“Right,” I said looking at him. “They recognized the name. They realized that we’re the ones who screwed up their computer systems…”
“And subsequently lost them billions of dollars.” He looked apologetically at me. “Sorry, man. I didn’t think that they would ever…”
“Hey,” I said, cutting him off as I patted him on the shoulder. “I’m the one who approved of the press badges you made. I gave the okay. I was fine with having the company name on that. Shit, TechUp is so well known now, I knew it would give us prestige and give us an easy way in.”
“Still…” he said sheepishly. “I should have at least considered the possibility that they’d figure it out.”
“Yeah,” I said. “So should I, Ace. So should I.”
“The important thing is that we know why they went after us. Question is… they know I’m Parker James. They even know that Parker James is CEO of TechUp. But do they know that I’m actually Dante Black?”
“What do you want to do about it now?” Ace said.
I got up and headed to a small door at the back end of the large room. The four foot high door led to a cooler chamber that was actually beneath the steps leading into the church above. And in that cooler chamber were a few very nice bottles of wine that my father had hidden away.
“No point having to suffer cheap wine while we’re hiding out,” he’d said in defense of his purchase.
I pulled out a favorite: A Pinot Noir. I went back to the kitchen to open the bottle and take an invigorating sniff of the cork. Perfect. Grabbing two glasses from the cupboard, I went back to Ace.
“Wine?” Ace said. “You didn’t want pizza for breakfast, but you’ll have wine?”
Sitting down, I grinned at him while I poured myself a glass. “You’re free to abstain if you wish.”
“Yeah,” Ace said with a smirk. “I think I’ll hold off… for like maybe a few hours or so.”
“Things are so messed up these days,” I said. “It seems like the days turn into night and nights turn into day. Everything is so screwed up and backwards.” I took a sip of the bold wine and sat back to analyze the situation.
“Well, it certainly is your prerogative.”
“I’ve been too tense lately,” I said. I don’t know if I was trying to justify my action to him or to myself. “Things aren’t going as planned and… Shit. It’s just all going to shit.”
“That girl,” Ace said simply.
I snorted and looked at him. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess it’s all because of that girl. I guess it’s screwing with my thought process a little more than I thought. I really thought I was over her. I had tucked away all the memories of her. And yet… Damn, seeing her again is just driving me nuts.”
“I think I’m still level-headed about all this, so you can bounce your ideas off me,” he said. “That is, if you have any ideas.”
I smirked at him. “Actually, at this very moment, no. I have no ideas. I’m all out. What do you have to offer?”
“Well, for starters, you might want to consider what you want to do about Parker James?” Ace said. “Do you want to keep that identity, or do we kill him off, too?”
I closed my eyes.
“Too much to think about?”
“No. I had thought of that,” I said. “Actually, it was my first thought when you told me they knew all about TechUp. But I don’t really think it’s the right way to go. Not yet, anyway.”
In a way, I was a victim of my own success. TechUp had taken off like nothing I had expected. Within six months of starting the company, I was already rated among the top five tech start ups and six months after that, TechUp was at the top of the heap.
All of that success had been accompanied by magazine articles, television interviews and social media spotlight. My name was out there and people knew my face.
“Right,” Ace finally said. “If Parker James dies, who’ll take over TechUp?” He looked at me with a playful grin. “Me?”
I chuckled softly. “You couldn’t handle the pressure.”
“Ha!” he let out with exaggerated enthusiasm. “I would take the company to the moon.”
I let him have his moment then shrugged. “If it really comes to that, I can do with TechUp what my father did with Black Biotech. He had an eight billion dollar company, and he knew he was going to die. He also knew that I would have to become a ghost of myself. So, he transferred the stock to an anonymous stockholder, a fictional name.”
Ace nodded. “Funny,” he said. “I remember reading that article about Clay Black. I’d heard about Black Biotech… I mean… who hadn’t? That company was all over the place. But it was all so surreal… the explosion that killed him and his son, the falling apart of the company afterward, the billions of dollars in stock now own by a mysterious entity.” He smiled as he looked at me. “Your father was a genius. You’re a genius. I don’t know if I would have had the guts to start all over again. I mean, to leave behind the life of Dante Black and go forward as Parker James. I can barely lie about something as insignificant as what I had for breakfast, never mind make up a whole new life for myself. New name, new identity… Fuck. That takes balls.”
I took another sip of wine as his words sank in. “You know what? The thing is that, when life is good, when things are going your way and when you just feel comfortable and laid back, it’s hard to give up everything you have to start your life all over again. It’s all too easy to get complacent, and to just ride it out, breeze through life.”
Ace nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“But when you’ve lost everything,” I went on, my mind racing back to that time in my life. “When you’re asked to make a hit on a beautiful and sweet girl, but you end up falling in love with your target. When the Circle realizes that you’ve backed out of your mission and that you’ve betrayed them, and they want to ruin you… Kill you. When the woman you love doesn’t even know who you are… When your father quite literally sacrifices his own life to…”
I took a gulp of wine, not even enjoying the flavor.
“Well he fucking dies so that he can fucking save your sorry ass…” I said, almost gagging on the words.
I sat back and tried to cool off. I sipped my wine as I reviewed the harshest times of my life and the scars they’d left.
My father had taught me the importance of having a cold heart… heartless. But what good had it really done me.
“I see what you mean,” Ace said quietly. “I don’t envy you, man.”
“And I hope that you never have to experience it firsthand,” I said, looking up into his boyish face. “Because it’s a shitty way to live.”
He looked at me then looked at the expensive bottle of wine I’d opened. “I guess it’s true what they say… money doesn’t fix everything.”
I took in a deep breath and looked at him. Every day he was more and more like the kid brother I’d never had. He was maturing, growing and becoming wiser.