The Start – Part 1
Two months ago
On Saturday morning, 8:47, the doorbell rang, a shrill sound that died away quickly, signaling someone at the door and the fact that the battery in the doorbell was dying. Out of a fog of sleep and cover, 26-year-old Veronica Hart sat up, blinking in confusion. The doorbell rang again, followed by an incessant knocking.
“Got to be kidding me,” she stumbled out of bed and limped towards the door. She had worn a tank top and pajama pants to sleep in, the recent spring cool spell causing her to choose sleeping in clothes rather than sleeping naked. At least she didn’t have to pause to put on clothes; the knocking on the door was so loud she thought they might break through the wood.
“What?” she opened the door to glare at whoever was on the other side. “What is so important this early?”
Four men were on the other side, all white, all dressed in suits, and holding stacks of papers. One looked in his fifties, two in their forties, and the last one looked a few years older than her, mid-thirties at the oldest.
“Are you Veronica Hart?” the oldest man asked.
“Yes,” Veronica rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
“Your father died two days ago,” the man said.
Veronica looked up at him, saw his graying hair, his weathered skin, lines around his eyes. He looked old, the years marked in his face like ruts in the dirt road after a hard rain.
“Did you hear me, Miss Hart?” the man asked again. “Your father died two days ago.”
Veronica managed a shrug. “So what? I haven’t talked to him in years. The last time I saw him was my college graduation where he gave me a check for $30,000 and said I had to come to work for him because no one else would hire me. I ripped the check up in front of him and walked away. And I’ve done just fine for myself.”
She tightened her arms across her chest, defense and angry. Her father couldn’t be dead – he was too wretched and rich to die like some decent person with a soul who was capable of kindness. She hated him, and he couldn’t die because she had to keep hating him.
“Miss Hart,” the youngest man stepped forward, “why don’t we go inside so you can put some more clothes on and we can talk properly?”
His formal tone surprised her, and Veronica glanced down to see the thin fabric of her tank top stretched over her breasts. She wanted to snap at the men to stop looking at her, but she nodded and stepped back to let them in.
“Sit in the living room,” she motioned to the area inside her apartment. “Throw the stuff on the floor if you want to sit.”
As she went back to her bedroom, the men looked askance at the piles of papers and magazines, interspersed with mail and books. Veronica’s forte was not housekeeping, and as she only came to the apartment to read and sleep, the general atmosphere was clutter and chaos, but not enough to overwhelm guests.
Hands shaking, Veronica stripped off her sleeping clothes and put on jeans and a shirt. She jammed on socks and running shoes, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She would not cry in front of these strangers, she would not show any emotions.
They had come to talk about the will. That was the only reason they would come here instead of calling her. They would have papers for her to sign. Her father’s billions – that’s all anyone ever cared about. He was so wealthy, so incredibly profitable at anything he touched. Company after company, money over money – he was spectacular.
No, he had been spectacular. He was dead now.
Veronica came back in the living room, swallowing hard.
“Come sit down,” the younger guy took her arm to guide her to a seat.
She wanted to fight him off, but she let him take her to the only armchair and she sat down limply.
“My father hired you,” she said, her tone flat.
“Yes,” said the oldest man, “we represent the three trustees of your father’s estate and company. I’m Harry Norris, this is Frank Goldstein and Sam Kranski,” he pointed to the men in their forties.
Veronica looked at the youngest man, waiting for him to introduce himself.
“I’m Clinton Fitzgerald,” he said. “Your father called me Clint. I was your father’s personal secretary, his organizer, and his advisor. I managed his calendar, I oversaw his contacts, I –”
“You were his work wife?” Veronica’s tone was dead and tired.
Clint looked aggrieved, but Norris jerked his head to the side, and the youngest man stepped back. Of the four men, Clint looked the strongest, slightly taller with the lean powerful body that did not belong to a billionaire’s secretary.
“Whatever you want me to sign is fine,” Veronica said. “I’m pretty sure Dad disinherited me, and even if he didn’t, Pat, Brad, and Greg will make sure I don’t get anything. They can do whatever they want – I just want to be left alone.”
“That’s not possible,” Norris said. “Your father left you everything.”
For the second time in about ten minutes, Veronica stared at the old man and concentrated on his face. Why did the skin on the face wrinkle? Why couldn’t it stay smooth and fresh forever?
“Miss Hart –”
“No,” Veronica finally found her voice. “No, Dad did not. He told me that Patricia was going to lead the company. He chose her – she’s the oldest and most experienced. He liked her. She did what he told her to do.”
“He fired her two years ago for stealing from the company,” Goldstein spoke up. “She moved to Europe shortly after that.”
“Well, Brad is more than capable of –”
“He was your stepbrother,” Kranski said as if she didn’t know. “Your father married Brad’s mother. They divorced last year. Brad isn’t part of the family anymore.”
“Then Greg. Greg is my full brother. Yes, he’s a little slow, but with some help –”
Norris shook his head. “Greg was admitted into a psych ward after he attacked your stepmother with a kitchen knife. He’s been there for three years.”
The tears came then. They swelled up in her eyes as she remembered her youngest sibling. Greg had not gone off to school like Veronica and Pat had. He had stayed at home with a nanny, and a private tutor had come in. Greg hadn’t talked much. He stuttered a lot, and when Veronica had been around him, she had learned to talk for him. Their father had hated him, had hated that his only son was slow. “I can’t believe you gave me a retard,” her father had shouted once at her mother. “What am I supposed to do with him?”
“Greg’s locked up,” Veronica hid her face in her hands. “They locked him up, they locked him up. He wouldn’t attack anyone – he wouldn’t. He’s like a little kid.”
