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Revenued Vows

Chapter 9: Liquid Asset

Sneak Peek

The SUV rattled along the dirt road, the quarter mile of stretch to the cabin a sickening twist of memories for Gabe. When he was a kid, him and his other brothers and sister would start getting giddy at the sight of those pines and oaks, the ash trees a hallmark of the cabin. The toys they got and traded from their happy meals were forgotten on the floor of the van and they would pile out like dogs from the track racing to claim the best rooms. Not that it was much of a fight, Gabe was always bigger and stronger than his younger siblings so he would always get the high loft, the brothers would get the two bedrooms with the Jack and Jill bath, and Regan would have the room that overlooked the lake with the canopy bed.

The van came to a stop and the men in the front came out to open my door. They needn’t have, I was already pulling it open. Despite the cool AC from the car and the air flow, Gabe felt claustrophobic, his skin prickling with the fact he was trapped. His soles hit the sandy dirt with a thud, the goons that had captured him keeping a wary eye in case he tried to make a break for it. Not that he could outrun them in flip flops. Gabe was given some casual clothes from his duffle, a pair of board shorts that hugged his ass, a tank top that was a bit short, showing off the faintest hint of his abdominals, and a breezy cotton button down with olives and old Tuscan buildings stitched into it in green thread.

The men were grabbing their own bags from the back of the van and taking Gabe’s duffle with them. He pursed his lips and paused, looking up at the totem pole that had been put in when they first had the cabin built. It was always a constant that was there for Gabe, something he saw every summer, and he distinctly remembered it when it was fresh. Now the wood was split, the paint chipped and faded by the sun.

And just behind it, was the cabin. It might as well be a hunter’s wet dream of a lake house. The outside was a mix of dark wood siding, treated log pillars making up the wrap around porch that bled off into the patio out back. The roof had green shingles, long since faded by the sun and some places dampened with moss and lichen.

“Time to go Young Windsor,” the German spoke behind him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gabe huffed, walking up the steps to the porch. He knew the way well.

They entered into a small foyer, a powder room off to the side, the walls all wood paneling, the floors a bright oak. The modest hanging light in the entry way looked to be made from a Tiffany lampshade. Gabe smirked at it. Mother must have repurposed the one the twins and him knocked over. He slipped his flip flops off and padded his way into the main room. It was huge den and kitchen combo, the entire back of the cabin a series of massive windows. A staircase curved up behind the kitchen to go to the balcony that overlooked it all, the antler chandelier currently unlit as cobwebs and dust blemished it shyly. The fireplace was dark, the old ashes from the previous fire long since scraped out as the burn marks on the brick and stone shone through. Through the wall of windows was the massive deck that wrapped around it, the hill beneath the building clearing out the view of the lake framed by willows and pines. The glittering light of the mid-day sun glinted off the light waves off the lake. The boat house was being set up down by the lake, a couple of grounds workers pulling the dock out to get it set in the water for use.

That explained the dust. The groundskeepers must have been shaken when Lawrence ordered them up to reopen the lake house for the summer.

Then someone moved on the deck and Gabe’s gut clenched in a boiling mix of anger and anticipation. Lawrence stood there in an old pair of kaki shorts and a cotton button down tucked into them. In one hand he had his crystal lowball glinting rainbows from the noon sun. He knew his dad was behind all this, his goons told him as much, but seeing his father on the deck brought it all into perspective.

“Mister Windsor would like to see you—”

“I’ll go talk to him,” Gabe cut off the German as he padded to the deck. The guard’s jaw grew tight, but he didn’t say anything. Gabe changing from prey to master wasn’t going to be easier for him.

Tough, he’d have to fucking deal.

Gabe opened the glass door to the deck and padded out and his Father greeted him with something he wasn’t expecting. A smile.

“Gabriel!” Lawrence smiled, lifting his whisky glass in a cheers. “You made it.”

“Yeah, I did,” Gabe sighed. Dad wanted him to play the part of the dutiful son, to go along with his preplanned idea of how this conversation was going to go down. “You had your fucking goons drag me here.”

“Language,” Lawrence nodded with a chuckle, turning to the patio furniture and topping off his glass from the expensive thirty year he had cracked open. The sealing wax was still crumbled on the glass top of the table. “You know the rules of the cabin.”

Lawrence lifted his glass and pointed with a finger, his wedding ring glinting against the glass. Gabe already knew where he was pointing at. There was a shitty sign he bought from a craft fair near the town that simply said, “Only Good Times at the Lake” in bright yellow print against green painted wood.

“I don’t appreciate you dragging me here,” Gabe narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms and popping a hip.

