The Art of Control (11 page)

Sawyer

I’m busting my ass to get to Moreno’s Pub to see Sonya. The Winston-Salem account should be fine until Young can get back and deal with the heads of the company and set them straight. They obviously don’t want to hear from me about how their current fail-safes are, for lack of a better word,
shitty
. It’s times like these I’m glad Young is the man in charge and not me. My lack of
give a shit
impedes me from being politically correct, while Dylan, on the other hand, always maintains a cool exterior, and it’s what makes him an excellent CEO.

I pull int
o Moreno’s and see Sonya’s silhouette near the window. She’s chatting on her phone and sipping a brightly colored cocktail.
No drinking tonight
, I remind myself. I’m not going down that road again.

I walk in and Sony
a greets me with a smile that could melt any man’s heart. Great Gatsby she’s beautiful. I seat myself in the chair across from her and she leans over and kisses me tenderly on my mouth, and I can taste the faint flavor of rum. I don’t dare make eye contact for fear she’ll read my perverse thoughts of wanting to get inside her. Instead, I scan the tabletop and cough nervously.

“I ordered you a Coke with lime,” she tells me.

How thoughtful of her. She knows I don’t drink anymore and I’ve never had to remind her of that after confessing my addiction months ago.

“How was work? Did you do anything interesting?” she asks.

“Interesting? Define interesting,” I tell her.

She purses her lips together and gives me wide eyes.

“Ever the mysterious, Sawyer. Fine. Let’s talk about something else. Have you heard from Dylan and Isabel?”

I don’
t mean to be mysterious; I’m just not accustomed to talking about work. I never even talked about it with my wife. She eventually learned to just stop asking and I was grateful for it. I would’ve hated to see the look of disapproval on her face when I told her the dreadful things The Agency asked of me.

“
Not since a few nights ago.”

Come to think of it, I should probably call Young and make sure everything is going okay. After his little
incident
, I can’t help but feel uneasy. My intuition is telling me that the attack was deliberate. Nothing came about from the fingerprint Young sent me, though the scanned image was less than ideal.

“Something’s
bothering you. Do you want to talk about it?” Sonya asks, reaching over the table and touching my hand.

She has an uncanny way of reading my body language
which makes me uncomfortable.  I shrug my shoulders and look back down at the table. She reaches over and pulls my chin up and her touch warms me.

“Hi. My name is Sony
a. Do you come here often?” she asks lightheartedly.

I chuckle at her remark. She’s trying
to draw me out.

“Sorry, doll. My mind is
on what happened to Young.”

“The mugging?”

“Yes, that.”

“It’ll work itself out,” Sony
a says, sipping on her beverage.

Oh, to be so naïve.
Just then my drink arrives. I no sooner get a get gulp down and my phone rings.

“Sawyer, this is Murphy
. The shit just hit the fan. If you’re near a television, turn it to the local news.”

Fuck.
Now what?
I jump up and go over to the bar area and ask them to turn the channel on the overhead television. Our local news reporter is talking excitedly about Denver’s Golden Boy being outted as a sadist.

“…the video footage is too graphic to be shown here, but there is no doubt that the players are
Dylan Young and his new wife…”

Motherfucking hell.
My stomach drops.

“Turn it off,” I snap at the bartender, but he’s too engrossed in the story.

I quickly walk over to Sonya, grab her by the hand and drag her out of the bar and to my car.

“What is it?” she asks concerned.

“An intimate video was leaked showing Young and Isabel in a very compromising position,”

Sony
a’s eyes widen and she pales.

“Dear Lord, h
aven’t those two been through enough?” she sighs irritably.

“Apparently not.
I guess your
Dear Lord
thinks they should still be tested a little more before He decides to break them,” I reply sarcastically.

“Sawyer, stop
,” Sonya tells me impatiently.

I roll my eyes at her and immediately regret doing so.

We get into my car and she glares at me.

“You know I hate it when you roll your eyes at me. It’s disrespectful and
it means you think what I’ve said isn’t important,” she huffs.

S
ighing loudly, I decide to swallow my pride. “Yes, you’re right. I apologize.”

“Thank you. Now what are you going to do?
Call Dylan?”

I love that Sony
a doesn’t hold a grudge; it’s another of the many qualities that endears me to her.

“Shit. I know I should but it’s their honeymoon.
And hell, his birthday is in three days. I mean, seriously, what can he do about it that I can’t do myself?”

Sony
a nods in agreement. We both sit quietly for several minutes while I contemplate whether to call Young or not.
Fuck it
. I’m letting him enjoy his honeymoon and birthday. Its better that they lay low while this fiasco runs its course. The both of them being out of the country is probably the best damn thing anyway.
So much for getting a good night’s sleep.

I drop Sony
a off at my place, kiss her goodbye and make my way back to the office. I’ll be pulling an all-nighter.

Prevalent on my mind:
First: Who? Second: Who? Third: Who the fuck?

The first ph
one call I make when I get to the office is to Young’s PR people. They’ve already caught wind of the situation and are in complete meltdown mode. I tell them that under
no
circumstances are they to call Young and let him know what’s going on. Then I send out a mass email to all employees stating that no information or interviews are to be given unless they want their balls and/or female parts cut off and legal action taken against them.