“He tried to throw the housekeeper’s daughter off the balcony once before,” Goldstein said. “Your father paid them off to keep it quiet. But that’s not why we’re here. Your father named you a sole proprietor to his fortune.”
“I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with him. Give it to someone else.”
“Be reasonable,” Clint said. “Your father named you sole heir and CEO of his companies and all his stocks –”
“After taxes there won’t be much left,” Veronica said. “I know how this works. You have to pay estate taxes and everything is wrapped up in stocks and bonds and funds. Once it gets settled, there might be a few million, but that will have to go to pay the taxes for that stupid mansion he bought. You can handle it – I don’t want the headache.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Hart, but that’s not true. Your father put everything in your name before he died.”
“What?” Veronica stood up. “No, that’s impossible. Wouldn’t I know something about it? Wouldn’t I have to sign something?”
“He did it when you were seventeen. You don’t have to sign anything because you were a minor then. Once you turned eighteen, everything went into your name.”
“That’s impossible,” Veronica argued, ignoring Clint who tried to get her to sit back down. “I would know because my taxes would show it. I’ve never seen documents that –”
“Your father devised a fake social security number for you,” Kranski glanced down to the floor as he spoke.
“Then I can’t inherit, because he put it under a fake social.”
“No, the number you have now is fake. Your father gave you a fake social when you were a teenager.”
“He gave me a fake social,” Veronica sat back down. “All the work I’ve done on my own, all the credit I’ve earned, everything I’ve done the last decade – all for nothing.”
The men said nothing.
She looked up them. “He gave me a fake social!” her voice rang through the small living room. “That ugly bastard gave me a fake social so he could put everything under my name without me knowing it and then he dies but it’s all in my name so – so –”
“So you don’t pay taxes and the companies keep their standing,” Norris said. “The stocks have only dipped slightly. Once you become CEO, they’ll go up again.”
“I’m not becoming CEO,” Veronica felt the tightness in her neck grow, making her jaw ache. “I don’t know anything about running companies. I work for a newspaper.”
“That’s where I come in,” Clint gave her a smile that was meant to reassure her, but actually made Veronica want to punch him. “I’m going to help groom you for the job. I’ll be by your side every step, coaching you and training you and making sure everything runs smoothly. Your father always spoke very highly of my abilities and -”
“Clint will help you,” Norris cut him off. “You’re young – you’ll catch on quickly. Your father said you were smart, too smart sometimes. That’s why he chose you.”
“He didn’t choose me,” the rage swelled up inside her. “He’s punishing me. This is his final revenge for not hanging on his every wish like Pat and Brad did. They fawned over him, but I didn’t. I’m not doing this. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You have to,” Norris said, his calmness maddening. “Your father put down indications that he would have his associates look into your history and tell your employers that you were using a fake social. There was also the matter of stealing a car when you were eighteen . . .”
“That was my car,” Veronica could barely breathe. “I paid for it with the money I made working at school. His name was on the title because I was only seventeen when I bought it, and he said I stole it when I tried to take it to college. He kept everything when Mom died – he wouldn’t even let me take her jewelry and I’m not doing what he wants now – now – that –”
She was crying too hard to keep speaking, and she hated herself for showing emotion in front of these cold strangers. She wanted them to leave so she could break down and sit on the bathroom floor and cry about her mother and how she hated her father who was now gone, too. She leaned forward, hiccupping sobs and wishing with all her might that she was stronger, strong enough to stand up to these men, strong enough to stop missing her mother, strong enough to win over her father.
Someone was pulling on her arm, and she stood up instinctively. The person was walking her somewhere, but she had one hand over her face as she cried.
“There we go,” Clint’s voice said. “Sit down here.”
Veronica found herself sitting on the closed lid of the toilet though she wasn’t sure how she got to the bathroom.
“Here,” Clint handed her tissues and turned on the faucets. “Keep those on your face. Lean forward.”
Swiping at her face, Veronica leaned forward and she felt a cool, damp cloth press on the back of her neck.
“You’re going to breathe deeply for a few seconds and calm down,” Clint said.
She hated herself for being so weak that she did what he told her. Her heart raced, and her teeth chattered. Clint was still moving around the bathroom, opening cabinets and looking inside.
“Good you have Tylenol here,” Clint shook out two pills. “Lean up long enough to swallow these. They’ll help ward off a headache.”
Veronica took them, put them on her tongue, and took the glass of water he gave her. She swallowed the pills and gave the glass back to him.
“What can I do to make you leave?” she asked, leaning back against the toilet tank. “I just want you to go away.”
“We’re not leaving,” Clint avoided eye-contact. “You’re going to pack whatever you want to take with you and you’re leaving this apartment forever. Anything you don’t take will be donated.”
“I won’t do it,” Veronica squared her shoulders. “You can’t make me. Whatever traps my father set up for me, I’ll fight them. Even if I have to declare bankruptcy and start over, I’m not doing what he wants.”
“You’ll do it,” Clint finally looked at her. “There are people that this would hurt if you refused. The companies employ thousands of people – they would lose their jobs. The stocks – if the companies go, they crash and more people lose money, maybe their entire savings. Do you want the responsibility of their misery on your shoulders?”
“You’re a monster,” Veronica felt frozen in place.
Clint shifted, uncomfortable. “There’s also the matter of your father’s – ahem – less than savory acquaintances. They need to see someone in the seat of power, someone who can rule the company with authority and firmness. And there are people that render services that must be paid, and people who must be paid off. It’s a delicate balance, Miss Hart.”
“You want me as puppet,” she realized. “You want me as a figure to pretend to be in charge while you do everything behind the scenes.”
“I don’t want anything,” Clint said, almost primly. “I was your father’s right-hand man, and I’m going to be yours. You don’t have to worry about where the money comes from or where it goes. You just have to stand in his place and represent the family and the fortune. Everything else will be taken of.”
