled. “Well, at least you know how to take responsibility. That matters too, you know. In a marriage, holding yourself accountable is important.” “In a marriage?” I asked. “Does that mean you’ve finally acc epted it?” He rubbed the back of his head. “I still don’t like the way it happened. Laney deserved better than a proposal via contract and a wedding consisting of a signature on a piece of paper, but the end result? That’s the same.” It was like those words allowed me to breathe again after all these weeks worrying about their relationship. Vincent and I ended up staying for two beers before we parted ways. By the time we left, I felt better about everything. Smoothing things over with him would go a long way toward making Laney happy, and ultimately, that was what I wanted more than anything else. I got home to find her on the couch, but with a huge gray cat resting between her legs. My eyebrows mashed together, confusion rattling through me. “Hey, baby. Uh, who’s cat is that?” “Ours.” She turned to look at me, smiling in a way that would’ve made it okay with me if she’d brought home an alligator with a little pink collar on it. “Sterling, meet Jack. Jack, Sterling. Jack was in need of a home and Sadie knew we had one to give.” I collapsed beside them on the couch and slid my arm around her shoulders, brushing a light kiss to her temple. “We do have one to give, I guess. Even if the only pussy I really wanted in this house was yours.” She laughed and smacked my arm playfully, but then she melted into my side, and for the first time since that morning in Napa, I felt like she and I were really, properly on the right track.