Billionaire's Tragedy (Standalone Book) (Billionaire Bad Boy Romance) (23 page)

"Will you write the
story?"

She leaned forward and
lightly kissed my lips. There was no invitation for more than that, and I
didn't try. She stared at me for what felt like a long time before she said,
"Okay, you can go now. I need to work."

I got up and walked out
the way I'd come in, wondering how I would explain this to Mo and Brant.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR

Olivia

As
soon as Linc left the newsroom, I called Bix and told her what had happened.

"What do I do, Bix?"
I asked as I chewed on the cap of a pen I'd found in my desk drawer.

"First, quit chewing
on that pen, the sound is disgusting," she admonished me. "Second,
what do you want to do?"

"I want to take
Russo and Bangor down. I want them to pay for the mess they've created, I want
the bill to pass, and I want GRIPTech to put smart technology on every gun in
this country, but that's not the point."

"What is the
point?" she asked. I could hear the kids in the background yelling at the
top of their lungs. Bix pulled the phone away and said, "Excuse me,
banshees, I am on the phone, can you please tone down the raid on the
fridge?"

"Nice, very
nice," I laughed when she returned.

"They're driving me
crazy; I'm glad there's less than a week to go before Christmas or I'd really
be nuts," she laughed. "But back to you, what do you want to
do?"

"I told you!" I
said. "I'm just not sure I have enough evidence to prove that Bangor and
Russo are the ones responsible for the BAR action in the 1970s. I'm also still
in the dark about the shooter!"

"Liv, what did your
journalism professors tell you to do when you weren't absolutely sure of the
facts?"

"If the facts didn't
check, we didn't run the story," I said.

"Then you know what
you need to do," she replied. "Check your facts and write the story
that the facts support. If it brings Russo and Bangor down, then good, but if
it doesn't, then maybe someone else will be able to pick up the pieces and take
it the rest of the way."

"But Frank will kill
me if I let the story to go the
Post
,"
I protested.

I heard a loud crash in
the background and Bix sighed, "I have to go, the banshees are destroying
the living room and I've got party guests arriving in a half an hour."

"Thanks, Bix,"
I said before she disconnected. I knew what I needed to do, but I didn't know
how I was going to make everyone happy. I was also disturbed by the fact that
the police still had no idea who the shooter was.

"Maybe Santa will
bring me a sack full of facts," I muttered as I turned back to my computer
and began writing.

#

I
wrote all night as I wrestled with the fact that while I was annoyed with Linc
for asking me to write the article exposing Davis Russo, I was also deeply
relieved that he'd confirmed all of the information that I'd been busy tracking
down. Russo was a snake, and he'd been a snake his whole life.

I'd tracked down a few
people who'd been part of the BAR back in the 1970s, and they'd confirmed that
Russo had called for a revolt against the government and urged every member of
the BAR to arm themselves with as many weapons as they could. They'd also
verified the fact that Russo's rise to power in the AWN was the result of his
ability to raise money and that it was now being threatened by the passage of
gun safety legislation since part of the bill outlined more comprehensive
education and safety classes, in addition to limiting the places where guns
could be bought.

No longer would the AWN
benefit from guns bought at big box stores if the bill passed, and then only
licensed gun dealers and sporting goods stores could sell weapons. It would
also add more detailed background checks and make private sales of weapons
illegal. Davis Russo was losing his grip on the AWN membership, and more
importantly, the money. If he could bring in the millions of billions that
would be generated by smart technology, he could save his place at the top of
the AWN food chain, but if he failed, he'd soon find himself replaced.

I could see now that his
attempt to thwart the bill was less about opposing safer weapons ownership and
more about a man who saw that he was losing his grip on power. He was set on
destroying Linc because it would help his cause.

The only thing I couldn't
quite understand was the connection to the Capitol shooter, I knew there had to
be a connection, but no one had come forth and identified the man yet, so I
speculated without accusing Russo of anything. I’d searched the archives all of
the newspapers in the local area, but had come up short and now time was of the
essence. The copy editors wouldn't like it, but it was a long shot that might
end up producing results, and I crossed my fingers and hoped that if they
didn't let it through, maybe Frank would overrule them in the interest of
saving the paper.

As I typed, there was a
part of my brain where I turned my attraction to Linc over and over. I wasn't
sure I where we were headed, but I couldn't get the memory of his hands on my
body out of my mind and I wasn't sure that I could maintain my defenses much
longer.

#

When
Frank arrived the next morning, I was just finishing up the article on Bangor
and Russo. I wasn't sure how it would go over, but I knew I had something worth
showing him.

"Carl, what did your
journalism professors tell you about facts?" I asked as I printed off a
copy of the story and prepared to give it to Frank.

"They told us that
unless we had them, we weren't allowed to print anything," he said.
"But that was a hundred years ago, before the Internet and the advent of
this new breed of journalists who don't seem to care so much about facts as
they do about attention."

"That's what I
thought," I said. "We're old school."

Carl laughed as I walked
to Frank's office and tapped on his door. "Got a minute to take a look at
this, boss?" I asked.

"What is it?"
he said in a grumpy voice. I could see that he was stressed and I almost backed
down and walked away. "What's the story?"

I handed him the print
out and fought the urge to explain anything until after he'd read the whole
piece. When he'd finished, he looked up at me and said, "Is this
true?"

"Most of it is fact
based," I said. "But that part about the shooter is conjecture based
on connections that are true."

"If it's not
provable, then it doesn't run," Frank said.

"But Frank!"