Veronica said nothing for a moment. She sat frozen in place, thinking furiously, the thoughts spinning in and out of focus, a bizarre placement of crazy ideas. She had a butcher knife in the kitchen. There was a gun in her bedroom, one her father had given her, sent to her in a box on her twenty-first birthday. She had tossed it, unloaded, into the back of her closet, figuring it was easier to keep it than try to return it to a gun store and insist she didn’t want it. Could she get them out of the house with it?
Veronica glanced over the bathroom counter. Her cell phone lay in the corner beside containers of makeup and tissues.
“I need five minutes alone,” she told Clint.
“Miss Hart, I understand that this is difficult –”
“You’ll call me Veronica,” she stood, ignoring the dizzy sensation that swept over her. “I’m Veronica Hart, this is my apartment, and I’m asking you to be a gentleman and step out for five minutes to let me get myself together.”
She knew she had found his trigger the moment she said “gentleman.”
“Of course,” Clint dipped his head respectfully. “Take all the time you need.”
The moment he closed the door behind him, Veronica locked it and turned on the faucets. The roar of the water filled the bathroom, but she didn’t reach for the phone immediately. She looked at herself in the mirror. Around average height, around average weight though she wanted to lose fifteen pounds, brown hair that reached just below her shoulders, greenish-grey eyes and a short nose. Not CEO material, not an heiress, not a billionaire’s daughter, just a plain young woman with no special skills, no important ideas – she didn’t even understand half of the business terms her father had used like “dividends” and “gross income.”
She didn’t want to go back to that house, that cold mausoleum where her mother had died ten years ago. Ten years, and her father had married Tina six months after the funeral. Tina with her sharp blond beauty and her shrewd eyes, Tina who had married young and had a son Veronica’s age though Tina was fifteen years younger than Gregory Hart had been.
Veronica had hated her and avoided the house as much as possible. It was a dreadful place, prim and fussy, with expensive art everywhere and once Tina moved in, the place got even more glitzy and glamorous. There were parties where tons of snooty old white people came to drink champagne, and dolled-up young people came to make connections, and everyone pretended that they didn’t live in a city of crime and poverty. Who cared that the homeless fought against the drug users when Hart Mansion was throwing another party?
At a young age, Veronica had refused to go to the parties. Her father had tolerated it until her seventeenth birthday when he wanted her to have a debutante coming-out. He had ordered a dress, and she had come into her bedroom to see it spread over her bed.
“You’ll be the toast of the town,” her father had stood in the doorway, smiling. “Pat’s dating that senator from New York, and she met him at her debutante ball.”
Veronica had said nothing then. But on the night of her party, she took a bus to the city and spent the evening watching one movie after another until she took the last bus home at midnight. Her party was still going, and when she walked in the back stairs, her father found her. He looked at her dressed in jeans and a hoodie.
“Get the dress on and greet the guests, or I’ll send Greg to a psych ward tomorrow,” her father’s face had been like ice.
“I’ll do it,” Veronica had lifted her head. “But don’t expect me to talk.”
When the last guest had gone home and the morning sun had peeped into the high windows, her father had started berating her, his voice growing louder and louder until he was spitting with rage.
“I don’t understand it, and I’m not taking it any longer. You get yourself in line, or I’ll see that you spend the rest of your life begging on the streets. Do you want to do this? I have tried to be patient, ever since your mother died, you know that, and –”
“Shut up!” Veronica had said.
Her father had blanched, his face almost white with fury. “If you ever speak to me like that again –”
“You listen to me, you miserable impotent bastard,” Veronica had said, her voice coming from somewhere deep and dark, ugly in its ruthlessness. “I’m leaving this house tonight, and I’m not coming back. I’m going to college, and you will help me start and you will leave me alone, or so help me, I’ll drive right now to the police office and tell them what your brother did to me.”
That had stopped her father, froze him in place, horrified.
“You think I don’t remember because I was just eight? He got into the tub with me and he made me touch him. It wasn’t rape exactly, but I think the newspapers will be happy to run a feature story about the great CEO and his pedophile of a brother,” Veronica’s voice had grown as loud as his. “I will destroy this family – you, the stepmother, and my asshole siblings. I will tell the newspapers and then I’m going straight to the police.”
“They won’t believe you,” her father’s lips had barely moved. “I’ll tell them you lied, that you were never left alone with my brother.”
“That will be glorious,” Veronica had felt a surge of power, blissful rage that blazed through her body. “A child is molested and her father denies it happens. What will your shareholders think? What will happen to your precious stocks?” She let her hand fall through the air, making a dying whistling noise as she dropped it. “Goodbye Hart fortune, hello charity.”
“You ungrateful bitch.”
Veronica had grabbed the pearl necklace around her neck and yanked it off. She had hoped that it would snap and spill pearls all over the marble floor, but instead the clasp broke and the necklace stayed whole. She had thrown it down on the floor.
“Goodbye, Mr. Hart,” she had said.
And she hadn’t seen him again.
That had been eight years ago, eight years of silence except for sending letters to Greg, letters he never returned.
Veronica stood up in her bathroom and looked at herself one last time before she walked to the small window in the bathroom. She opened it and looked. She was on the third floor, and there was no way she could jump down or crawl down, not even with the few Parkour lessons she had tried.
But then a thought occurred to her. Turning the water on in the sink, she dumped all the towels from the small bathroom closet into the sink.
“Miss Hart,” Clint tapped on the door.
“I’ll be right out,” she said, shoving the towels in the water. “Just two more minutes.”
Once they were soaked, she tied them into a long rope, securing diagonal ends until she had a twenty-foot rope of soaking towels. She dropped one end out the window and tied the other around the base of the toilet. She knew the knots were not done properly and wouldn’t hold her weight, but she ducked into the small closet and pulled the door shut softly. Then she waited.
