Midnight Vengeance Read Free Page A

cracked.
    Frederick schooled his face to blandness but his mind was racing as he crossed the room. He stepped on a used condom and his throat quivered as his stomach shot up his gullet.
    Jorge was sitting with his back to the huge two-inch-thick bullet-resistant windows that gave out on to a flagstone terrace that ran the width of the mansion.
    “Party last night?” Frederick asked, keeping his tone light.
    Jorge grunted. He was sitting in Alfonso’s chair, forearms on the surface of the Chippendale table that had served Alfonso as his main desk. A satchel sat next to Jorge’s right hand. As Frederick walked closer he could see that Jorge was keeping himself upright by his arms on the table. Frederick checked Jorge’s eyes, overly bright with pinpoint pupils. Christ, the man was wasted.
    Jorge was going to talk business stoned out of his mind.
    With an inner sigh, Frederick felt a pang of pity for himself pulse through his system. He’d earned a lot of money off the Gutierrez machine and now it was coming to a close. Like most good things, he supposed.
    “So,” Frederick said, sitting down on one of Chantal’s antique chairs, noting with a repressed shudder that the seat cushion was stained. He couldn’t bear to think of what might have caused the stain. “Here I am for my monthly report.”
    He’d had a not-unpleasant monthly appointment with Alfonso, to deliver ongoing reports. Frederick was the Gutierrez family’s computer expert and the confidential conduit for communication with the various international...dealers Alfonso had business with. Alfonso owned two hotels, three nightclubs and four restaurants in Florida, which, being Alfonso, were exceedingly well run and turned a tidy profit.
    But they were fronts for what earned Alfonso the real money—drugs, prostitution, people trafficking. All activities Alfonso managed at a remove with Frederick’s help. He never got his hands dirty, directing everything via secure computer, which was Frederick’s lookout. Vast amounts of money exchanged hands via bitcoins on the darknet, and every month Frederick visited Alfonso, he was treated to a superb brandy while delivering his report, and watched as 25K was deposited in his account in the Caymans.
    Everyone was happy.
    Since Alfonso’s death, the businesses, legal and otherwise, had been going to hell. Very quickly. Frederick would have left long ago if it weren’t for the fact that Jorge was desperately looking for Anne Lowell, Chantal’s daughter, Alfonso’s stepdaughter. Right after Chantal and Alfonso’s wedding, Anne had fled from her family, disliking everything about her mother’s new household. Anne had come from an upper crust family in Boston and hadn’t mixed well, to put it mildly.
    She’d been gone years before Frederick’s association with Alfonso, and no one would have given Anne Lowell a moment’s thought if it weren’t for the fact that Chantal had died an hour after Alfonso, as his main heir. And then Anne had been Chantal’s main heir.
    So she had inherited most of the estate, the above-ground one anyway, and Jorge had gone wild. Alfonso’s brother had sent his only son up to Miami to learn the business, and Jorge thought he had it made for life. But Alfonso soon understood his nephew’s weaknesses and had made sure to leave everything to Chantal. Who would probably have wisely put Frederick in charge.
    Alfonso had never said a word to Frederick about his succession. Alfonso had been a very healthy self-disciplined fifty-year-old and Frederick had looked forward to many more years of happy association with an empire efficiently run by Alfonso. But that happy scenario had come to a crashing halt when a drugged-up teen slammed straight into Alfonso’s Porsche.
    Frederick often wondered whether the teen had been hopped up on Alfonso’s product. Alfonso had had a great sense of irony and would have appreciated it.
    Frederick had been sorry for Alfonso but above all, sorry for himself.