Page 14 of The Tallest Tower (Underbelly Enchanted)

“I don’t enjoy socializing.” I lower my voice when the man in question walks past my door and continues toward the heart of our floor, where columnists converge the way worker bees surround their queen. “I don’t like dating. I don’t like meeting new people.” Glancing over my shoulder, I meet her stare and smirk. “I was going on a two-year dry streak, and he was there. It was convenient.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Nope.” I tug my chair out from under my desk and flop down with a huff so the air in my seat cushion expels noisily. “Definitely not. Now let’s talk about Felix Malone. I want to figure out my next angle and get a handle on what I’m going to write. I have that dinner tonight with the Eriksons, then I’ll be going home and getting started on my next piece.”

Dana and I work until after six, scouring papers and gossiping about the Malone brothers, as each of them turn up in the media over the years. There are five in total. Plus their now-deceased patriarch. Three of the five sons have left New York, and since Felix has claimed the head of the table in the time following his father’s passing—alleged or not—he’s who we focus on as we read and make notes.

The sun still shines bright outside, despite the hour, and eveningtraffic fills the streets below the Cannon Daily building. Cars move slowly, their drivers more than likely office workers rejoining the treadmill of life, where they battle to leave the city and make their way into one of the many surrounding boroughs to get home to their families.

They come into Manhattan for the paycheck, but they commute back out again, because no one can afford real estate within a thirty-mile radius of Lady Liberty.

I pack up my work around six-thirty, my thoughts dragging and my eyes straining; a reminder I should be wearing my glasses and yet, another day has passed and I forgot to slip them on.

“I think we should incorporate the Malone mothers,” I murmur, my voice low from exhaustion.

I’ll need to perk up before dinner.I still have a gown to slip into, hair to style, makeup to apply. Not least of all, contacts to slap against my eyeballs, and anxiety to overcome about having them there.

Swallowing the odd ball of nerves in my throat, I close the lid of my laptop and glance across my desk to Dana’s equally tired face. “Five sons. Five mothers. Some of their pregnancies overlapped, if the brothers’ birthdays are an indication.”

“And then there was Cato,” she adds wistfully. “All those years later.”

“He was a minor until this year.” I open my deepest desk drawer and take out my purse, setting it on top of my laptop and dropping things inside. Keys. Phone. Chapstick. “All the others are in their thirties now. It’s interesting, don’t you think?” I slip my laptop out from beneath my bag and place it inside instead. “Five women just…” I lift my hands,ta-da. “Poof. Gone.”

“Well… It’s the mafia.” She sits back in her seat and looks up at the ceiling. “You can’t expect to go to bed with these people, produce an heir, and live to tell the tale.”

“But why not? Why not keep the same baby mama until you’ve got all the sons you want, andthendispose of her?”

“Maybe Malone was in a rush to get them all baking as quickly as possible? One woman means one baby at a time—assuming there are no multiples. But one man and several women… the opportunities are endless.”

“Sure.” I pick up my bag and slip my arm through the straps. Then,stepping around my desk, I start toward the door, only to stop again and look back to find Dana still sitting. Still tired.

It takes her a moment to catch on, then another for her brain to click into action, but she eventually bustles up with a burst of energy and bounds from the chair to follow me.

“But wanting to make a bunch of babies at once doesn’t really explain Cato at the end,” I point out.

“Maybe Timothy wasn’t happy with the four he had,” she ponders, striding through my office door before holding it for me to pass second. “Maybe they weren’t doing what he wanted, so he figured he’d make more.”

“Possibly.” My heelsclip-clip-clipalong tile, my eyes focused solely on the elevator at the very end of the long room. “But that poses its own issues. One, if he wanted a bunch more, why stop with Cato? And two, the fact that Felix has taken over where his father left off kind of implies the boys are doing exactly what he wanted.”

“Three of the five left New York,” she counters cautiously, hitting the call button on the elevator when she’s close enough to touch. “You said it yourself. The oldest, also named Tim, would have been the natural successor, no? But he left. That says trouble in the family.”

“He didn’t leave tillafterthe youngest boy was born.” Data sprints through my mind. Dates. Names. I’ve filed and memorized an unhealthy amount of information on this family already, and yet, I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface. “How could he see into the future? He was already creating more sons before Timothy the Third left.”

“Maybe he felt dissent in the ranks.” She steps into the elevator when the doors open, and selects the button for the lobby before I can reach for it myself. “Tensions are a palpable thing, Ms. Cannon. He probably knew Tim wanted out.”

“And yet,” I debate, enjoying the ebb and flow of a good old-fashioned sparring session. Words are my weapon; my sharp memory, my blade. “The next two sons in line, Felix and Micah, stayed right where they were. He had plenty of backups to choose from. So why make another? And why that woman?”

Finally, Dana lifts her shoulders. “Unsafe sex makes babies. It could be a simple case ofOops, knocked her up. He’s a boy, so we’ll keep him.”

“Mm. And since we’re on the subject,” I stride from the elevator when the doors open, irritated as we start toward the front doors of our opulent building. “What are the chances of only conceiving boys? Five different mothers, five different sets of DNA, and heonlymakes sons?”

I push through the heavy glass doors and find Edward waiting for me on the other side. “The odds against such an outcome are astronomical, Dana. Are we to believe he hit the genetic jackpot that easily, or will we find infant girls buried somewhere with their mothers?”

“I don’t…”

My poor assistant’s cheeks pale when the reality hits her. “I don’t know.”

“Exactly.” But I look to my driver and smile as he opens my door. “Thank you, Edward.”

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