“Miss Hart!” Clint rapped sharply on the door. “We have to leave now.”
She waited, barely breathing.
The bathroom door opened, and shoes sounded on the fake tile floor. She could see them cast shadows on the cracks of light under the closet door.
“She went out the window!” Norris yelled.
“Stupid bitch!” another guy said.
They ran out, and Veronica waited several minutes.
Trembling, she got to her feet and crawled out of the closet. She peeked into the living room – empty.
Still shaking, she grabbed her purse and her keys. She stopped by the closet to get the gun. She dumped it in her purse with a few bullets and snapped the purse shut. She would have to run, keep running, but they weren’t going to catch her. She knew what her father had arranged – a lifetime of sitting in board meetings, making niceties, pretending to like wealthy businessmen and women and their insufferable families when she couldn’t stand them. This was her father’s last revenge – entrapment.
Veronica stepped out of her apartment and turned back to lock the door.
Someone grabbed her from behind.
She screamed and jerked away, but she was quickly turned around.
“Are we really that stupid?” Clint asked her.
She stared at him as her chest heaved with fright and desperation for air. She had dropped her purse when he grabbed her, and she glanced down at it, wondering if she could grab it and take the gun and threaten him before he stopped her.
“The other men are down at the car, but this ‘gentleman’ is going to escort you down to the car. I suggest you come willingly,” Clint’s voice was calm and controlled, but icy.
“Or what?” Veronica managed to keep the tremble out of her voice. “You’ll drug me and drag me out?”
“Be reasonable,” Clint frowned at her. “I’m taller than you, I’m stronger than you, and judging by the lack of running shoes in your closet I’m faster, too.”
“I run some! I just can’t find good shoes.”
“I don’t want to physically force you. You could get hurt. I would rather you show up to your father’s home unbruised. Please, for the last time, come quietly.”
Veronica stomped hard on his foot and ran for the elevator, abandoning the idea of using the gun in her purse.
He caught her two steps later and shoved her front-forward against the wall. She pushed off, but he got her to the ground.
Veronica had never been assaulted as an adult, had never been overpowered by might force, and in that moment, she realized what all raped and abused women must feel like in the moment when they can’t away from their predator. She was screaming, spitting, and swearing, and her vision had gone black with rage.
He was moving her and snapping something shut, and then his hand was on her back.
“Stay there.”
Veronica’s vision went back to normal, and she realized that she was hanging over the arm of her sofa. Her arms were behind her back, and she realized with terror that he had tied her wrists and ankles together with plastic zip-ties.
“Let me go!” she screamed.
“Listen,” he was somewhere a few feet away. “I am not the enemy. But if I let you walk away, they’ll come after you. Your father was in deep, and those men downstairs are determined to make you a puppet.”
“You too!”
“Yes, I’m working with them for now. I made some . . . unfortunate decisions with them. Stupid of me. But I’m in now. And you’re coming with me.”
“Or what?” she fought in vain against the ties. “You’ll kill me? Rape me? Stuff me in a bag and carry me out? I’ll never –”
Thwack!
Veronica gasped as pain blossomed across her right bottom cheek. Another swat followed on the other side.
“Are you crazy?” she shrieked.
“Now that I have your attention,” Clint said calmly, “maybe you’ll think about your position and how to make a better decision than your last.”
“Motherfucker!”
He sighed and spanked her again, holding her still with his free hand so she didn’t buck off the sofa. “Look, I’m ex-military. I’m well-skilled in ways to hurt people, to force them into compliance. But rather than inflict excruciating pain on you, I would rather treat you like a child until you come to reason.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she snapped.
He spanked her again, and though she wiggled her bottom back and forth, she didn’t make a sound.
“I get it. You’re angry. You probably have a right to be. The Hart family has more dark secrets and buried bodies than the Medici family. But you have no leverage here, nothing you can threaten me with because you walked away from your family heritage and its power. You’re ordinary now. No Hart woman would allow herself to be treated like this, but here you are, bent over your own sofa, trussed and spanked like a child.”
Veronica’s ears roared dully, and she thought she might pass out from the rage coursing through her. If she had been free, she would have gladly attacked Clint until one of them fell down, bloody and dead.
“How long you stay here is your choice,” Clint walloped her again, and Veronica’s eyes stung with tears. “But eventually I’m going to cut your ankles free and you’re going to walk out of here with me and get into the car. How long I have to keep spanking you is your choice – no one will see the marks and no one will feel the pain sitting but you.”
Veronica could barely breathe, but he spanked her again, once on each side. The pain actually helped to clear her head. It steadied her, made her rational and less enraged. She could survive this new entrapment just like she had survived before.
“All right, you win for now,” she nodded. “I’ll go.”
She heard the click of a switchblade, and then her ankles came free.
He gently pulled her up to her feet.
Veronica tossed strands of hair out of her face. “What about my hands?”
“You’ve lost that privilege,” Clint shut the knife blade closed. “I’ll free them when we get to the house.”
Veronica looked him straight in the face. “I will never forget this. Never.”
Clint smiled ruefully. “Shall we go?”
The sting in her bottom disappeared by the time they reached the limo parked on the street. Veronica got in the car, sitting next to Clint. Norris and one of the men sat across from them while the last man drove.
Veronica thought she might have cried when the limo reached the Hart Mansion, but the only thing she felt was hot anger as the car pulled in the drive.
Clint’s expression was blank as he looked at her. “I’ll free you once we’re inside.”
At that moment, in that sweltering place of fury and helplessness, Veronica swore that one day she would make his calm, handsome face writhe in pain. She would make him pay, pay so very dearly for what he did to her.
She had no idea at that time how true that promise would become.
