Truth or Dare; The Dominator II (3 page)

“Dario?” he asked when I answered my secure cell line. It was 6:30 in the fuckin’ morning.

“That’s me. Whoever this is, it’s 6:30 in the fuckin’ morning so this better be good.”

“Stan, Tom’s lawyer in Thailand. I’m at the airport, on my way to you. I need a meet. I’m arriving tomorrow night, your time. Where can we meet?”

“We can’t discuss whatever this is about on the phone when you get here?”

“Absolutely not.”

“It can’t wait until day after tomorrow?”

“If need be but I’d prefer to speak to you sooner if possible.”

“You headin’ here for any other reason?”

“No.”

“Email your flight details to my receptionist. We’ll pick you up.” I gave him the email address.

I had no clue what this was about. Stan and my Pop had a friendship that went back decades. I had shit to do, I was busy, but this sounded like something that needed my attention. Yet another axe about to fall, I could just feel it. But I had no idea how big that axe was until Stan arrived and spilled the beans about my birthday gift.

** ** **

At 9:30 the next night, Dex, a buddy and someone who worked for us doing security and other errands, brought Stan to my place. My place was a condo downtown, just a five minute walk from the Ferrano Enterprises office.

I told him to wait out front and to drive Stan back to his hotel afterwards. I poured Stan a drink and invited him to sit.

“I’m a busy man. I know you are as well. You spent almost a whole day on a plane to come here unannounced for something clearly pretty important. Lay it on me.”

“Your apartment, when was the last time it was swept?”

He was talking about surveillance devices.

“It’s clean,” I told him.

“Guaranteed?” he prodded.

I raised a brow at him, “You don’t know me real well, Stan, but if I say it’s clean, it’s clean. I do
not
talk out of my ass.”

“Apologies. There are a few matters we need to discuss about business ventures of Tom’s overseas that he had me help him with. I’ll need some direction in a few areas from you and your brother. On top of that and most pressing, your father, rest his soul, my sincere condolences, he bought something for you before he died and paid me handsomely to arrange it. He said it was a birthday gift. Happy belated. The gift is something less than above board so I need to be cautious. Very cautious.”

I gave the guy the once over. He was a tall, thin, gray-haired, and 60ish with a receding hairline and a ruddy complexion. He looked totally respectable. He was anything but. He handled some shady-as-fuck shit in Thailand and that part of the world for my father. I didn’t know all of what they got up to but we were finding out that Pop had a lot goin’ on that he’d never briefed my brother or me about. He had a small import/export business and it was mostly a front for a lot of imports and exports that weren’t exactly legit and he dabbled in some not-so-legal areas in several countries, too. The good news was that there were off-shore accounts with a lot of dough left to me and my siblings. The bad news? Besides the fact that there were more unsavory businesses and relationships to end slash unload … was the news of what my birthday gift was.

“I don’t know how knowledgeable you are about a certain private resort your father profited and partook from.” He said this cautiously.

“Unfortunately, Stan, it seems that me and my brother were not nearly as knowledgeable as we should have been.”

“How can I reach your brother, by the way? I called his home but the number forwards to your office.”

“He’s on his honeymoon. You can speak to me about anything outstanding regarding my father’s affairs. Do you need something related to Tommy directly?”

“No, I can deal with you.”

“So, that pressing reason you’re here?”

“Right.” He sipped his drink, “We’ll deal with the matter that impacts you the most first. Your, erm, birthday gift. Your father was rather involved with a certain secret exclusive club that involves entertaining men with females, or males if they prefer. Trained
entertainment.
” He held up air quotes at the word entertainment, “I’m not sure if you’re aware of the association.”

“Trained females?”

“Let’s call a spade a spade, Dario. I’ll stop beating around the bush.”

“Please do.”
Like I’ve got all fucking night to play guessing games.

“Your father was part owner in a resort, an extremely exclusive resort. That resort has human assets on site for erm… entertainment, but occasionally pairs men or sometimes women who want trained slaves… to take off-site. Pairs them with the type of slave they desire. Your father partook.  He decided to have one of those assets transferred to you before he died. He told me when he arranged it that it was to be a surprise birthday gift for you and that you’d marry her. That transaction is nearly ready. It just needs a few details from you for that order to be completed. This was a big deal for the resort to do. It was only due to Tom’s perceived value to this organization that he was able to acquire this specific asset for you. Perhaps you or your brother should speak to your father’s business partners at this club in order to determine the best way to move forward with the partnership in Tom’s absence.”

“My father arranged a slave for me for my birthday?”

“Yes.”

“My father arranged for me to be given a slave? To keep. To marry.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t want it.” I shot up to my feet. The conversation I’d had with him about the mail order bride came over me then. No fuckin’ way. I knew that he knew people who profited from human trafficking. I knew nothing about a resort, knew he did a little business linked with that trade, but did not know he was a partner. To order a slave for me when I’d joked about wanting a mail order bride?  My father had been getting increasingly irrational in the months before he died. How in a million years could he think I’d been cool with this?

“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as declining the gift.”

“I don’t fuckin’ want it.” I started to pace.

“Dare,” he said, like he knew me well enough to call me that.

I shook my head, “I’ll need you to facilitate the sale of his shares of that business. Sell them Pop’s shares back and put the money in an offshore account.  In fact, detail all of what Pop had goin’ with you so I can arrange for you to follow suit with everything else. I have a lot of shit to sort out locally and don’t have time for overseas businesses to take up my time. I---”

Stan silenced me by taking an orange envelope out of his briefcase and putting it on my coffee table.

