Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Lucian

The dossier waited in an outstretched hand. The hand belonged to my secretary, judging by the pink polka dots decorating her nails. I took it as I slid into my seat beside the head analyst. Across the corner from me was a guy from media relations.

They had names, of course. I knew what they were, just like I knew how much was in each of their bank accounts and what their overall GPA was.

Those were facts. Attributes. To me, these people were their function, and that function was communication. They were oversized iPhones, really. They sent me information from my various networks and disseminated my commands.

Another source of information—the folder. I opened it and looked through it. This was all digitized, sitting on some uber-secure server, but I preferred hard copies. They were easier to destroy.

The first page contained daily numbers for Morelli Holdings. Our family had a rich portfolio of real estate, media, and manufacturing. It started with elevators. My grandfather had contracts with major development companies throughout the city. He built a respectable fortune. It’s my father who expanded the company into other verticals. He loved the negotiation. The chase. The win. He didn’t love management nearly as much. Which was a problem. Numbers ran down the page in bold. Our stock prices. Our gross revenue. Our expenses.

We were in the red. Normally, that’s a bad thing. But for me, today, it was fucking perfect. It’s exactly what I needed.

I flipped the page for more specifics from the various departments. Another page. This one delved into personal details. Best to have leverage before you need it. For instance, here was a photo of our Vice President sleeping with a girl half his age. I wondered what Mrs. Vice President would think about it. Something I filed away for another day.

“You.”

My secretary jumped in her seat. “Yes, sir?”

Christ. She always used that breathy sex kitten voice. Yes, sir, as if she thought I was going to fuck her. As if she thought I’d order her to get to her knees while I was in the middle of a conference call or a limo ride through New York City. She was beautiful, but I had more discerning taste.

“Everyone’s there?” I asked.

She knew what I meant. Behind those big blue eyes was a Mensa-level mind. It’s why she was my secretary. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Every single one of our yeses arrived, and two of the nos are staying home.”

The sweet taste of victory flooded my mouth. More physical sensation than anything else. I didn’t feel much of anything in the way of actual emotion, but this was almost too easy.

Our limo turned a corner and the Morelli Holdings building came into view. Even nestled among the other NYC skyscrapers, this one stood above. Tall. Dark. Imposing. This building bore my name. My father’s name, technically, but that was going to change in about thirty minutes. I was one takeover away from being in charge.

I turned to the analyst without a word and raised my eyebrows.

“The estimates are stronger than ever,” he said.

Perfect. I glanced at the woman who ran my private media division. She had a good sense for how the public would react. More useful still, she had connections to every major business network. If I played my cards right, I could be on the cover of Forbes in a matter of months.

She nodded back. “Everything’s ready to go.”

The announcement, she meant. She’d been working on it for weeks. That probably seems like a long time, but I’d been working on it for years. I watched my father succeed with this business through a combination of brute force and privilege. He made my family a fortune, even as he lost several more.

I’ve been waiting for this moment.

It was here.

Any CEO can experience bad months, but my father didn’t like to explain himself. He told the board to go fuck themselves. Since it’s Morelli Holdings, they couldn’t say anything until I came to them. Lucian Morelli, CEO. It had a nice ring to it.

An even larger entourage was waiting outside the building as the limo pulled up. Everyone with their battle faces on. You don’t play a multi-billion-dollar hostile takeover without accumulating a goddamn army.

And my army was everywhere. My people worked all the way down in the mailroom and all the way up in the boardroom. I’d been recruiting allies for the ten years I’d been working here. Now we’d strike.

There was only one elevator to take us all the way to the top. Standing in the elevator, I could see the boardroom with its windows looking out over the city. I could see the silhouettes of men inside. Some of those men would oppose this takeover. More of them would support it. And my father? Well, he was too smart to truly be shocked.

The elevator opened silently, without a ding to herald our arrival. My shoes clicked across the marble floor. One of the men in my entourage reached forward and opened the boardroom door. I walked through with a grim smile. I didn’t take any pleasure from beating my father, no matter how much he beat me and my siblings as children. My siblings more so than me, of course. But the company? The company was my birthright. I’d take care of it better than he ever did.

Mr. Ohanian gave me a nervous smile from across the room. Light glistened on his sweaty forehead. He needed to get it the fuck together. Open displays of fear would only tip off my father. He was good at reading people. I didn’t show him any fear. I’ve never been afraid of him. Not like my siblings were. I walked over to give Mr. Ohanian a handshake and gripped him just a little too hard so his eyes met mine.