Two months ago
On Saturday morning, 8:47, the doorbell rang, a shrill sound that died away quickly, signaling someone at the door and the fact that the battery in the doorbell was dying. Out of a fog of sleep and cover, 26-year-old Veronica Hart sat up, blinking in confusion. The doorbell rang again, followed by an incessant knocking.
“Got to be kidding me,” she stumbled out of bed and limped towards the door. She had worn a tank top and pajama pants to sleep in, the recent spring cool spell causing her to choose sleeping in clothes rather than sleeping naked. At least she didn’t have to pause to put on clothes; the knocking on the door was so loud she thought they might break through the wood.
“What?” she opened the door to glare at whoever was on the other side. “What is so important this early?”
Four men were on the other side, all white, all dressed in suits, and holding stacks of papers. One looked in his fifties, two in their forties, and the last one looked a few years older than her, mid-thirties at the oldest.
“Are you Veronica Hart?” the oldest man asked.
“Yes,” Veronica rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
“Your father died two days ago,” the man said.
Veronica looked up at him, saw his graying hair, his weathered skin, lines around his eyes. He looked old, the years marked in his face like ruts in the dirt road after a hard rain.
“Did you hear me, Miss Hart?” the man asked again. “Your father died two days ago.”
Veronica managed a shrug. “So what? I haven’t talked to him in years. The last time I saw him was my college graduation where he gave me a check for $30,000 and said I had to come to work for him because no one else would hire me. I ripped the check up in front of him and walked away. And I’ve done just fine for myself.”
She tightened her arms across her chest, defense and angry. Her father couldn’t be dead – he was too wretched and rich to die like some decent person with a soul who was capable of kindness. She hated him, and he couldn’t die because she had to keep hating him.
“Miss Hart,” the youngest man stepped forward, “why don’t we go inside so you can put some more clothes on and we can talk properly?”
His formal tone surprised her, and Veronica glanced down to see the thin fabric of her tank top stretched over her breasts. She wanted to snap at the men to stop looking at her, but she nodded and stepped back to let them in.
“Sit in the living room,” she motioned to the area inside her apartment. “Throw the stuff on the floor if you want to sit.”
As she went back to her bedroom, the men looked askance at the piles of papers and magazines, interspersed with mail and books. Veronica’s forte was not housekeeping, and as she only came to the apartment to read and sleep, the general atmosphere was clutter and chaos, but not enough to overwhelm guests.
Hands shaking, Veronica stripped off her sleeping clothes and put on jeans and a shirt. She jammed on socks and running shoes, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She would not cry in front of these strangers, she would not show any emotions.
They had come to talk about the will. That was the only reason they would come here instead of calling her. They would have papers for her to sign. Her father’s billions – that’s all anyone ever cared about. He was so wealthy, so incredibly profitable at anything he touched. Company after company, money over money – he was spectacular.
No, he had been spectacular. He was dead now.
Veronica came back in the living room, swallowing hard.
“Come sit down,” the younger guy took her arm to guide her to a seat.
She wanted to fight him off, but she let him take her to the only armchair and she sat down limply.
“My father hired you,” she said, her tone flat.
“Yes,” said the oldest man, “we represent the three trustees of your father’s estate and company. I’m Harry Norris, this is Frank Goldstein and Sam Kranski,” he pointed to the men in their forties.
Veronica looked at the youngest man, waiting for him to introduce himself.
“I’m Clinton Fitzgerald,” he said. “Your father called me Clint. I was your father’s personal secretary, his organizer, and his advisor. I managed his calendar, I oversaw his contacts, I –”
“You were his work wife?” Veronica’s tone was dead and tired.
Clint looked aggrieved, but Norris jerked his head to the side, and the youngest man stepped back. Of the four men, Clint looked the strongest, slightly taller with the lean powerful body that did not belong to a billionaire’s secretary.
“Whatever you want me to sign is fine,” Veronica said. “I’m pretty sure Dad disinherited me, and even if he didn’t, Pat, Brad, and Greg will make sure I don’t get anything. They can do whatever they want – I just want to be left alone.”
“That’s not possible,” Norris said. “Your father left you everything.”
For the second time in about ten minutes, Veronica stared at the old man and concentrated on his face. Why did the skin on the face wrinkle? Why couldn’t it stay smooth and fresh forever?
“Miss Hart –”
“No,” Veronica finally found her voice. “No, Dad did not. He told me that Patricia was going to lead the company. He chose her – she’s the oldest and most experienced. He liked her. She did what he told her to do.”
“He fired her two years ago for stealing from the company,” Goldstein spoke up. “She moved to Europe shortly after that.”
“Well, Brad is more than capable of –”
“He was your stepbrother,” Kranski said as if she didn’t know. “Your father married Brad’s mother. They divorced last year. Brad isn’t part of the family anymore.”
“Then Greg. Greg is my full brother. Yes, he’s a little slow, but with some help –”
Norris shook his head. “Greg was admitted into a psych ward after he attacked your stepmother with a kitchen knife. He’s been there for three years.”
The tears came then. They swelled up in her eyes as she remembered her youngest sibling. Greg had not gone off to school like Veronica and Pat had. He had stayed at home with a nanny, and a private tutor had come in. Greg hadn’t talked much. He stuttered a lot, and when Veronica had been around him, she had learned to talk for him. Their father had hated him, had hated that his only son was slow. “I can’t believe you gave me a retard,” her father had shouted once at her mother. “What am I supposed to do with him?”
“Greg’s locked up,” Veronica hid her face in her hands. “They locked him up, they locked him up. He wouldn’t attack anyone – he wouldn’t. He’s like a little kid.”