“And I don’t appreciate you flying the coup,” Lawrence then started pouring a glass for his son and brought it to him. “Didn’t think you’d be one to run from your responsibilities like your siblings.”

Gabe looked at the glass, then at his father before accepting it. It was strange how at ease his father was at the lake house. It was one of the few places him and grandpa ever really let their hair down. He wanted to argue that he wasn’t running away. He was going to come back. But at the end of the day, what difference did it make. He might as well think that he was trying to run.

“I know about the DPA,” Gabe said, hoping that would get a reaction from his father.

“I know,” Lawrence gave a harsh sigh around a particularly deep sip of whisky and sat down on a lounge chair sideways, hunching forward while looking over the lake. “I knew I couldn’t keep it from you forever.”

“Then why did you try?” Gabe furrowed his brow. “Do you have any idea how dangerous a DPA is? This was something I could have covered or handled. You know I can make these things disappear—”

“Enough!” Lawrence snapped, looking up with a dark gleam in his eye. Now who wasn’t obeying the rules. “I will not have my son clean up my messes for me. I handled it, now it’s done.”

Gabe jumped at that, but refused to back down, sitting in the chair beside him, propping one leg over the other to match his father’s casualness. Gabe took a sip, the whisky a bold flavor that tingled on his lips. It was a bit more bitter than his usual thirty years.

“No, it’s not ‘done’,” Gabe kept his eyes on his dad, refusing to play the captured pup. “When you admitted to your crimes and paid out that sum, you made it that much easier to nail you later. They’re hoping you mess up dad. Constance wants you to mess up. Then she can take you down with both cases. The one you already did, and the other you’re in the middle of doing.”

Lawrence had pursed his lips, his mustache wrinkling before he took another sip of his drink. That’s all the confirmation Gabe needed to know that his father was doing some shady shit. This fucking idiot was going to burn the company to the ground and take them all to prison before he would even see his shares.

“Do you know what our lawyers said when I presented them with the deal?” Lawrence huffed. “They asked me what you thought.”

Gabe’s gut felt a contradictory mix of both pride, and fear. He didn’t need his dad to explain what happened next. He could predict it as easily as the sun rising in the east.

“They asked what you would do,” Lawrence chuckled, nodding his head with pursed lips. “Those fuckers asked what you thought. Not the man who signed their fucking paychecks, they wanted to know what you had in mind.”

Gabe could see the memory playing in his father’s head over and over, rolling like a hot ball of iron as it caused his face to flush even redder than the booze was causing.

“Explains why the legal team shut me out,” Gabe huffed and took a sip from his whisky, the flavor leaving a bitter tang in the back of his throat. “So, to show them that you were the big boy with the big boy pants on, you signed the deal right then and there? Didn’t even try to fight it?”

Lawrence suddenly stood up.

“This company is mine,” Lawrence’s voice was tense with anger. “I make the decisions, and I won’t have you thinking you can stick your fairy fist up my ass and use me like a fucking puppet!” Lawrence took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing.

“A man keeps his affairs in order and his house clean,” Lawrence echoed the advice from his own father. It was grandpa’s more sophisticated way of saying you don’t shit where you eat. “A man makes sure his family is taken care of. That also means my family, my blood, would need to step up and make sacrifices for this company.”

“Do you have any idea what kind of danger you’ve put the company in?” Gabe wasn’t taking the sympathy card from his father. “You not only pile drove us into the red, you made it impossible to cover anything else up. If you so much as sneeze on your taxes you’ll drag all of us down. You essentially made it impossible for me to cover your ass anymore.”

“Good,” Lawrence nodded, calming a bit. “That’s not your job.”

“You sure, cuz it fucking feels like it’s been my job ever since you put me in charge of our media,” Gabe rolled his eyes. “What do you want Lawrence?”

“I’m your father,” Lawrence responded and sipped his drink, strangely calm again. “Address me as such. We’re at the cabin, not the board room.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Gabe stood up and put his glass on the railing of the deck. “You’ve shut me out like you think I can actually do anything besides speak on your behalf. I have no real say in the company, and yet I’ve still gotten more done than any other junior executive in our company’s history. Is this all just you throwing a hissy fit because people like me more than the idiot who got our asses nailed to the wall with a DPA? And why was grandfather’s will included with it?”

“You saw his will?” Lawrence furrowed his brow.

“Yeah, why was it included,” Gabe cocked a brow before adding. “I didn’t read anything that would have alluded to it having anything to do with the DPA.”

Lawrence stood there for a long moment before the worry on his brow smoothed over. “Like I said, it’s not your job to cover asses besides your own. I handled it, it’s over.”

