Empire of Lies - Whitney G. Page 0,100

doing his damn job, huh?” He cuts me off. “Fuck him just like you’ve fucked all of the other customers in Club Swan?”

“I never fucked any of those customers!” I can’t help but yell. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

“What was it like, for you, then?” It’s not a question; he keeps talking. “Because I can tell you what it was like for me. Night after night, fielding calls from news reporters who wanted money to hide your filthy little secret from the papers and prevent it from embarrassing me.”

“Is your ego that fragile? Is my personal life really that detrimental to yours?”

“You cost me a five hundred-million-dollar deal last year, Meredith.” He hisses. “Disney walked away from my pending deal of a lifetime because one of their lead executives saw the daughter of a so-called ‘family-man’ twirling around, damn-near naked, onstage.”

At least you’re saying ‘so-called’. “Maybe you should’ve asked him why he was at Club Swan in the first place,” I say. “Maybe you should’ve taken a hit out on him.”

“I honestly considered it,” he says, smoothly as ever. “But then I realized just how much I’ve paid over the years to prevent you from dragging my reputation down the drain.”

“I can guarantee that’s exactly where it’s heading right now...”

He lets out a defiant laugh as he moves through the hallway, as he ignores those who are approaching him for autograph and picture requests—those who haven’t yet seen the film that’s playing in the ballroom.

“I doubt anyone will believe that it’s anything more than a badly filmed simulation, the moment my team gets done with it,” he says.

I don’t respond to that. I watch as he takes the grand staircase to the next level, as he slips into the room that leads to a private bank of elevators.

“You didn’t think about that part, did you?” He shatters our brief silence. “That’s another unfortunate problem you’ve always had. Meredith. The failure of following through, and simply acting without thinking.”

“I think you’ll be quite surprised at how well I thought this through, Dad.”

“Then I think we can both agree that you shouldn’t call me by that name that anymore.:

“I did it on purpose,” I say. “I just wanted to taste bile on my tongue one last time.”

His arrogant laugh comes through the line again, and then he ends the call. I tap my screen and see him placing three calls to his executive advisor, his chief of lawyers and his public relations director. He’s leaving short, “I need you to meet me at the office now,” voicemails, but he has no idea that they’ll never receive his messages.

Michael has rerouted them to a separate burner phone.

Knowing exactly where he’s heading next, I make my way to the emergency stairwell and run down fifteen flights to the private garage.

When I step onto the concrete floor, I’m met with a colorful array of luxury cars and the sound of my father shouting, “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“Is the ‘push to start’ button not working?” I call out from the center of the garage. I pull a set of keys from my pocket as my father slowly steps out of the car. “I hate when that happens, and you have to rely on the keys.”

“Okay, Meredith.” He slams the driver’s side door shut and glares at me. “What are you thinking about doing?” He shrugs. “You’ve shown your little video and attempted to shame me already. Are you going to murder me in cold blood now, in front of the goddamn garage cameras? With an invisible gun or something?”

“The cameras aren’t on right now,” I say, pulling an unloaded beretta from my waist. “And this gun isn’t invisible.”

His eyes widen, and he suddenly looks more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him before.

“Wait, please,” he says, his voice soft and unconvincing. “I know you’re not going to believe me, but…I’ve been really messed up about what I did…On a personal level, I did cry, and I even called to see if they’d been gentle with you. On a business level, you have to understand what was at stake, but I’m more than willing to give you your inheritance now. No strings attached. I’ll cut the check for eighteen million right now if you just—” He tries to step closer, but I cock the gun—silencing his bullshit.

“I’m going to give you two options,” I say, steadying my finger. “Option one, you go to prison for murder for hire, and you lose everything. Your money, your properties, all of