“He tried to throw the housekeeper’s daughter off the balcony once before,” Goldstein said. “Your father paid them off to keep it quiet. But that’s not why we’re here. Your father named you a sole proprietor to his fortune.”
“I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with him. Give it to someone else.”
“Be reasonable,” Clint said. “Your father named you sole heir and CEO of his companies and all his stocks –”
“After taxes there won’t be much left,” Veronica said. “I know how this works. You have to pay estate taxes and everything is wrapped up in stocks and bonds and funds. Once it gets settled, there might be a few million, but that will have to go to pay the taxes for that stupid mansion he bought. You can handle it – I don’t want the headache.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Hart, but that’s not true. Your father put everything in your name before he died.”
“What?” Veronica stood up. “No, that’s impossible. Wouldn’t I know something about it? Wouldn’t I have to sign something?”
“He did it when you were seventeen. You don’t have to sign anything because you were a minor then. Once you turned eighteen, everything went into your name.”
“That’s impossible,” Veronica argued, ignoring Clint who tried to get her to sit back down. “I would know because my taxes would show it. I’ve never seen documents that –”
“Your father devised a fake social security number for you,” Kranski glanced down to the floor as he spoke.
“Then I can’t inherit, because he put it under a fake social.”
“No, the number you have now is fake. Your father gave you a fake social when you were a teenager.”
“He gave me a fake social,” Veronica sat back down. “All the work I’ve done on my own, all the credit I’ve earned, everything I’ve done the last decade – all for nothing.”
The men said nothing.
She looked up them. “He gave me a fake social!” her voice rang through the small living room. “That ugly bastard gave me a fake social so he could put everything under my name without me knowing it and then he dies but it’s all in my name so – so –”
“So you don’t pay taxes and the companies keep their standing,” Norris said. “The stocks have only dipped slightly. Once you become CEO, they’ll go up again.”
“I’m not becoming CEO,” Veronica felt the tightness in her neck grow, making her jaw ache. “I don’t know anything about running companies. I work for a newspaper.”
“That’s where I come in,” Clint gave her a smile that was meant to reassure her, but actually made Veronica want to punch him. “I’m going to help groom you for the job. I’ll be by your side every step, coaching you and training you and making sure everything runs smoothly. Your father always spoke very highly of my abilities and -”
“Clint will help you,” Norris cut him off. “You’re young – you’ll catch on quickly. Your father said you were smart, too smart sometimes. That’s why he chose you.”
“He didn’t choose me,” the rage swelled up inside her. “He’s punishing me. This is his final revenge for not hanging on his every wish like Pat and Brad did. They fawned over him, but I didn’t. I’m not doing this. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You have to,” Norris said, his calmness maddening. “Your father put down indications that he would have his associates look into your history and tell your employers that you were using a fake social. There was also the matter of stealing a car when you were eighteen . . .”
“That was my car,” Veronica could barely breathe. “I paid for it with the money I made working at school. His name was on the title because I was only seventeen when I bought it, and he said I stole it when I tried to take it to college. He kept everything when Mom died – he wouldn’t even let me take her jewelry and I’m not doing what he wants now – now – that –”
She was crying too hard to keep speaking, and she hated herself for showing emotion in front of these cold strangers. She wanted them to leave so she could break down and sit on the bathroom floor and cry about her mother and how she hated her father who was now gone, too. She leaned forward, hiccupping sobs and wishing with all her might that she was stronger, strong enough to stand up to these men, strong enough to stop missing her mother, strong enough to win over her father.
Someone was pulling on her arm, and she stood up instinctively. The person was walking her somewhere, but she had one hand over her face as she cried.
“There we go,” Clint’s voice said. “Sit down here.”
Veronica found herself sitting on the closed lid of the toilet though she wasn’t sure how she got to the bathroom.
“Here,” Clint handed her tissues and turned on the faucets. “Keep those on your face. Lean forward.”
Swiping at her face, Veronica leaned forward and she felt a cool, damp cloth press on the back of her neck.
“You’re going to breathe deeply for a few seconds and calm down,” Clint said.
She hated herself for being so weak that she did what he told her. Her heart raced, and her teeth chattered. Clint was still moving around the bathroom, opening cabinets and looking inside.
“Good you have Tylenol here,” Clint shook out two pills. “Lean up long enough to swallow these. They’ll help ward off a headache.”
Veronica took them, put them on her tongue, and took the glass of water he gave her. She swallowed the pills and gave the glass back to him.
“What can I do to make you leave?” she asked, leaning back against the toilet tank. “I just want you to go away.”
“We’re not leaving,” Clint avoided eye-contact. “You’re going to pack whatever you want to take with you and you’re leaving this apartment forever. Anything you don’t take will be donated.”
“I won’t do it,” Veronica squared her shoulders. “You can’t make me. Whatever traps my father set up for me, I’ll fight them. Even if I have to declare bankruptcy and start over, I’m not doing what he wants.”
“You’ll do it,” Clint finally looked at her. “There are people that this would hurt if you refused. The companies employ thousands of people – they would lose their jobs. The stocks – if the companies go, they crash and more people lose money, maybe their entire savings. Do you want the responsibility of their misery on your shoulders?”
“You’re a monster,” Veronica felt frozen in place.
Clint shifted, uncomfortable. “There’s also the matter of your father’s – ahem – less than savory acquaintances. They need to see someone in the seat of power, someone who can rule the company with authority and firmness. And there are people that render services that must be paid, and people who must be paid off. It’s a delicate balance, Miss Hart.”
“You want me as puppet,” she realized. “You want me as a figure to pretend to be in charge while you do everything behind the scenes.”
“I don’t want anything,” Clint said, almost primly. “I was your father’s right-hand man, and I’m going to be yours. You don’t have to worry about where the money comes from or where it goes. You just have to stand in his place and represent the family and the fortune. Everything else will be taken of.”
