Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 101: The Absolute Truth

\-Will-

I sat behind my grandfather’s desk, bored again. After private schools, Yale, and Harvard Business School, I was bored out of my mind. I’d followed my expected trajectory. I’d done everything expected of me.

Only once did I ever step a toe out of line. Well, almost. I suggested, at one of my visits to his cushy prison, that I might like to play football seriously. Not just as an extracurricular for my transcripts, but as a real, devout player.

William Masterson Sr. had blown a gasket. I was grounded, deprived of my electronics, and carted off to a very strict boarding school for the summer, forcing me to not participate in football at all. He’d very reluctantly let me play again until I finished college, but only with the understanding I was being groomed to take over the family business.

The problem was, some guy named Ike Freeborn handled most of the business. I was mostly window dressing, shaking hands, attending galas and charity events. When I asked for more responsibility, Ike looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

I rocked back in the big, intimidating, wingback chair. Ike would even ask me to leave the office sometimes to do business deals. He was actually intimidating. I was…

… like little Simba in the Lion King? Except I was getting the impression I was never going to be ascending the throne.

Speaking of Ike, there was a knock on the office door.

“Come in,” I sighed.

Ike wandered in with two men in business suits behind him. All I saw all day long were men in business suits coming into the office while I walked out. “Sir,” he said, and it always sounded as though it pained him to say it, “I was hoping we could use your office for a quick meeting.”

‘Quick meeting’ meant at least an hour. I nodded and stood. “Go right ahead. I was just going to go check on the Jasper File.”

The ‘Jasper File’ was code for ‘I’m going to go do fucking nothing, but I need to sound important in front of the clients.’ Though I was pretty sure the clients didn’t care. They rarely ever even looked at me.

I walked out, and they walked in, Ike closing the door firmly behind them. They were thick doors, impossible to listen through. I knew because I’d tried.

Dawn was sitting at her desk, as usual, headphones on, fielding calls and doing whatever she did with the files. She was supposedly my assistant, but mostly she was Ike’s. A very nice girl named Heather took care of my travel arrangements and various public engagements and interviews.

“Mr. Masterson,” Dawn said deferentially.

“Hi Dawn,” I replied. “How’s the little mite?”

She patted her very round belly. “Any minute now, he’ll come make an appearance.”

“You make sure you take the full maternity leave, okay? I don’t care what Ike says,” I told her.

Dawn smiled at me and shook her head. “Mr. Freeborn needs me. I’ll just be three weeks and then—” Her face suddenly went green. “Oh dear. Excuse me, Mr. Masterson!” She ran from her desk toward the bathrooms.

I shook my head. Poor Dawn had experienced a truly awful pregnancy.

… At the docks at midnight. And if one of them screams, you just shoot her. Then the other women will just fall into line. It sounded like Ike.

What the fuck?! I realized Dawn had left her headset on. Likely, she’d been taking notes for Ike. I sat down, wondering what the hell I was hearing, and put the headphones on myself.

“... Need to get them to the brothel as quickly as possible. The cops have been sniffing around, and not the ones we can bribe, either,” another voice said. This one was definitely not Ike.

Brothel? I frowned in confusion.

“We’ll send a clean-up crew if we need to,” Ike responded in an offhand manner. “There’s more of those where they came from.”

If I wasn’t crazy and hallucinating this, Ike was talking to these two bastards about human trafficking!

Oh, Ike was in so much shit once my grandfather found out.

I dropped the headphones and was about to go striding into the office to break up their nefarious little clique when I looked at Dawn’s screen. She’d left it unlocked.

There was a folder open I’d never seen on the server before.

I glanced over the monitor to make sure Dawn wasn’t on her way back then began clicking through files. With every file, my stomach dropped further and further.

This wasn’t Ike’s doing. I could see my grandfather’s signature on many documents pertaining to everything from drugs, to weapons, to human trafficking.

My stomach roiled. Dawn wasn’t the only one who was going to be sick. But I swallowed the bile in my throat. I didn’t want to lose this opportunity to see what the company was really doing.

I quickly copied the hidden folder and uploaded it to myself on my personal Google Drive. By the time Dawn returned, still dabbing her mouth, I was leaning casually against her desk, pretending for all the world that I hadn’t done a damn thing.

“Feeling any better?” I asked with my best, convincing Masterson smile.

“A bit.” She sat down and picked up her headphones. “This pregnancy has been the worst.”

“It seems like it,” I said sympathetically. “Well, I’m going to go see if we’re missing anything in the supply closet. Might as well make myself useful somehow.”

Dawn nodded and went back to her listening and notetaking.

I had to keep myself from running as I made my way to an empty office. I closed and locked the door behind me, then took out my phone and brought up the file. I spent the next hour familiarizing myself with what appeared to be the real family business. Or businesses, as it were.

My grandfather was not at all what he seemed to be, and insider trading was the very least of his crimes.