“Everything going according to plan?” I asked him.

He chuckled, the sound thin with anxiety. I didn’t fucking like that. “Now, Lucian. I’ve always known you were a smart boy, but your father…your father is smart, too.”

“Son.” My father’s voice came from behind me. I turned. We embraced. It’s a strange relationship, a grown child with their parent. Even stranger when that parent used to be abusive. There were many reasons my father didn’t use his fists with me, but one of them is that if he did, I would hit back. And I wouldn’t stop. Not ever. They’d have to drag me off his lifeless body.

And yet we were both Morellis. Both part of an institution that, in its way, had protected our family for years. We could feel nothing for each other in private. In public, we behaved. So there I was, giving him a one-armed hug, patting him on the back, pretending to be jovial here in this corporate jungle.

“I’m glad you could come,” my father said, as if I hadn’t run the board meetings for the last two years while he was off golfing or fucking his latest mistress. “The board has something important they want to discuss with us.” He winked. None of this was good. Clearly my father had caught wind of the coup. Clearly he’d got some power play planned. However, I wasn’t overly concerned. This was all part of battle. I nodded and took my seat at one end of the table.

Bryant Morelli took his seat at the other end. He was a strong man, despite being in his sixties. Powerful. Healthy. With the signature dark hair and tanned skin that marked all of his children. A long row of men. Everyone filled in between us. Just like the people in my limo, they had names and hopes and dreams, but I didn’t care about those things. They’re just tools. Functions. Little apps on a computer screen that I could use to make things happen.

My father was the only person sitting at this fifteen-foot table with me.

The chairman called the meeting to order along with the secretary, who read the minutes. They might as well have been Alexa speaking for all we took notice of them. I locked my eyes on my father’s. Bryant Morelli. Patriarch of our family. General abuser. Asshole. Villain. My boss, for now.

We got to article two and my pulse sped up.

This was it.

This was the moment.

Outwardly, nothing changed. I didn’t have a tell. No one beat me at poker. Not even my father. I didn’t tap my fingers, but I also didn’t become unnaturally still. I didn’t blink too fast or too slow. My breathing didn’t change.

I knew every word before they left Mr. Ohanian’s lips. After all, I wrote them.

“The board is grateful for the long and fruitful leadership of Bryant Morelli. Morelli Holdings continues to be a powerhouse in international real estate. Even the great rulers must eventually rest. So with utmost respect, the board will vote on removing Bryant Morelli as the CEO and appointing his son, Lucian Morelli, to replace him.”

Someone seconded the motion. And then we went around the table.

“Aye.” “Aye.” “Aye.” “Aye.”

The vote went according to plan. One of the nos, one of the oldest people on the board, gave me a disapproving glare before casting his vote against me.

Then we arrived at Leonard Hart.

He was technically a no, but not out of any loyalty to my father or any love for the old guard. He was a no because I wouldn’t promise to make him the chief of operations. He was a slimy bastard. I don’t mind paying for my position in corporate favors, but I’m not about to put someone as useless as Hart in such a high position. He gave me a look with a glint in his eyes, faintly reptilian. It meant he was voting no, but more than that, it meant he had something up his sleeve.

Before I continued, he said, “Before I allow this vote to proceed, I feel there’s something the board should know. I’ve had this information for a while, but with Bryant Morelli at the helm, able to control his son’s impulses, it seemed less important. But now that might not be the case…”

He trailed off, looking faintly worried. What the fuck.

O’Hanian slapped the table, a nervous gesture. “See here,” he said. “this isn’t the proper procedure. We’re in a vote. The only thing you can do now is cast yours. The time for discussion has passed.”

Another board member, one of my yeses, but one of the less enthusiastic yeses frowned. I wanted to hear him out. Fuck procedure. Morelli Holdings didn’t get to where it is now by following the rules. A general murmur of ascent ran through the room. The meeting was getting out of hand.

Hart pulled out the remote for the projector, which should have been assigned to anyone else. How unspontaneous this moment really was. A coup. Technically, it was a coup of a coup, but whatever you called it, it meant I wasn’t not going to be the fucking CEO when this meeting was over. That much I could sense in the air. I don’t show weakness. I don’t let my frustration near the surface, but of course my father still knew it was there. He gave me a slight knowing smile.