Veronica said nothing for a moment. She sat frozen in place, thinking furiously, the thoughts spinning in and out of focus, a bizarre placement of crazy ideas. She had a butcher knife in the kitchen. There was a gun in her bedroom, one her father had given her, sent to her in a box on her twenty-first birthday. She had tossed it, unloaded, into the back of her closet, figuring it was easier to keep it than try to return it to a gun store and insist she didn’t want it. Could she get them out of the house with it?
Veronica glanced over the bathroom counter. Her cell phone lay in the corner beside containers of makeup and tissues.
“I need five minutes alone,” she told Clint.
“Miss Hart, I understand that this is difficult –”
“You’ll call me Veronica,” she stood, ignoring the dizzy sensation that swept over her. “I’m Veronica Hart, this is my apartment, and I’m asking you to be a gentleman and step out for five minutes to let me get myself together.”
She knew she had found his trigger the moment she said “gentleman.”
“Of course,” Clint dipped his head respectfully. “Take all the time you need.”
The moment he closed the door behind him, Veronica locked it and turned on the faucets. The roar of the water filled the bathroom, but she didn’t reach for the phone immediately. She looked at herself in the mirror. Around average height, around average weight though she wanted to lose fifteen pounds, brown hair that reached just below her shoulders, greenish-grey eyes and a short nose. Not CEO material, not an heiress, not a billionaire’s daughter, just a plain young woman with no special skills, no important ideas – she didn’t even understand half of the business terms her father had used like “dividends” and “gross income.”
She didn’t want to go back to that house, that cold mausoleum where her mother had died ten years ago. Ten years, and her father had married Tina six months after the funeral. Tina with her sharp blond beauty and her shrewd eyes, Tina who had married young and had a son Veronica’s age though Tina was fifteen years younger than Gregory Hart had been.
Veronica had hated her and avoided the house as much as possible. It was a dreadful place, prim and fussy, with expensive art everywhere and once Tina moved in, the place got even more glitzy and glamorous. There were parties where tons of snooty old white people came to drink champagne, and dolled-up young people came to make connections, and everyone pretended that they didn’t live in a city of crime and poverty. Who cared that the homeless fought against the drug users when Hart Mansion was throwing another party?
At a young age, Veronica had refused to go to the parties. Her father had tolerated it until her seventeenth birthday when he wanted her to have a debutante coming-out. He had ordered a dress, and she had come into her bedroom to see it spread over her bed.
“You’ll be the toast of the town,” her father had stood in the doorway, smiling. “Pat’s dating that senator from New York, and she met him at her debutante ball.”
Veronica had said nothing then. But on the night of her party, she took a bus to the city and spent the evening watching one movie after another until she took the last bus home at midnight. Her party was still going, and when she walked in the back stairs, her father found her. He looked at her dressed in jeans and a hoodie.
“Get the dress on and greet the guests, or I’ll send Greg to a psych ward tomorrow,” her father’s face had been like ice.
“I’ll do it,” Veronica had lifted her head. “But don’t expect me to talk.”
When the last guest had gone home and the morning sun had peeped into the high windows, her father had started berating her, his voice growing louder and louder until he was spitting with rage.
“I don’t understand it, and I’m not taking it any longer. You get yourself in line, or I’ll see that you spend the rest of your life begging on the streets. Do you want to do this? I have tried to be patient, ever since your mother died, you know that, and –”
“Shut up!” Veronica had said.
Her father had blanched, his face almost white with fury. “If you ever speak to me like that again –”
“You listen to me, you miserable impotent bastard,” Veronica had said, her voice coming from somewhere deep and dark, ugly in its ruthlessness. “I’m leaving this house tonight, and I’m not coming back. I’m going to college, and you will help me start and you will leave me alone, or so help me, I’ll drive right now to the police office and tell them what your brother did to me.”
That had stopped her father, froze him in place, horrified.
“You think I don’t remember because I was just eight? He got into the tub with me and he made me touch him. It wasn’t rape exactly, but I think the newspapers will be happy to run a feature story about the great CEO and his pedophile of a brother,” Veronica’s voice had grown as loud as his. “I will destroy this family – you, the stepmother, and my asshole siblings. I will tell the newspapers and then I’m going straight to the police.”
“They won’t believe you,” her father’s lips had barely moved. “I’ll tell them you lied, that you were never left alone with my brother.”
“That will be glorious,” Veronica had felt a surge of power, blissful rage that blazed through her body. “A child is molested and her father denies it happens. What will your shareholders think? What will happen to your precious stocks?” She let her hand fall through the air, making a dying whistling noise as she dropped it. “Goodbye Hart fortune, hello charity.”
“You ungrateful bitch.”
Veronica had grabbed the pearl necklace around her neck and yanked it off. She had hoped that it would snap and spill pearls all over the marble floor, but instead the clasp broke and the necklace stayed whole. She had thrown it down on the floor.
“Goodbye, Mr. Hart,” she had said.
And she hadn’t seen him again.
That had been eight years ago, eight years of silence except for sending letters to Greg, letters he never returned.
Veronica stood up in her bathroom and looked at herself one last time before she walked to the small window in the bathroom. She opened it and looked. She was on the third floor, and there was no way she could jump down or crawl down, not even with the few Parkour lessons she had tried.
But then a thought occurred to her. Turning the water on in the sink, she dumped all the towels from the small bathroom closet into the sink.
“Miss Hart,” Clint tapped on the door.
“I’ll be right out,” she said, shoving the towels in the water. “Just two more minutes.”
Once they were soaked, she tied them into a long rope, securing diagonal ends until she had a twenty-foot rope of soaking towels. She dropped one end out the window and tied the other around the base of the toilet. She knew the knots were not done properly and wouldn’t hold her weight, but she ducked into the small closet and pulled the door shut softly. Then she waited.
