Chapter One
Lucian
The dossier waited in an outstretched hand. The hand belonged to my secretary, judging by the pink polka dots decorating her nails. I took it as I slid into my seat beside the head analyst. Across the corner from me was a guy from media relations.
They had names, of course. I knew what they were, just like I knew how much was in each of their bank accounts and what their overall GPA was.
Those were facts. Attributes. To me, these people were their function, and that function was communication. They were oversized iPhones, really. They sent me information from my various networks and disseminated my commands.
Another source of information—the folder. I opened it and looked through it. This was all digitized, sitting on some uber-secure server, but I preferred hard copies. They were easier to destroy.
The first page contained daily numbers for Morelli Holdings. Our family had a rich portfolio of real estate, media, and manufacturing. It started with elevators. My grandfather had contracts with major development companies throughout the city. He built a respectable fortune. It’s my father who expanded the company into other verticals. He loved the negotiation. The chase. The win. He didn’t love management nearly as much. Which was a problem. Numbers ran down the page in bold. Our stock prices. Our gross revenue. Our expenses.
We were in the red. Normally, that’s a bad thing. But for me, today, it was fucking perfect. It’s exactly what I needed.
I flipped the page for more specifics from the various departments. Another page. This one delved into personal details. Best to have leverage before you need it. For instance, here was a photo of our Vice President sleeping with a girl half his age. I wondered what Mrs. Vice President would think about it. Something I filed away for another day.
“You.”
My secretary jumped in her seat. “Yes, sir?”
Christ. She always used that breathy sex kitten voice. Yes, sir, as if she thought I was going to fuck her. As if she thought I’d order her to get to her knees while I was in the middle of a conference call or a limo ride through New York City. She was beautiful, but I had more discerning taste.
“Everyone’s there?” I asked.
She knew what I meant. Behind those big blue eyes was a Mensa-level mind. It’s why she was my secretary. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Every single one of our yeses arrived, and two of the nos are staying home.”
The sweet taste of victory flooded my mouth. More physical sensation than anything else. I didn’t feel much of anything in the way of actual emotion, but this was almost too easy.
Our limo turned a corner and the Morelli Holdings building came into view. Even nestled among the other NYC skyscrapers, this one stood above. Tall. Dark. Imposing. This building bore my name. My father’s name, technically, but that was going to change in about thirty minutes. I was one takeover away from being in charge.
I turned to the analyst without a word and raised my eyebrows.
“The estimates are stronger than ever,” he said.
Perfect. I glanced at the woman who ran my private media division. She had a good sense for how the public would react. More useful still, she had connections to every major business network. If I played my cards right, I could be on the cover of Forbes in a matter of months.
She nodded back. “Everything’s ready to go.”
The announcement, she meant. She’d been working on it for weeks. That probably seems like a long time, but I’d been working on it for years. I watched my father succeed with this business through a combination of brute force and privilege. He made my family a fortune, even as he lost several more.
I’ve been waiting for this moment.
It was here.
Any CEO can experience bad months, but my father didn’t like to explain himself. He told the board to go fuck themselves. Since it’s Morelli Holdings, they couldn’t say anything until I came to them. Lucian Morelli, CEO. It had a nice ring to it.
An even larger entourage was waiting outside the building as the limo pulled up. Everyone with their battle faces on. You don’t play a multi-billion-dollar hostile takeover without accumulating a goddamn army.
And my army was everywhere. My people worked all the way down in the mailroom and all the way up in the boardroom. I’d been recruiting allies for the ten years I’d been working here. Now we’d strike.
There was only one elevator to take us all the way to the top. Standing in the elevator, I could see the boardroom with its windows looking out over the city. I could see the silhouettes of men inside. Some of those men would oppose this takeover. More of them would support it. And my father? Well, he was too smart to truly be shocked.
The elevator opened silently, without a ding to herald our arrival. My shoes clicked across the marble floor. One of the men in my entourage reached forward and opened the boardroom door. I walked through with a grim smile. I didn’t take any pleasure from beating my father, no matter how much he beat me and my siblings as children. My siblings more so than me, of course. But the company? The company was my birthright. I’d take care of it better than he ever did.
Mr. Ohanian gave me a nervous smile from across the room. Light glistened on his sweaty forehead. He needed to get it the fuck together. Open displays of fear would only tip off my father. He was good at reading people. I didn’t show him any fear. I’ve never been afraid of him. Not like my siblings were. I walked over to give Mr. Ohanian a handshake and gripped him just a little too hard so his eyes met mine.
“Everything going according to plan?” I asked him.
He chuckled, the sound thin with anxiety. I didn’t fucking like that. “Now, Lucian. I’ve always known you were a smart boy, but your father…your father is smart, too.”
“Son.” My father’s voice came from behind me. I turned. We embraced. It’s a strange relationship, a grown child with their parent. Even stranger when that parent used to be abusive. There were many reasons my father didn’t use his fists with me, but one of them is that if he did, I would hit back. And I wouldn’t stop. Not ever. They’d have to drag me off his lifeless body.
And yet we were both Morellis. Both part of an institution that, in its way, had protected our family for years. We could feel nothing for each other in private. In public, we behaved. So there I was, giving him a one-armed hug, patting him on the back, pretending to be jovial here in this corporate jungle.
“I’m glad you could come,” my father said, as if I hadn’t run the board meetings for the last two years while he was off golfing or fucking his latest mistress. “The board has something important they want to discuss with us.” He winked. None of this was good. Clearly my father had caught wind of the coup. Clearly he’d got some power play planned. However, I wasn’t overly concerned. This was all part of battle. I nodded and took my seat at one end of the table.
Bryant Morelli took his seat at the other end. He was a strong man, despite being in his sixties. Powerful. Healthy. With the signature dark hair and tanned skin that marked all of his children. A long row of men. Everyone filled in between us. Just like the people in my limo, they had names and hopes and dreams, but I didn’t care about those things. They’re just tools. Functions. Little apps on a computer screen that I could use to make things happen.