When I paused he said, “It’s a complex situation and I think it’s one you need to handle delicately. Not accepting her, in fact not letting the partners think you were well aware of this transaction from the start… it would raise some serious red flags to your father’s partners.” He motioned to the envelope, “This is a tablet and it contains her details. You’ll have an hour to look it over once you turn it on and then all details will be wiped. You turn it on with your fingerprint. Have a look and then sleep on this and call me in the morning. I’m staying at the Renaissance Hotel down the road---”

Now it was my turn to cut him off, “How in the
fuck
is this programmed with
my
fingerprint?”

Stan let out a slow breath and looked at me with a careful intensity, “Your father prepared everything, supplied the fingerprint.”

“Fuck, Stan. I need to think.” I walked to the door.

“There is a lot at stake. Your father always spoke highly of your business savvy, Dario. I know you’re in shock but---”

“Yeah, I need to think,” I told him, “Like, now.”

He picked up his briefcase and headed toward the door, “I’ll leave you to it then. I don’t normally get this involved. I know this goes on but I don’t partake. Don’t ask; don’t tell. But your father asked me to handle this transaction personally for him and I firmly believe that if you decline and if you hastily attempt to exit this business you’ll raise some serious red flags with them. These are major players, powerful people, son. Sleep on this.”

I didn’t like the condescension of the “son” but he was not wrong.

“I’ll text you my local cell number. Call me tomorrow after you’ve thought on this. I fly back out the day after tomorrow. We have other business to discuss as well. I hope we’ll continue to have a business relationship. Your father and I made each other a lot of money. I’m sure we can carry on that way with myself and you and Tommy.”

I shut the door, barely acknowledging him. I loosened my tie, paced a minute, running my fingers through my hair. He was right. I had to play things out careful-like. I should’ve been more guarded with him but what a fucking shock. My Pop’s business partners would see me as a threat if I didn’t play things carefully and in that kind of business they would deal with any perceived threat accordingly. Fuck.  I needed this added complication like I needed a hole in the head.

** ** **

I’d talked things over with my brother and we agreed I needed to handle this in person.

I’d have to play things cool with these partners, do a meet and then figure out the right exit strategy.  In addition to buying me a slave for my birthday Pop had essentially bequeathed us a piece of a human trafficking ring and that was absolutely fucked. It’d make our exit strategy even more complicated than it already was.

The best thing we figured we could do would be to pick this girl up and help her reintegrate into society. We’d probably have to fake her death and help her move on with her life somewhere fresh.

Tommy told me he knew of the place. He remembered Pop telling him about a trip to Thailand a few years ago where he was staying at a resort with sex slaves. Pop hadn’t said much back then but Tommy knew of that place as well as a similar place in Mexico. He said Pop occasionally did business with stakeholders in those businesses but Tommy hadn’t known he was an actual partner.

Before going to sleep I’d opened the envelope and lifted out a small tablet. Immediately after giving it my print, which I fuckin’ hated, I was greeted by a slideshow of photos of a gorgeous girl. Long sleek hair almost to her waist. Her specs read 5,5”, 115 pounds, 34C, 27” waist. It said she had a pink treble clef tattoo on her left hip and a white bass clef on her right hip, pink music note on her inner thigh. Her ears, eyebrow, nose, upper lip, tongue, and belly button were all pierced but it said in brackets she now only wore earrings in her ears and navel. She had never been pregnant and had healed in the last two years from a broken wrist and a fractured ankle, two different occasions. She was O positive blood type, redheaded, blue-eyed. She had an IUD and as of the transaction close date she’d been taken off the rotation and had since been off limits sexually to anyone in preparation for her transition to me. By the looks of things Pop had finished the transaction and she’d been taken off rotation just a few days before he got shot by Jesse Romero’s crew.

The boudoir style photos I flicked through were black and white except for one, her Alaska driver’s license. In that color picture her hair was wavy and wild. It looked auburn with highlights the color of copper or maybe copper with auburn highlights. It was both. She had the piercings in, she had a look of mischief, like she wanted to give the camera the finger, a smile on her face. She barely resembled the straight-haired expressionless girl in the boudoir photos. They called her “Felicia Sapphire”, the quotes telling me it wasn’t her real name. It didn’t list details about her true identity and the license had identifying details blacked out. At the end of the slideshow was a note stating that if I wanted nude photos, they would be made available. There was an additional screen that said “report” but there was no information on that page, just a blank spreadsheet that said ‘error’ in the first cell.

Before I crashed for the night I texted Stan and told him to be at my apartment at 7:am for a conversation and told him there was a missing report from the tablet.

Once that hour was up and I’d seen that the info wasn’t accessible any longer I hoofed the tablet with a pair of boots on and then chucked it down my building’s garbage chute.

** ** **

Three days later I was on a flight to Bangkok. I’d done some juggling and delegating at the office with my staff, a consulting firm I’d hired to help me prep the subsidiaries we wanted to unload in order to put them up for sale, and asked a few of my key guys to be my eyes and ears with everything else.

Business was winding down in a number of areas. I’d sold all the local debts to a factoring company who paid a decent rate to buy the debts, since we’d done them all with contracts under our financial services wing, and those who’d been in debt with us now got to deal with a collection agency instead of bloodthirsty thugs like Tino and his crew if they were late for a payment.

We were in talks to sell a few of the retail and hospitality businesses. Businesses we were part owners in were being sold to the existing other part-owners.

We were keeping the chain of coffee shops but would be hands-off by hiring a few extra people to run the day to day and all the locations would be franchises so it’d just be royalties coming our way. We were talking about gifting Venetia, our Italian restaurant that was run by Eddy, to Luc and Ed.