When work was over, I went home, and found Cam in our spare bedroom, sweat glistening on his torso as he pedaled at a furious pace. "Sorry, had some extra energy that I just had to burn off," he said, slowing his pace when I came in. "How was work?"
"Jay offered me a pharmacy manager's position," I said, appreciating the view. He was wearing just some basketball shorts, his lightly tanned skin glowing as his muscles stood out on his torso. While I couldn't see the muscles of his thighs as they were hidden by his shorts, his calves were swollen and flushed with blood from his workout, and I could feel the familiar flush of desire go through me. Maybe it was just a side effect of the tragedy, maybe it was the fact we were spending nearly as much time together now as when we were on the island together, but I was always in the mood, and I never tired of it. Sadly, my hips were still aching, and I had to turn around. "Can you put a shirt on? I’m still a bit sore, but looking at you like that makes me want to drag you into the bedroom and ride you cowgirl style for a couple of hours."
Cam's gulp at least caused me to smile a bit, and he stopped pedaling. "Um, yeah," he replied after a moment. "Sorry. Was just trying to save on the laundry, not overly arouse you."
He came up behind me and gave me a quick hug and peck on the cheek, letting go before we went further. "Come on, let's get some dinner and then we can discuss our options. I made some plans, and I'd like to run them by you before we go to bed. I want it all set up before school starts back on Monday."
Chapter 34
Cam
Our first target was Patricia Lanstridge, who was the person that directly sent Victor Pinzetti after me. She was ruthless. I’d worked with her during my days in intelligence, and knew that she was one of those sorts of people who put every other person she met into one of three groups. I had been in the first group, considered a useful asset, someone who had skills and an outlook that aligned enough with hers that she could use you to further her own ambitions. This person was to be exploited, cajoled and used until they were no longer helpful before being discarded like they were trash.
Another group you could fall into, one that I was probably considered now, was a threat, someone who not only had skills and abilities but who was in her way. This group of people were to be destroyed utterly and without mercy, and if someone else got hurt in doing so, tough shit. That was the way of the world to Lanstridge.
The third group was the vast bulk of humanity, and that was what I guess could best be called 'the groundlings,' to borrow a term from Shakespearian times. They were more or less beneath her consideration, except as something to be exploited. You could have been her housekeeper, the waiter who filled her glasses at a three Michelin star restaurant, or even a member of Congress, it made no difference to her. Except for the moments when you were at least marginally useful to her, she just didn't give a damn about you.
She was fifth generation blue blood from Stamford, Connecticut, and had grown up rubbing elbows with the highest levels of society. She'd never married, wanting to protect the family name, although from what I had learned she’d given birth to three children, all of them from what she termed 'the finest breeding stock.' In public, she was just another old-money woman approaching her sixties, but in private she was one of the ten most powerful people in North America.
I didn't want to just wipe her off the map, that wouldn't have been helpful at all. First of all, her name wasn't the sort that got headlines on a weekly basis, but it did have enough public weight that I couldn't eliminate it. She had friends, or at least social acquaintances that would be able to swing enough weight with the courts or court of public opinion that she couldn't just disappear. Not without a reason.
My first move was to wipe out her bank accounts, but not through normal means. First, I took about a third of her money and had it given to various charities and groups that would garner her public disfavor. Then, using access to the New York Stock Exchange, I had all of the rest of her money put into stocks that I then intentionally false-shorted. Basically, each and every transaction lost her money. It didn't take a huge manipulation, half a cent on each of the stocks, but it was enough to take away almost all of the rest of her money. Within twenty-four hours, there were multi-million dollar liens on her family's estate, her public businesses, even her classic car collection she'd inherited from her father.