“Miss Hart!” Clint rapped sharply on the door. “We have to leave now.”
She waited, barely breathing.
The bathroom door opened, and shoes sounded on the fake tile floor. She could see them cast shadows on the cracks of light under the closet door.
“She went out the window!” Norris yelled.
“Stupid bitch!” another guy said.
They ran out, and Veronica waited several minutes.
Trembling, she got to her feet and crawled out of the closet. She peeked into the living room – empty.
Still shaking, she grabbed her purse and her keys. She stopped by the closet to get the gun. She dumped it in her purse with a few bullets and snapped the purse shut. She would have to run, keep running, but they weren’t going to catch her. She knew what her father had arranged – a lifetime of sitting in board meetings, making niceties, pretending to like wealthy businessmen and women and their insufferable families when she couldn’t stand them. This was her father’s last revenge – entrapment.
Veronica stepped out of her apartment and turned back to lock the door.
Someone grabbed her from behind.
She screamed and jerked away, but she was quickly turned around.
“Are we really that stupid?” Clint asked her.
She stared at him as her chest heaved with fright and desperation for air. She had dropped her purse when he grabbed her, and she glanced down at it, wondering if she could grab it and take the gun and threaten him before he stopped her.
“The other men are down at the car, but this ‘gentleman’ is going to escort you down to the car. I suggest you come willingly,” Clint’s voice was calm and controlled, but icy.
“Or what?” Veronica managed to keep the tremble out of her voice. “You’ll drug me and drag me out?”
“Be reasonable,” Clint frowned at her. “I’m taller than you, I’m stronger than you, and judging by the lack of running shoes in your closet I’m faster, too.”
“I run some! I just can’t find good shoes.”
“I don’t want to physically force you. You could get hurt. I would rather you show up to your father’s home unbruised. Please, for the last time, come quietly.”
Veronica stomped hard on his foot and ran for the elevator, abandoning the idea of using the gun in her purse.
He caught her two steps later and shoved her front-forward against the wall. She pushed off, but he got her to the ground.
Veronica had never been assaulted as an adult, had never been overpowered by might force, and in that moment, she realized what all raped and abused women must feel like in the moment when they can’t away from their predator. She was screaming, spitting, and swearing, and her vision had gone black with rage.
He was moving her and snapping something shut, and then his hand was on her back.
“Stay there.”
Veronica’s vision went back to normal, and she realized that she was hanging over the arm of her sofa. Her arms were behind her back, and she realized with terror that he had tied her wrists and ankles together with plastic zip-ties.
“Let me go!” she screamed.
“Listen,” he was somewhere a few feet away. “I am not the enemy. But if I let you walk away, they’ll come after you. Your father was in deep, and those men downstairs are determined to make you a puppet.”
“You too!”
“Yes, I’m working with them for now. I made some . . . unfortunate decisions with them. Stupid of me. But I’m in now. And you’re coming with me.”
“Or what?” she fought in vain against the ties. “You’ll kill me? Rape me? Stuff me in a bag and carry me out? I’ll never –”
Thwack!
Veronica gasped as pain blossomed across her right bottom cheek. Another swat followed on the other side.
“Are you crazy?” she shrieked.
“Now that I have your attention,” Clint said calmly, “maybe you’ll think about your position and how to make a better decision than your last.”
“Motherfucker!”
He sighed and spanked her again, holding her still with his free hand so she didn’t buck off the sofa. “Look, I’m ex-military. I’m well-skilled in ways to hurt people, to force them into compliance. But rather than inflict excruciating pain on you, I would rather treat you like a child until you come to reason.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she snapped.
He spanked her again, and though she wiggled her bottom back and forth, she didn’t make a sound.
“I get it. You’re angry. You probably have a right to be. The Hart family has more dark secrets and buried bodies than the Medici family. But you have no leverage here, nothing you can threaten me with because you walked away from your family heritage and its power. You’re ordinary now. No Hart woman would allow herself to be treated like this, but here you are, bent over your own sofa, trussed and spanked like a child.”
Veronica’s ears roared dully, and she thought she might pass out from the rage coursing through her. If she had been free, she would have gladly attacked Clint until one of them fell down, bloody and dead.
“How long you stay here is your choice,” Clint walloped her again, and Veronica’s eyes stung with tears. “But eventually I’m going to cut your ankles free and you’re going to walk out of here with me and get into the car. How long I have to keep spanking you is your choice – no one will see the marks and no one will feel the pain sitting but you.”
Veronica could barely breathe, but he spanked her again, once on each side. The pain actually helped to clear her head. It steadied her, made her rational and less enraged. She could survive this new entrapment just like she had survived before.
“All right, you win for now,” she nodded. “I’ll go.”
She heard the click of a switchblade, and then her ankles came free.
He gently pulled her up to her feet.
Veronica tossed strands of hair out of her face. “What about my hands?”
“You’ve lost that privilege,” Clint shut the knife blade closed. “I’ll free them when we get to the house.”
Veronica looked him straight in the face. “I will never forget this. Never.”
Clint smiled ruefully. “Shall we go?”
The sting in her bottom disappeared by the time they reached the limo parked on the street. Veronica got in the car, sitting next to Clint. Norris and one of the men sat across from them while the last man drove.
Veronica thought she might have cried when the limo reached the Hart Mansion, but the only thing she felt was hot anger as the car pulled in the drive.
Clint’s expression was blank as he looked at her. “I’ll free you once we’re inside.”
At that moment, in that sweltering place of fury and helplessness, Veronica swore that one day she would make his calm, handsome face writhe in pain. She would make him pay, pay so very dearly for what he did to her.
She had no idea at that time how true that promise would become.