The Fidelity World_Scorched Read online

  His phone pinged with a text.

  Sebastian: His enforcers.

  Micah: Shit.

  Sebastian: You should get out now.

  Micah: Once Beatrice is done with what she came to do.

  Sebastian: Might want to reconsider.

  Micah: You think she’s going to listen?

  Sebastian: No.

  Micah: Okay then.

  “Is everything okay?” Beatrice asked with her elegant brows furrowed in confusion.

  “It’s fine. Look, why don’t we get people into the study? It’s five thirty-five,” he said with a glance at his phone.

  “Sure,” she said with a smile before heading to the podium that had been set up at the head of the room.

  She tapped the mic gently, sending a ripple of static out into the crowd. “Good evening, guests. If I could, I’d ask you all to file into my father’s study for a special presentation in his honor. Thank you.”

  He took her elbow and led her into the room. She shook with a sort of nervous excitement, the kind that had you dancing on the balls of your feet as you walked.

  He looked for exits first. Two sets of study doors. That was it.

  The people filed in, drinks in hand, smiles on their faces. Addington laughed too loud, for too long; his face had turned ruddy with drink, which took talent since he hadn’t looked that way just forty minutes earlier.

  He had to have pounded away a hefty amount of liquor to make that happen. Whether it was Micah’s presence or his new habit, Micah couldn’t begin to guess.

  Micah hoped it was him.

  And that impressive diamond he’d put on Beatrice’s finger.

  Old money, new money, it didn’t matter as long as you had taste. It all spends. At least Micah could take pride in the fact that he’d earned every penny of what he had, without having anything handed to him.

  And he’d done it with no connections.

  “Okay, so be honest. What kind of crowd reaction can I expect?” Beatrice said, leaning toward him as she moved her hands over the mouse pad on her laptop.

  “Depends on what you’re about to show them. Is it graphic?” he asked, still a bit miffed that she hadn’t shown him. Of course, he understood her need for this to be all her, but still, he wished she’d trusted him with it.

  “Yes,” she said, biting her lip.

  “Well, my guess is most of the women in here are going to succumb to the vapors. That’s still possible in this day and age, right?”

  “Sure. Although, I think they call it shock now,” she said as she leaned toward him.

  “I think his associates are going to start hammering him with questions,” he said, finishing his drink and setting the condensation-coated glass on Addington’s desk, next to the coaster.

  “And I think your rich friends are going to blow up your phone, but they won’t bombard you here because such blatant gossip would be bad form,” he said.

  “So you’re saying we can head straight out of here when it’s done?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Here, give me your laptop bag,” he said, reaching his hand out to her.

  She handed him the bag, and he hooked it over his shoulder. “Grab your laptop and be ready to head out. I’ll send a message to the driver. He’s right out on the street.”

  “Micah,” she said, laying her palm over his forearm. “Thank you for being by my side for this. For giving me the courage to do it.”

  “There’s only more to come,” he said, grinning at her. “Now, get this show on the road.”

  “Ladies and gentleman,” Beatrice began, and all eyes turned to her.

  “My dad is coming up on ten years as partner with his firm, and I thought it only appropriate to honor him with a slideshow of various moments where he’s hard at work, sacrificing time with his family, and his loving wife, to make our family a success. So if you could all raise a glass in toast to Wallace Addington, fierce attorney…”

  “Absentee dad,” she added.

  Murmurs rose within the crowd as guests cast nervous glances toward one another.

  Micah swallowed a laugh.

  “Neglectful husband…” she went on to even more murmurs.

  “And lewd philanderer,” she said, raising her glass in the air, aiming a hard look at her father’s shocked face, and clicking a button on her computer.

  Micah’s eyebrows shot into his hair then he winced as the image of Addington, with a belt wrapped around his neck, posed on his hands and knees, his nose buried in the ass of a skank with a ball gag dangling from her red-tipped fingers.

  Gasps and disgusted squeals filled the room, but no one moved.

  He leaned into her. “Any desire I ever entertained for kink just died,” he whispered.

  “There’s more,” she said.

  “You should have handed out barf bags,” he said.

  “I see you’re all on the edge of your seats. I have several,” Beatrice arrowed right.

  Addington stood next to a woman masturbating while he slapped his dick against her mouth.

  “Jesus,” Micah bit out.

  Addington pushed through the crowd, trying to get to her while his associates moved in on him, pointing fingers, their words garbled so Micah couldn’t make anything out.

  “Wait, that’s not all…he shares his hobbies with his friends,” she yelled over the chaos. She clicked on the arrow button one last time.

