Page 3 of Midnight Embrace

On his desk were reports of PIB’s activities worldwide over the last 24 hours. He had the files but the members of the Board, tech-Neanderthals all, insisted on hard copies of the daily reports so he had several dossiers on his desk, ready for distribution.

He never read the paper files but he read the computer files, oh yeah. Something the other board members rarely did. Unlike them, he understood the files, the trends. What money did and what money could do.

People got it wrong. Money didn’t make the world go round. Money wasgravity, pulling people and things toward it. The strongest force in the universe. He could see that in the reports.

The data guys down on the 20thfloor were able to observe that gravity in action, without being able to see the celestial body that exerted all that gravity. That celestial body was his to command and no one else could see it. The quants could speculate all they wanted about market ‘anomalies’. He, Whittaker Hamilton III, was managing a river of money as wide as the Mississippi, and no one knew. From the day that Brandon Rutherford walked into his office, his real life began. He’d unlocked the key and the world would be his, soon.

Rutherford was a man of mystery, old California money. Patrician, regal even. With an extraordinary offer. Hamilton was to short a broad range of stocks, due date June 10, and for a week thereafter, and he was to do so in secret. He could place some of the shorts as PIB, but just a fraction. The amount involved was … and here Hamilton held his breath … a billion dollars. And Hamilton could keep ten percent himself. Personally.

There was literally no downside, but Hamilton realized how much money Rutherford was going to make if he had insider knowledge of some big catastrophe that was due on June 10.

Which clearly, he did.

So, Hamilton started making bets of his own. He liquidated all his holdings and then bet big in secret with the bank’s assets. They’d forgive him when the torrent of money started flowing.

Such power. Such amazing power. He was investing so much money he was essentially reconfiguring the stock market. But who was to know if they couldn’t see? Up until now, his job had been investing large sums of money in well-run companies with a future on behalf of a known entity, the Pacific Investment Bank. Safe, solid investments, with low margins, but the profit came with the amounts invested.

But a couple of times, he invested a lot of money in cheap stock. Ailing companies, companies with bad management or outdated tech. He could almost feel the market startling awake, the rumbles of astonishment, the first tentative moves to invest in a stock which was inexplicably going up. He’d wait until it reached its highest point, then sold.

All of it made money, all of it. Like a printing press going brrrrr.

And then – the quantum leap, thanks to Rutherford. To the top of the heap. He had money to throw around, so much money it created its own reality. He was short-selling, yes, but also investing so much he could pretty much operate at random. Stick a pin in the Dow Jones Index. Throw darts at stocks and pick those. The very fact that so much money was being thrown at them created its own weather and the stocks went up.

He was making money. All the money in the world. Outrageous sums of it. Money that went straight abroad in numbered accounts. Hamilton was careful, didn’t change his spending, but the fact that he knew he could afford anything, anything at all, changed him.

It was like a magic wand that made everything easier. Nothing could touch him because he could buy his way out of anything. When he got a little too rambunctious with his mistress – nothing that serious, just a broken wrist and contusions – he called an old friend, a cop on the brink of retirement, and good old Detective Chris Ricks took care of it.

Only cost him $200K. Nothing.

He saw that having a cop on his payroll was useful and paid for him to retire early. He kept Ricks on a generous retainer because there were going to be incidents in his future. He also engaged the services of an LA-based security company that wasn’t too picky as long as the money was right. Hamilton could throw buckets of money at them. Sierra Security Services. It was like having an army at his beck and call.

Hamilton felt his powers swell, grow to gigantic proportions. He couldn’t be constrained by normal rules. When he broke them, Ricks would be there.

He could do whatever he wanted from now on.

He was a god.

* * *

Oh my,Emma Holland thought as she saw the man coming toward her, and had to stop herself from patting her chest over her heart. Wow.

We’re sending you someone from the company, Raul Martinez, Hope had emailed. Hope and Felicity worked for a security company, so Emma was thinking muscle bound guy who could shoot and maybe had some smarts. Maybe. She wasn’t thinking at all in terms of a hotness quotient, which in this case was off the charts.

Emma wasn’t really that susceptible to beefcake. She’d dated a couple of hardbodies in college, and over dinner she’d been bored by dessert.

But, man …

Raul Martinez. So – Hispanic origin, obviously. Tall but not too tall, because she was definitely on the short side and very tall men gave her the creeps. He was a complete package. Broad, broad shoulders tapering down to a lean waist. Sharp, handsome features, olive skin, blue-black hair. Casually elegant clothes. Moving like an athlete. That alpha vibe. Whew.

He met her eyes and electricity crackled. Her breath stopped for a moment. She knew he recognized her because she was the only redhead in the upscale coffee shop and anyone describing her would start with the color of her hair. He was making a beeline for her table next to the floor to ceiling windows looking out over the Bay.

After that first electric glance, though, his attention was totally taken with his surroundings, scrutinizing the other patrons. What a security-conscious guy would do, she supposed. Though not too many terrorists or serial killers in On the Bay, the fancy coffee shop right on the waterfront, a ten-minute walk from her office in the Financial District. Nobody dangerous in the place. Just jerkwad finance people, intent on making more money, when most of them had enough for several lifetimes.

The man had given an x-ray sweep of the sunny, pleasant premises of On the Bay and was again focused like a laser beam on her as he stopped at her table. “Emma? Emma Holland?”

His voice was deep but quiet. No one else would have heard him.

“Yes,” she said and held out her hand. He took her hand in his large one, squeezed briefly and released it. She liked that, hated those guys who took your hand and held it forever. Trying to gaze soulfully into your eyes. Making a big deal of the physical contact. “Raul Martinez, I presume?”

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