My next
email is to all of our account heads letting them know of the situation and that Young’s actions in the bedroom in no way impede his ability to provide the best God damned security for their company and if anyone has the audacity to argue otherwise, they can go fuck themselves and take their business elsewhere. I dare them to try and find better. Okay, I didn’t quite say it like that, but it was damn near close. I don’t have the politically correct gene embedded in my DNA like Young does, but he’s gone and right now, I’m in fucking charge.

Okay, so as far as I know, Cassie was the only one with the videos, but she’s
still in the mental institute under lockdown. I guess that means I’ll be paying her a late night visit. I decide to call in a few favors on behalf of Young and I’m granted a brief visit to the Rocky Mountain Behavioral Health Center, AKA, Colorado’s home of the batshit crazy.

When I arrive,
Young’s reputation precedes him and I’m treated very well. The physician leading me to meet with Cassie is very talkative and polite.

“I’ve heard what
’s going on. You know, despite what society says, sexual sadism isn’t actually a sickness. Quite the contrary, it’s a lifestyle choice. Some people just need to pull their heads out of their asses and wake up to the new sexual revolution,” he says very professionally.

His statement shocks the living h
ell out of me and I pause and gape at him, not knowing how to respond.

“Are you coming?” he asks, guiding me by my elbow into the interview room. 

The room is brightly lit and Cassie is sitting at a table, twirling her hair between her fingers which, oddly, reminds me of Isabel. When she sees me, her look of eagerness turns to disgust and her hand drops to her lap.

“W
ere you expecting someone else?” I ask.

She grimaces at me
and casually looks away.

“You were hoping for Dylan, I take it,” I say
sardonically.

Cassie turns to face me, glaring
at me with the creepiest, empty eyes. The physician seats himself at the far end of the room and another male stands near Cassie, ready to step in if she decides to go ape shit on my ass.

“I’m going to get right down to business. Who did you send the videos to?” I ask her.

Cassie’s look changes to something sinister and a disturbing smile plays on her mouth, repulsing me completely.

“A friend,” she
counters.

“You should know that by admitting that, you’ve now become accomplice to the person who will be charged with attempting to ruin Young’s reputation.” I remain cool and never break eye contact.

Cassie’s smile quickly fades, but she remains silent. I need to find a way to get through to this crazy bitch and I know just how to do it.

“Dylan is very disappointed in you,” I tell her. I immediately get the response I was hoping for
as evidenced by her body language. She imitates Isabel again by playing with her hair in the same signature move and shifts in her chair, looking like an apologetic schoolgirl. Still, she remains quiet.

“Okay then. I gues
s I’ll just go back and tell Dylan that you don’t give a fuck about him,” I say, standing.

“No, wait…” she stammers out,
panicked.

I
remain standing on the other side of the table, waiting for her response.

“I gave it to that gold digger’s father.”

I have to fight the urge to slap Cassie upside her stupid head.

“Now that I told you, can I see Dylan?” she asks.

How ignorant is this woman?
“No. Not now; not ever,” I tell her flatly.

Cassie mumbles something under her breath and looks psychotically irate.

“You said he was disappointed in me,” she grumbles through gritted teeth.

“I lied. He’s disgusted with you. You tried to kill his wife, what else did you expect? The one thing Dylan hates is betrayal and when he finds out what you’ve done now, he’ll push you out of h
is mind forever and won’t give you a second thought.”

I turn my back to
walk towards the door and Cassie leaps up and screams profanities of every kind at me, but I don’t turn to acknowledge her reaction. The sound of the chair being thrown across the room and a loud booming voice, which I can only assume is the man standing guard, can also be heard as I walk out the door.

So Isabel’s father is at the root of this.
What a complete shit bag.

The physician catches u
p with me, we say our goodbyes and he asks me to give my best regards to Young and Isabel.

It’s nearing 9:00 p.m. when
I get back to the office again and start looking into Emilio’s accounts. It seems he’s upped his security and my probing is time-consuming and tedious. After several hours of poking and prodding and using many of the tricks Young has taught me, I’m able to penetrate his technical defenses. By happenstance, I come upon an email to someone named Simons.
The email itself is benign enough and references a business venture. I almost completely bypass it, but something catches my eye -
a code word
. To the casual onlooker, it would’ve been ignored but my experience with The Agency has stuck with me. The word
couteau
is used in the signature, which is the French word for knife.

I promptly look up information on Simons and come across his driver’s license photo
. I save the image and decide to email it to Young for verification, but I already know it will be a positive I.D.  Within moments of sending the email, my phone rings.

“Yes, that’s him. Isa recognizes him, too. Who is he?” Young asks. He sounds as if I’ve woken him. There’s an 8 hour time difference
so it’s the early morning in Paris.

“I’m still looking into it,” I tell him. “Sorry for waking you. I should’ve waited to send the email.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m glad you sent it. How are things on your end?” he asks sleepily.

I detest lying to Young
, so I end the phone call quickly before he can decipher my tone. He’s got a weird ability to read voice stress and body language, and I don’t need him prying me for information right now.

I’ve done what I can do for tonight. I leave the office and stop off and pick up so
me flavored water before going home. I grab a paper and the headline reads
Denver Entrepreneur Exposed as Sadist.
I briefly read it and just end up even more pissed off at Cassie and Emilio. Momentarily putting my anger aside, I drive home.