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BRIAN

 

Gardner was pulling out all the stops, as if he wanted to make sure what he was offering was irresistible to me. I was also welcome to call him by his first name, since he saw that offering a partnership Ryder was stupid not to offer me was in my future with him. It was everything I dreamed of when I saw my future. All it would take was being willing to move my ass out of Pittsburgh, and any city in the world was mine to conquer. It was really unbelievable. Unbelievable in that he could barely conceal how much he’d rather take me down a peg or two and make me work for what he wanted. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it seemed that Vance’s mode of operation was more bending people to his will, not bending over for them. 

 

“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. One that at your age in this business doesn’t come along often.” He tells me, and there it was, playing on the fear all Ad men eventually face. Aging past the market.

 

“Can I be honest with you?” I ask, planning to lie my ass off.

 

“Of course. I value that above all else.” Gardner tells me.

 

“I just don’t know if continuing to work for someone else is really what I want to do. Lucky for me, the lawyer who looked over my contract when I signed with Ryder also got rid of the no competition clause. Which means partnership might not be as lucrative to me, as owner. So call me cynical, but is it that your worried what would happen to your investment if I walk away with seventy percent of the accounts that your firm has never managed to get because they choose to go with me?” I ask.

 

“Where would they go if you left? They’d stay with me, that’s where. I only believe in rewarding the man Ryder spoke so highly about. You’re wasted here. And if you’re honest, you know it’s true.” He tells me.

 

“I’ll think about your offer, maybe call my clients and see where they stand. I’d like to know exactly where I stand. I’d also need to make sure it’s not too good to be true.” I tell him.

 

“I need an answer immediately or you need to clear your desk.” Gardner threatens me.

 

“Well then, clear my desk it is.” I tell him, getting up, not falling for it.

 

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’ll give you a few days, and we can discuss this when you have time to consider what a great opportunity I’m offering you.” Gardner said, before I could go.

 

“Great. I love to research everything and get down to what’s really behind it. I mean, what’s in my best interest.” I tell him.

 

“Don’t screw up your life for anyone. It will haunt you in ways you didn’t even know you could regret.” Gardner tells me, almost like a warning.

 

 

CYNTHIA

 

I used to think I knew everything about Brian’s life, but somehow he still managed to surprise me. When I got to the address and asked to speak to Justin, the man who answered the door pulled me in the house, shaking his head before I could say Brian sent me. I trailed behind him, seeing what Brian might see in the mountain of a man in front of me. Only he called out for Justin, meaning he wasn’t Justin. Out of a side door comes a younger man, who looks confused at seeing me.

 

“What Ben?” Justin asks, looking annoyed at being disturbed.

 

“Turn that annoyed look at the people showing up at your door uninvited. Just do it in your office so I don’t have to deal with your problems.” Ben tells him.

 

“What, you don’t want to listen in?” Justin asks, like they were talking in code while sniping at each other.

 

“It’s the one place you get to keep your secrets.” Ben said, rolling his eyes.

 

Justin turned and went back in the office. Ben waved me in, closing the door behind me. Only the man standing in the office with me wasn’t the one bitching out Ben like he was unwanted help. 

 

“Why… Who… Shit, can I help you?” He said, tripping over his words.

 

“Brian sent me.” I told him, trying to figure out why Brian sent me to this timid man. 

 

“Did he say why?” He asks, looking worried.

 

“He wanted to know about Gardner Vance, and said something about a Julian Yates. He wanted to know if they were connected.” I tell him, still lost as to why this was important.

 

“Who’s Gardner Vance?” Justin asks.

 

“Likely the guy about to become our boss.” I tell him.

 

“Brian wanted to know if Julian was involved?” Justin asks, going to his computer, losing the timid air and becoming more… just more.

 

“I really don’t know, but he seemed to think it was important and that you might be able to give him what he wants.” I tell him.

 

“It’s going to take time…” He says, as if he wants me to leave. 

 

“How do you know Brian?” I ask, since nothing about Justin was... well, Brian’s preferences.

 

He seems to think about it as he watched his screen, hands flying over the keyboard, his head shaking at what he was looking at as if it wasn’t what he was looking for. Then his hands stilled, and I could see he found something, only he answered the question I had asked minutes earlier.

 

“He interested me… watching him. I guess something about me… interested him.” Justin said it slowly, distracted by what he was looking at.

 

I came around to see what he looking at and honesty couldn’t tell you what it was, other than windows opening up. Each one containing articles on Gardner, each one minimized so he could set them side by side. And unlike me, Justin seemed know what he was looking at. Looking at the dates they were Gardner’s life, public and private in reverse order.

 

“You can’t hide anything when your life is public.” Justin muttered to himself.

 

“It’s just a bunch of articles about Gardner’s marriage and his wife?” I questioned, not seeing what he was talking about.

 

“Which wouldn’t really matter.” Ben said, scaring the shit out of me when I didn’t hear him enter, or even open and close the door.

 

“Except that he a bought a house, only to put the house in someone else’s name and set up a account for the woman. Then made her sign an agreement never to contact him again.” Justin said, making me wonder how many laws we were breaking with the information he was pulling up.

 

“Why would that be important?” I ask, still trying to figure it out.

