Sven laid the documents on the table.
“What is this?” demanded Walker.
“Your shares in Dune Industry. I want them. I want you to sell them to me.” Sven took a blank card and scribbled on it. He placed the card in front of Walker.
Walker took one look and laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? Why would I want to sell them at that price? In fact, why would I want to sell them to you at all?”
“The price is more than reasonable. As you can see, it’s the current value when the stock market closed today.”
“It’s going to be worth more when—” Walker suddenly clammed up.
“Merger? Hostile takeover? It’s not going to happen. I’m intending on restoring Dune Industry to what it was once before.”
Walker growled a string of curses. He turned to Sven sharply. “I won’t sell them.”
“Wrong answer.”
“You think you can blackmail me by ambushing me with prostitutes? My wife knows what I’m doing. We have an open marriage.”
“I’m painfully aware of that.”
“Then, what? Humiliate me with the press?”
“The media would have a ball with this kind of scandal, but I have something else in mind. What about your involvement with underage prostitutes? Like your playmate Shafira.” Sven plucked some photos from the folder. “She’s sixteen years old. And Amber, she’s also not even seventeen years old. They are both runaways that Madam Cherie recruited from different cities and groomed into high class escorts.”
Walker looked astounded. “I knew nothing about this. Cherie—”
“Let’s cut to the chase. I have no interest in listening to your excuses. What will it be? Will you sell those stocks to me?”
Walker sagged. “I guess I have no choice.”
“You always have a choice. You could refuse.”
“Give me those fucking papers.”
Abbott Hill quickly presented the sale documents. Walker signed them.
“One more thing: I want you to keep this transaction a secret until I make a formal announcement. If you fail—the whole world is going to know what you do in your spare time.”
Walker gave him a loathsome glare. “I trust you do the same.”
Sven only smiled and double checked the documents. “Everything seems to be in order. Now if you’ll excuse us.”
When they were back in the car, Abbott Hill asked Sven, “Are you really going to let Jonah Walker get away with it? Underage sex and human trafficking are serious offenses. The Feds would be all over us if we failed to report it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Sven handed the dossier to Hill. “Contact Jesse Richardson at the State office tomorrow morning and explain our situation. Arrange for immunity for our part in the deal we’ve just made. Walker needs to be held accountable for what he’s done.”
“Understood.”
Once the first domino hit the ground, the rest tumbled down. To Sven’s surprise, he didn’t meet any resistance from the rest of the shareholders. Some of them were more than willing to part from their stocks when Sven offered them slightly higher than the market price. He felt relieved that he wouldn’t need to commit more extortions other than in Walker’s case. His team of lawyers had warned him that he’d be walking on thin ice with his forced buyout plan. But now, he’d covered his bases when the State office granted him immunity.
In the midst of his risky business maneuver, Sven hadn’t calculated for the problem that would hit his household. Ever since he and Annalise had become intimate, the beastly part of him had been restless to the point that he almost couldn’t control it. With his past lovers, Sven usually started distancing himself at the first sign of awakening. With Annalise, he couldn’t and wouldn’t. He wanted to tell her when the time was right. After the takeover, when he would bring her to an exotic honeymoon somewhere.
However, his tiger wouldn’t wait.
It had been far too long since he had last shifted.
The last time he went beast was three years ago in Harbin, during a business trip in China. By coincidence, the area housed a Siberian tiger conservation park, and he couldn