A slim screen unfolded from the ceiling. The lights dimmed. The conference room was massive and primarily surrounded by glass. The windows that faced the office were an expensive privacy shield. So we could see out, but they were tinted too much for the people on the floor to see in. On the other side, we had an expansive view of New York City’s skyline. It was through that opening that the conference table, a single large half-ton slab of petrified wood, was lifted via a crane into the room. Each chair, ergonomically crafted and made of rare leather, cost five grand. The audio visual system was state-of-the-art.

It was in this room that a photograph flashed across the 100-inch screen of me, bare chested, holding a whip. I was standing behind a pretty little sub beating her ass bloody. And what a beautiful ass it was, already striped from my blows, red and swelling, a few breaks in the skin where droplets of blood trickled down. I remember her ass. I don’t remember her name. We were in a highly exclusive club, a place where privacy is valued above all else, a place where a man with my power and wealth and infamy can play, but obviously someone found me there. Someone filmed me there.

There was a faint click and the slide changed. The same woman, but this time we could see her face. Agony was written across her pretty features, tears streamed down her face, mascara streaked her cheeks. She was in agony. Someone who didn’t know about pain sluts might not realize she was also about to come. She’d come so hard that she squirted arousal down the inside of her legs. She screamed my name and continued calling me for weeks after that encounter, begging for another night. No, thank you. I didn’t do repeats.

There were gasps around the room. They were scandalized by my behavior. As if each of those men didn’t have 21-year-old influencers tucked away in Tribeca for them to visit. I didn’t bother explaining their hypocrisy. It wouldn’t help. I also didn’t bother defending my kink. It didn’t matter.

But I did stand up.

At my nod, one of my men flipped a switch on the wall. The screen rolled back up, removing the offending image, and the lights turned up again.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “and ladies.” I nodded toward the one woman in the room. Ironically, she was the only one who didn’t appear scandalized. Instead, her cheeks were flushed and her pupils were dilated. Sixty years old or not, someone had just seen something for the first time that was probably going to infiltrate her fantasies from now on.

“I have a private life,” I said. “I have sex. These things shouldn’t come as a surprise. And they don’t affect my performance here at Morelli Holdings. Since when do we parade private pictures in the boardroom? Who among us is a saint?” Most people looked away from me. They couldn’t meet my eyes, except for Hart. He felt very proud of himself. And my father, who simply looked amused. I had to give credit to the old man where it’s due. He didn’t become this rich and powerful by showing up unprepared.

Mr. O’Hanian cleared his throat. “I agree that our private lives aren’t usually open for discussion.” He gave Hart a censorious look. “However, now that this has been brought to our attention, it would be remiss of us to ignore it. The truth is, your actions do reflect on the company.”

“Hear! Hear!” said one of the men who was opposed to this takeover from the beginning. He was deeply in my father’s pocket, but at least he was there of his own conviction, unlike Hart, who went to the highest bidder. “Bryant Morelli is a married man, a family man, a God-fearing man.”

Is that what this company needs? A God-fearing man? My lips twitched, but I managed not to laugh. Bryant Morelli feared nothing and no one. He certainly didn’t fear retribution when he beat me and my brothers bloody. Or when he stepped out on my mother for the millionth time. Bryant Morelli was not a man of high morality, but I understood what they were really saying. He had the appearance of it. He had the image. And the fact is, I don’t. My sexual predilections aside, I was cold, unfeeling, arrogant. Nothing about me said family man.

The room burst into rapid discussion. My father’s supporters spoke loudly, demanding a new vote. Some of my supporters spoke out in my defense, but even to my own ears, it sounded feeble. It sounded like we’d already lost. If we took another vote right now, I’d lose. And that would be a hard blow to recover from. I’d eventually have this coup again, but it would take longer and I’d have to give up more to slick assholes like Hart.

No. We’d finish this now.

“Six weeks,” I said to the room, my voice loud and commanding enough that everyone fell silent. “I have devoted my time to building this company, to growing it. When you look at my division’s numbers compared to the company as a whole, it proves what I can do. But I also see that image matters to you. And I value your opinions.” That was a lie, but I could play the goddamn game. “Therefore, I’m asking for six weeks. Give me six weeks to improve it. Give me six weeks to become a regular on the society pages for the right reasons. And then we’ll vote.”

They deliberate for a moment amid anxious murmurs.

“Six weeks?” my father asked. “For what? You won’t change your stripes, boy. You’ll just hide it better… and then once you’re CEO, you’ll keep doing it. Keep ruining the family name with your predilections. No, if you want the board to believe you, you need something more than that. You need a wife.”