Blackbird (A Stepbrother Romance #1)(5)
As Alicia finishes the morning briefing I finger the edges of the paper. I have a distinct urge to ruin the career of everyone involved in printing this thing, from the editor all the way down to the copy boys in their mailroom. I could, if the urge struck me.
Amsel is a holding company. Long, long ago, the family got its start manufacturing explosives. Gunpowder, to be precise. The family estate borders a sloping quick running river that used to be lined with mills for miles, fueling the Union war machine while, ironically, some cousins fought on the confederate side. There was never a direct threat to these holdings, but there was a time when this house was strategically important. That ended a long time ago. Gunpowder became chemicals, chemicals became a dozen other products from solvents to adhesives to demolition explosives. Amsel helped in wars, put men on the Moon and create the Internet. Everyone talks about the innovations of this or that computer company but their devices would be useless without fifteen patents that belong to the family for the next sixty years, and in perpetuity if our lobbyists do their job. I can meet with Senators on a whim. Billionaires look busy when they see I’m coming.
None of this makes me feel anything.
I suppose that’s my advantage.
Alicia has a file for me, my latest target.
They sell biscuits. Actually, powder that comes in boxes that mixes with milk and eggs to make biscuits. That’s the flagship product. Thorpe Biscuit has expanded over the last twenty years into a food and food services empire. Ninety-five percent of the biscuits served in restaurants and eaten in homes are Thorpe and they have a good chunk of the food service industry and manufactured food markets under their control. Walk into a grocery store and something like ninety percent of the goods are produced by one of three companies, if you follow the ownership back up the chain. Thorpe is one of those, with the smallest market share of the big three. They do six billion dollars a year in revenue.
Yes, I yawn while I’m reading it.
They’re screwed. The company is going under, due to total mismanagement. Thorpe is run by old money, Jim Thorpe III, great-grandson of the founder. I know more about him than he does. The dossier open on my desk reads like something an assassin would use to study a target. I know all of his habits, his movements. I know what he had for breakfast three weeks ago, what he gave his wife for Mother’s Day and his mistress for Secretary’s Day, which Ninja Turtle each of his children prefer (the youngest favors Donatello), the names of his boats. I even know about the funds he has squirreled away in Switzerland for when it all goes belly up under him.
I am not without mercy. I will allow him to remain on in some capacity at the company. He will continue to own stock. Today he will agree to a merger or I will launch my hostile takeover campaign. One word to Alicia and one of the six Amsel conglomerates will put in the maximum allowed bid on the open market for shares of Thorpe stock, as permitted by the Williams Act. At the same time, I will contact the large shareholders I’ve been meeting with for what’s known as a proxy fight. They will vote for me. I don’t even need them all. I already indirectly own twenty percent of the common stock through a pension fund group under Amsel control. Jim Thorpe is, to put it colloquially, screwed. I scratch at the papers with my close-cut fingernails. It feels like sharpening my claws. Once the company is mine the challenge of fixing it might at least make me feel something.
Six years. That’s the last time I felt something, I think.
The morning’s work is boring, mostly answering emails, correcting other people’s mistakes, gathering intelligence, arranging for the sell off of an underperforming holding and sending orders to my other assistants to bring me information on new acquisitions. The lawyer will be joining me in New York to meet with Thorpe.
Once everything is arranged, it’s time to go.
When I step out of the office, the head of security is waiting for me.
His name is Harrison Carlisle and he’s one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen. Almost seven feet tall and three hundred pounds of muscle. He comes from some little town up the Susquehanna river. I think his cousin or his uncle or some such thing is a police officer up there. Harrison was a Marine and then a private military contractor. I remember the name of the town, now. Paradise Falls. One of my college roommates was from up there. Jennifer, her name was. There must be something in the water in that town; she towered over me. When I lived with her I always felt like I was in her shadow. She was stunning, with a gymnast’s slender build, a models’ grace, and she was absolutely gorgeous, but she was dating some local boy that went to the same school as us and never talked to anyone else. She rarely talked to me, for that matter. I haven’t thought about her in a long time.
Something in the air this morning brings nostalgia.
“Ma’am,” Harrison grunts, knocking me out of my reverie.
Good. I don’t want to think about college. I don’t want to think about Victor. Not that it ever stops me. Every day for five years, I-
“One of the cars was stolen this morning.”
I blink a few times. I glance at Alicia. I look at Harrison again.
“What?”
“Somebody broke into the garage and took it.”
“Yes,” I sigh, “That’s what stolen means. Which one?”
“The Pontiac.”
An ice cube slides down my back and I go rigid. There’s one Pontiac in the Amsel collection. A packard, a Rolls Royce, a 1958 Plymouth Fury, half a dozen less valuable cars and Victor’s mother’s Hyundai, and one Pontiac, that ludicrous beast Victor’s father passed down to him.