"Don't ‘But Frank’
me, sunshine," he said shaking his head. "Facts, facts, facts!"

"But what if I told
you that printing that article would make it more likely that someone would
come out of the woodwork and identify the shooter?"

"I'd tell you that
you need to prove the connection before you make the assertion," he said
without looking up from the stack of messages he was quickly separating into
two stacks.

"We'd get the
attention we need," I said, holding the paper in front of him like a juicy
piece of meat in front of a bear. "We could up the price of advertising.
We could regain our hold on the market."

"Olivia, let me
explain something to you," he said as he rubbed his eyes. "I'm
willing to do a lot of things to ensure that this paper survives, but violating
the first rule of journalism is not one of them. Track down the evidence and
prove that the shooter is connected to Russo and Bangor, and I'll run the piece
even if the President himself asks me to pull it, but without the facts, I'm
not going there."

"Not even for the
greater good?" I asked, making one more pass.

"Not even if Frank
Sinatra himself came back from the dead and sang me a lullaby," he said
with a smile. "Now get out of my office and go track down the facts!"

I walked back to my desk
only slightly defeated. Carl turned around and said, "Have you thought
about tracking down the roster of BAR members and seeing if they know what
happened to Beau Danford? I mean, what if Danford was the shooter?"

"Danford as the
shooter," I repeated. “That’s what I’ve been thinking since we uncovered
that picture of him with Russo and Bangor, but there’s no evidence that
completely links him to the crime so I don’t see how we can pin it on him.”

"Yeah, it’s true
that he disappeared; no one has seen him in decades, but that doesn’t mean he’s
completely out of the game," Carl said as he picked up the printout of the
BAR picture I'd left on his desk. "I'm just saying that Russo is a
conniving bastard who plays a long game. Is it so unlikely that he'd hold
Danford in reserve until the situation called for it?"

"That's positively
evil," I said.

"Yeah, well, it's
Davis Russo we're talking about after all," Carl said with a pointed look
and then turned back to his computer and began typing furiously.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE

Linc

On
Thursday morning, I left the office to go clear my head and get a cup of
coffee. I had spent the morning making calls to senators asking for their
support when HR 8212 came up for a vote the next day, but I had been striking
out. No one seemed to want to support the bill, and while I could understand
that they were under pressure from the party, I didn't understand why so many
of them were so afraid.

I was waiting at the
counter for my coffee when the door opened and I heard a familiar voice begin
to speak.

"Those weak bastards
won't know what hit 'em tomorrow," the voice said. "They're all a
bunch of mama's boys who have their thumbs up their asses. Not one of them has
a backbone."

It was obvious that he
wasn't paying attention his surroundings because when I turned around and
showed my face, Davis Russo turned white as a sheet.

"So, Davis, you've
got your boot on the neck of our senators, do you?" I said calmly.

"So what if I
do?" he shot back quickly regaining his composure.

"What would the
party have to say about your bullying lawmakers into agreeing to vote down the
one bill that has a snowball’s chance in hell of making a difference?" I
asked. There was something about facing Russo in this place that made me feel
calmer than I had in days. Russo, on the other hand, was a whole different
matter.

"Who says I've been
bullying anyone? Have you been talking to that bitch reporter?" he
sneered. It took everything in me to keep my fist balled at my side and not
send it slamming into his face.

"No, I've spent my
morning calling around and getting the cold shoulder," I said. "I
should have known it was your handiwork."

"I've done nothing,
Redding," he said as he tried to move past me. I blocked his path to the
counter and leaned in so that I could speak quietly in his ear.

"You're a filthy
little snake, Russo. You always have been and always will be, but you and your
henchmen have dropped way too far below the line of decency this time," I
said, carefully shaping my words to deliver the most impact. "Hiring that
poor man to kill those senators so that you could make a point about gun laws,
well, that's low even for a scumbag like yourself."

"You lying son of a
bitch!" Russo screamed as he wound up and threw a punch. Fortunately, I
had been fully prepared for him to get violent, and as he threw his weight into
his fist, I stepped aside and watched as he went sprawling to the floor.

"Rookie mistake,
Russo," I said calmly as I looked the angry man scrambling to try and push
himself up off the ground.

"Even if I had done
it, you know I’d never be so sloppy,” he hissed. "I wouldn't have left any
evidence, Redding. You should know me better than that."

I turned and walked
toward the door as Russo stood up sputtering and spitting as he tried to come
up with something to counter my accusation. I stopped at the door and look at
him.

"That's what I
thought," I said as I turned and walked out the door leaving an angry
red-faced Davis Russo standing in the middle of the coffee shop.

#

As
soon as I was
back in the office, I picked up the phone and called Olivia.

"Hey, I was just
thinking about you," she said in a voice that sounded a little buzzed.

"Olivia, I just ran
into Russo and he all but admitted that he and Bangor had hired someone to
shoot the senators," I blurted out.

"Wait, what? Russo
admitted that? To you?" she said turning into the consummate reporter.
"What did he say exactly?"

"I don't remember; I
tripped him and he fell to the floor and I told him he was a coward for hiring
someone to kill the senators," I said trying to remember the exact words. "He
said that if he'd done it, he'd have done a better job of hiding the
evidence."

"Hiding the
evidence?" she said. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know, what
evidence was there from the crime scene?"

"The shooter, his
effects, the gun...oh holy shit," she said softly. "The gun. Why
didn't I think of that?"

"Think of what,
Olivia?" I said as she cursed a blue streak on the other end.

"The gun! I need to
get to the station and see the gun!" she shouted before hanging up.