 

“It wouldn’t be, except I know the address. It was one I gave Julian.” Justin said, looking at Ben.

 

“Remember what I said, what someone else does isn’t your fault.” Ben was talking like a parent to Justin.

 

“I didn’t check, and the kid was just messing around, what use could he be to Julian?” Justin asked, although he wasn’t really asking us.

 

“It takes a while for him to get there, but Julian’s right.” Ben tells me, as if reading my confusion, only to confuse me more.

 

“About what?” Justin asks, sifting through more documents.

 

“He’s extraordinary.” Ben whispers to me, as Justin didn’t seem to care what the answer was, once again concentrating on the computer.

 

Justin was concentrating so hard on what he was reading that it was like we weren’t in the room with him.

 

“I’d suggest you ask me what you want to know. He’ll be too busy to listen to us.” Ben tells me.

 

“Here in front of him?” I ask.

 

“This is the only room I never bugged.” Ben tells me. What the hell?

 

“What about Julian?” Justin said, proving he could hear us.

 

“Julian? The one Brian wants to know about?” I ask.

 

“I’ve told you, with you he makes mistakes. He thought having people watch you was enough.” Ben tells him, completely ignoring me.

 

“But you needed more?” Justin said while running through more documents.

 

“We were hoping you’d be chatty. Instead they just got a lot of silent recordings.” Ben seemed to find this funny.

 

“Hello? Didn’t you just say they saw me as the boy who wouldn’t talk? What did they expect?” Justin muttered.

 

“Was that a joke? You’re picking up bad habits.” Ben teased.

 

“I don’t know… I’ve never really understood the whole thing.” Justin said seriously, only his hands stopped and he fell back in his chair. “I led him to a kid, Ben.” Justin tells him.

 

“What was the kid doing?” Ben asks, as if he needed Justin to see it differently.

 

“Nothing anybody would really care about, other than getting into the system.” Justin tells him.

 

“Does it have anything to do with Gardner?” I ask, not understanding what they were talking about. 

 

Ben went to see what Justin was looking at, but I could see he didn’t get what he was seeing anymore than I did when I went around to look. 

 

“He’s Gardner’s son.” Justin tells us.

 

“He never had any children with his wife. Trust me I looked up what I could find on him on my way here.” I tell Justin.

 

“Wives aren’t the only ones who can have children. And this child would have lost him everything, since his wife brought all the money Gardner could want into the marriage, likely with a prenup. And until Hunter screwed with Julian, Gardner never had to worry about his indiscretion, with, from what I can tell was a call girl, coming out. What was he doing?” Ben asked Justin, as I read the arrest records on the mother.

 

“Hoping to get caught. It only took me minutes to track him down. I didn’t think much about it, other than he was too new at this if I caught him as fast as I did.” Justin tells Ben.

 

“What was he searching for?” Ben asked.

 

“It wasn’t really much. Almost random stuff, well except he tried to find what Julian had on me. He looked up my information, but Julian doesn’t keep it in his system. I looked.” Justin smirked.

 

“I know. We’ve all looked. Trying to find out how Julian convinced you to work for him. I thought maybe you’d be the one we could convince to tell us, since you didn’t have anything for Julian to exploit to keep you compliant.” Ben tells him.

 

“He offered me what I wanted. A life away from people demanding I perform for them. It’s what I thought I wanted, to be alone.” Justin said, staring out the window.

 

“Was there any pattern to what Hunter was looking at?” Ben asks.

 

Justin bit his lip, shaking his head as if he was tossing ideas around and discarding them when they weren’t right. I’d seen Brian do the same thing, only he talked them out with me. 

 

“Maybe he wanted to get caught.” I threw out, since no one was saying anything.

 

“Why?” Justin asked, focusing his eyes on me, making me wonder how many men would fall prey to being the focus of those eyes. Maybe Brian?

 

“It’s more about why anyone does stupid things... to get attention. Think about it; he silenced the mother, likely because screwing around might get forgiven, but with a child, well that might have tipped the wife to divorce court. He pretty much washed his hands of Hunter, and I doubt the mother was really much of one, since she didn’t slow down after.” I said, pointing out the arrests after the kid was born. “Kids act out for the attention they can’t get from the person who should shower them with attention.” I tell him.

 

“Only Julian doesn’t like to prosecute, just makes them sorry for messing in his pond.” Ben tells me.

 

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I ask.

 

“Sure. Only the people he has monitoring my activity only see what Julian sends me to do, not what we’re actually doing. They really shouldn’t try to break into my computer, but since they did it means they accidently downloaded the program I created to block them from seeing anything but the work Julian sends to me.” Justin smiles.

 

“Will Julian figure it out?” Ben asks.

 

“Only if he has someone smarter than me, so maybe?” Justin said, without sounding conceited, or even worried that someone might be smarter.

 

“What do I tell Brian?” I ask.

 

“Gardner will do anything Julian asks. Which is likely, to get Brian out of Justin’s life.” Ben tells me. 

 

“Do I want to know why?” I ask.

 

“We’re still working on that.” Justin tells me. “Tell Brian, ‘Babylon would be better, and not to worry about Ben’.” He didn’t tell me what that meant.

 

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