  Micah had to force himself to look.

  His blood ran cold.

  Addington sat at a table at The Cellar, his mouth hovering over the nipple of a topless woman sitting between him and Bellini’s men.

  “Time to go,” Micah said, yanking the cords from her computer.

  “Wait!” Beatrice said, snatching at the cord.

  “Beatrice. You need to trust me. We need to go. Now!”

  Her gaze locked on his, then shifted to the far door where three of the men from the picture stood, fury radiating from their muscular forms.

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  He snatched her hand and dragged her through the doors nearest them, then ducked out onto the veranda. “Quickest way to the loop?” he bit out.

  “This way,” she said, kicking off her heels and taking off at a run.

  She ran down stone steps and turned left, running along the edge where the shrubs met the lush, green lawn.

  Branches whipped at them as they tore through the back yard, her cries echoing in the night as random twigs and mulch dug into the soft arches of her feet.

  They turned the corner in view of the circular drive just as his driver pulled to a stop. Taking her hand, Micah yanked her with him, causing her to trip twice just to keep up.

  “Get in” he yelled, wrenching open the door and climbing in behind her. “Go!” he said, slamming the door with Bellini’s guys finally catching sight of them from the side of the house.

  His driver took off, heading for the city. Micah pushed the button to lower the privacy glass. “Take side streets for a while. Don’t grab I-95 until Mamaroneck Avenue.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What just happened in there?” she asked, out of breath, her hair knotted about her head and her pantyhose in shreds with dirt caked on the scraps left covering her feet.

  “You just exposed your father’s mob connections,” he said, dialing Sebastian.

  Her mouth fell open, then snapped shut before falling open once more.

  With his cell pressed to his ear, he met her gaze. “I have to tell you, when you lay a man low in the name of revenge, you do one hell of a job. But next time, could you not put our lives on the line doing it?”

  “Hello, Micah,” Sebastian answered. “How did it go?”

  “Not good. I’m going to make you work for your paycheck this time around. Beatrice outed Addington’s mob ties with an X-rated slideshow. I need you to get to the penthouse and strip the personals. Meet us at the safe house.”

  Sebastian whistled low. “How much time do I have?”

&
nbsp; “Thirty minutes, tops.”

  “Got it. So, be honest. How was it?”

  “Oh, she took him down like a master. It was brilliant, as long as it doesn’t get us killed,” Micah said, wrapping an arm around Beatrice and tucking her against him.

  She shivered in his arms, this time like a small, frightened animal stalked by a vicious predator.

  Of course, facing down a vicious predator in the wild meant a quick kill.

  The mob?

  A torturous, agonizing death.

  With three clicks of the computer keys, Beatrice had inadvertently thrust him back into his gritty past. Only this time, he didn’t get to hover at the fringes.

  He’d become the headliner.

  I hope you loved the continuance of Micah and Beatrice’s story!

  Come back for the final installment in Micah and Beatrice’s story in my novella, Strike, coming in late 2018.

  Available on Kindle, Amazon, and Audible…

  Falling in Fiji

  A Falling in Paradise Novel

  smarturl.it/FallingInFijiAmazon

  Falling in Angels Falls

  smarturl.it/AngelsFallsAmazon

  Available on Kindle, Amazon, and Audible…

  Sunset at Lake Crane

  A Livingston Valley Novel

  smarturl.it/SunsetAmazon

  Other Kindle World novellas by Casey Hagen…

  smarturl.it/CaseyHagenBooks

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  ABOUT CASEY HAGEN

  Casey Hagen pens her snarky, passionate stories from the salty air of Kennebunk, Maine. She’s a born and raised Vermont native, a New England girl to the core, with Ben & Jerry’s in her heart and real Vermont maple syrup pumping through her veins.

  She’s the proud mother of three girls and a soon-to-be first-time grandma with an insatiable addiction to Fall Out Boy, and a new, rather concerning obsession with tattoos and piercings. Can you say “cool grandma?”

  The inked and pierced grandma spends her time tucked away in her office, coated in cat hair, alternating between tearing her hair out trying to find the perfect words and being one step ahead of her three scheming fur babies she is positive are plotting her demise with every swirl around her ankles at the top of her office stairs.

  She loves writing stories about real people, with complicated histories, relatable everyday problems, and giving them the hard-won happily-ever-afters they deserve.

  And she thanks every last one of you who picks up one of her stories.

  Casey is done talking about herself in the third person.

  *Casey out*