Gabe cursed himself. His dad called his bluff. He hated he could catch him in a lie so well. Lawrence had known him all his life, and even a broken clock is right twice a day.

“What does this all have to do with me?” Gabe shook his head. “And Tucker for that matter! He’s just in debt as you are you know.”

“I know,” Lawrence nodded. “He thinks I don’t, but I do.”

“Then why put us in further debt!” Gabe shouted. “Why put us in a weaker position by joining us in marriage? I don’t understand why you’re doing any of this!”

Lawrence was silent. Something was odd. He wasn’t looking at Gabe, he was looking at his son’s whisky glass perched on the railing.

“You need to calm down,” Lawrence nodded to his glass. “Finish your whisky and maybe we can find a movie to watch or something. I’m not letting you out of my sight until the wedding, and that’s final.”

“Even now, you care more about your thirty year than your fucking son,” Gabe huffed, taking the glass and dumping it out over the edge of the railing before putting the lowball back upside down. “I’m going for a swim.”

“Excuse you,” Lawrence looked Gabe with fury in his eyes. “You don’t disrespect me or my whisky that way!”

“Piss off,” Gabe grunted, but was forced back around by his father gripping his wrist and forcing him to look him in the eye.

“Listen here you spoiled little shit!” Lawrence’s icy eyes were wide and bloodshot, probably a mix of the anger and whisky. “I will not have you talk down to me. You are my son, and you’ll do as you’re told. You’ll marry the Tucker boy, he’s from excellent breeding stock, and we’ll all put this messy business behind us. You got that!”

Gabe felt a twinge of fear. Normally he would cave under his father’s manic episodes, but after having been held at gunpoint and dangled off the edge of a parking garage, his angry threats lost their punch. Gabe yanked his arm free before continuing.

“Don’t touch me,” Gabe snarled. “You know, I might have even agreed to whatever fucking half-baked scheme you have going on in that wet noodle of a head if you just came to me.”

“You never would have agreed to—” Lawrence cut himself off and huffed before turning to look at the lake. “Go splash in the water. Maybe that’ll fix your mood.”

Gabe wanted to have the last word, but he also knew his dad. He’d keep coming after him if he decided to keep talking. Instead he just grit his teeth and stomped back into the cabin.

***

Gabe went down to the lake and the groundskeepers were raking the water to ensure no plants were in the swimming area. Sure, Gabe hated a slimy slick on his feet as much as the next guy, but he could survive it. The men working the water warned him, but he didn’t care that much. He just dove in.

The golden’s fur glimmered like sunshine in the water as he swam out a safe distance from where the people where raking. He didn’t even really know why they bothered. Only little shrubs had showed up, but they were also raking away dead snail shells and clams to ensure the sands were pristine. He leaned back in the water, leveling himself out as he relaxed into a slow backstroke, his ears just below the waves. The harsh sounds of the rakes could be heard scraping the shallows like tumbling sand. He could even hear some boats further out on the lake too. That’s the thing about water, you can hear much further because the medium is denser. Sound actually moves faster in water too. It’s why our senses were warped by it when you dove beneath the waves. At least swimmers knew. Ragan never understood, but Gabe’s brother’s got it being divers. It got to the point all three of them could sense out where Regan was in the water when they were playing Marco Polo. It would always end with her crying that she couldn’t get any of them, her brothers’ enhanced lung capacity making it hard for her to call when they were above the water.

That and Ragan wasn’t the strongest swimmer. She was usually weighed down by a life jacket and didn’t have the streamlined bodies her brothers had. All in all, it was just a way for them to harmlessly pick on her when she controlled most of the schedule anyway. Karen was always pandering to her, making us do things she wanted most of the time. The one place their mother couldn’t control us was the lake. She didn’t like the water and preferred to sunbathe.

“You kids get all that water business from your father,” she would dismiss us. She even paid someone to watch over us as a lifeguard for Ragan. Vance. God Vance was hot. The guy was a fresh out of college otter, a stud who would keep an eye on one kid while sitting in the sun for the summer. With his eyes on Ragan it was easy for Gabe to sneak a peek from time to time. Too bad by the time Gabe was old enough to hit on him, Ragan had learned to swim and didn’t need him around anymore.

Gabe sighed, the muted sounds of the lake soothing his heart and making it easier to let his mind wander. He loved coming here as a kid, and despite it being a prison for him now, it was still a happy place.

A sudden chill wafted over him and Gabe opened his eyes. A cloud swept over the sun and shrouded him in shade. The sudden cool reminded him of the icy shard of worry in his guts. Lawrence hadn’t told him anything and he knew he wouldn’t, but he did let it slip that whatever he was planning was something Gabe never would have agreed to.