Now that I had all this information, what the hell was I supposed to do with it? Go to the authorities? Confront my grandfather? Both?

First, I thought I’d better confront Ike because he’d been doing all this on my grandfather’s behalf right under my nose.

I was steeling myself to do just that when I stumbled upon a subfolder labeled simply ‘The Trial.’

Curious, I opened it. Inside, I found depositions and court transcripts. I skimmed them, finding that the authorities already knew about my grandfather and that he hadn’t gone to prison for insider trading at all.

So, he was being punished for crimes he was continuing? That didn’t seem right. One would think you’d be unable to commit crimes from prison. But, apparently, I was wrong.

Continuing down the rabbit hole, I found another folder labeled ‘The Killeens.’

I remembered Jocelyn and Caleb had appeared prominently in the trial transcripts, testifying against my grandfather as the final nail in his coffin. Caleb’s last name was ‘Killeen.’

After I opened the folder, I immediately wished I hadn’t. There were videos inside of a young couple… coupling… in the mansion I called home. It didn’t appear as though they knew they were being watched and recorded. Other videos showed… my father with them. Not en flagrante, no. But sharing moments of friendship, also carefully cataloged in this multitude of videos.

My sense of dignity wouldn’t allow me to peruse the videos too much, however. I felt dirty watching the Killeens.

More documents detailed correspondence between my grandfather and some sheik, plotting to kill them both.

But, most damning of all, was a folder labeled ‘Surrogate.’

Inside, I learned Mrs. Killeen had carried me herself after my grandfather arranged for invitro fertilization with a donor egg and my biological father’s sperm. From what I could tell from the videos in that file, she’d basically been drugged and held prisoner.

I wasn’t sure if I was more disgusted by these personal violations or the bad my grandfather did out in the wider world. Either way, I couldn’t stomach any of it. I’d heard of evil, of course, but I never thought I’d be raised to perpetrate it.

“So, I think you’ve been doing some snooping,” Ike said, leaning in the doorway.

My eyes snapped upward, and I was sure I wasn’t hiding the hatred in them very well. “What the hell is all this?”

“Your inheritance. You know, this makes it easier. Your grandfather and I were trying to figure out how to bring you onboard, but now you’ve been properly informed. You will, of course, attend the meetings from now on…” Ike informed me.

“Not on your life,” I growled. “I don’t want anything to do with this shit.”

Ike rolled his eyes. “Your grandfather was afraid you’d turned out weak. Like your father.”

“Don’t you talk about my father!” I yelled.

He came into the office and closed the door behind him. “Do you want the whole office to hear you?”

“Maybe. Maybe I want the whole world to hear. He’s been doing these things from prison! Jesus!” I turned my phone to face him and played one of the repulsive sex videos. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?!”

Ike sat down across from me. “Will, have you ever heard the phrase, ‘To make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs’? This is the cost of the life of luxury you enjoy. These people betrayed your grandfather. They took advantage of his good nature. They—”

“They were fucking kids, they were fucking desperate, and he took advantage of them. Don’t you try to fucking twist things on me!” I shouted. “Don’t you dare.”

He sighed and stood. “Your drive will be scrubbed, and you will be placed under house arrest. There were contingencies made for this, of course. Hopefully, you won’t do something stupid and kill yourself like your father did. Then we’d have to start the whole process over again.”

“Process? What, you’re going to tie down another young girl and force her to give birth to a brother of mine?!” I asked, horrified.

“Probably a son. But yes, if we have to. Now, I’ve already called security…” he said.

I scowled at him. “I suppose you think I’m just going tra-la, tra-lee along with security just like that, huh?”

“That’s the idea, yes,” he smirked.

“Hmm. I’m going to have to say ‘no’ to that request,” I replied.

“And what exactly do you think you’re going to do about it?” he snorted.

The door opened behind him, and there stood two security guards.

“Did you know I played football in college?” I asked.

Ike’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Yes. I am aware.”

I kicked the desk at him with all my strength. He topped over in his chair with a loud ‘oomf.’

Then security was on me, but I tackled one against the wall. He hit his head and slid down.

The second was just starting to call for back-up, trying to stop me with an arm around my throat, but that was his mistake. I slammed my elbows back into his ribs then stamped my foot down on the phone he dropped.

“Fuck, man!” the guard groaned, holding his ribs and sinking to his knees.

I didn’t stay to see if any of the three men were all right. I dashed out of the office and to the stairs. I wasn’t getting stuck in there.

There were several floors, but I was in good shape. I bolted all the way to the bottom. I burst out of the building and into sharp daylight.

I’d never been so happy to see the sun. I looked around, then, for the first time in my life, ran across the street and jumped onto a city bus.

I slapped my credit card on the reader, and, only when the bus was underway, did I sit down.

“Rough day?” the driver asked.

“The worst,” I said.

“Well, don’t worry about it. It’s bound to get better,” he replied with an encouraging smile.

I managed a smile back, that may have been more of a grimace. Bound to get better?

I doubted it.