What could Lawrence possibly worry he wouldn’t agree to? Gabe was sure it had something to do with grandfather’s will, some sort of stipulation with marriage and his shares. Though, even if he lost his shares, what would be the point? Lawrence would have more shares in a sinking company? What good would that do him? He knew that Tucker was basically penniless, so marrying into money wasn’t his angle. He needed more information, but without a cellphone or access to a computer, he wouldn’t have any way of knowing exactly what was happening. Even if he got into his own email, he wouldn’t have access to Jagger’s inbox. He should have just sent it to himself right away.

Gabe splashed the water with one hand and dove under the waves in frustration. He then came up, bobbed a bit until he felt his toe claws touch down on soft sand. He swiped the lake water from his eyes and flipped his hair behind his head. He hated that he was trapped. Even being trapped in his happy place was still trapped.

“You’re looking a bit tense.”

Gabe looked over at the dock that had just been put in and saw the German Shepherd that had brought him here. There was a bench built into the end of the dock that he was sitting on, the aluminum having been recently cleaned of cobwebs.

“You keeping an eye on me here?” Gabe cocked a brow before his eyes noticed the German’s posture. “You’re looking a little tense yourself. Still a bit tender from where Jagger poked you?”

“It stings from time to time,” he shrugged and gave a little wince before relaxing back into the bench. “But I still got my mark, so it’ll be a nice scar to remember this job for.”

“Whatever my dad promised you, he won’t pay. We’re broke, or didn’t he tell you,” Gabe smirked. “You’ll only walk away from all this with that little scar on your back and nothing else to show for it.”

“With how high your stock is going up in the market, I’m not worried about our compensation,” the German shrugged. “Normally we wouldn’t bother with being paid in stock, but we’ll be getting a pretty penny when all this is done, don’t you worry.”

“What good would our private stock do you?” Gabe shook his head. “You can’t sell it except back to us and not with our competitors who would be the only ones willing to spend the money on a sinking ship.”

“Public,” was all the German said.

Gabe paused and looked up at the German again.

“Public?” Gabe asked. “Windsor Enterprises has gone public?”

“You think private stock would cover our fees? Cute,” the German smirked. “You just keep splashing in your water and think about the flatware you want for your big day.”

“Public…” Gabe looked down at the water, the shadow from the cloud pulling away and illuminating the sands at the bottom of the water in webby strands of light. “Public…”

“Ya a broken record?” The German asked with a cocky grin. He was just here to enjoy Gabe’s suffering, but he might have just explained everything.

Gabe and all of his workers were engrossed with the wedding planning and finding a way out of it. The whole time he was pushed out of the boardroom and no one was willing to talk to him. Why would they when they would have had to vote on going public and knowing the reason why. They never would have agreed without being incentivized, and what better incentive than burning the only other bridge out with the aftermath of a DPA.

Suddenly Gabe felt sick as he realized his dad’s plan. He wasn’t planning on using his shares to wrest control from the company, but to sell them to make up his losses! If his suspicions of the will were correct, then he would lose his shares and they would be sold off for profit! That’s why no one from the board would talk to him! They were all going to scrap his inheritance for parts!

“Oh my god…” Gabe hugged his chest in the water, his mind racing. From the moment Lawrence ambushed him with the marriage, he already had a plan. The wedding served two purposes. A way to liquidate his shares and also a smokescreen to keep him from realizing what was going on with the company. The launch of going from private to public must have been kept very close to the chest and to help maintain the value of their stock. If it went public, people would question why and find the DPA. They were keeping things on the low to sell the shares quietly in the public eye!

“Lookin’ a little green around the gills there,” the German spoke up. “You gunna be sick? Maybe you should get out of the water.”

Gabe blinked, looked at the German and then out at the lake. He took a deep breath and dove. He popped up for air and swam, he swam as hard as he could. The water was glugging around him as he swam hard and fast. There was a splash behind him as the German tried to get into the water with him, but he might as well have been Ragan in her floaties trying to catch up. All the training he had as a swimmer came alight in his bones, fueling his movement and resolve. He had no idea what he’d do once he got to the other side of the lake, but he knew he needed to get out. He needed to get out from under his father’s thumb.

Hell, if he got to a phone he could call Riker and hide out until he showed up. He just needed to get away. He focused on his breathing, his strokes evening out as his panic started to get lost in the water behind him. He glanced out and saw that he was already a quarter of the way across the lake. Then the sound of humming and hissing water came about him. He paused and looked over his shoulder as a bright red speedboat skipped across the waves from the cabin, men in black suits manning it.

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