Facade (Billionaire in Disguise 1)

It was the bite in his voice that caused me to slowly stack the missing pieces together.

“What do you mean?” Derek asked.

“Like you, for instance. You came from wealth, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of that. All the investors on our board came from wealth too. But not me. I’m a self-made man, born to a janitor and a mother who worked in a call center all her life.”

“Those are honorable jobs. We need people like them to do what we do,” Derek said.

“I didn’t go to college on Mom and Dad’s dime. I had to work hard in school and learn shit I didn’t want to know. Grab at every academic scholarship I could obtain in order to prove myself worthy of an Ivy League education.”

Derek looked at me quickly before he trained his eyes back on Jacob. It was all slowly beginning to make sense. The email Gretchen talked about coming from within the company. The random tip that Derek was in Vegas. The way it was so easy for the perpetrator to get onto Derek’s property.

It wasn’t because someone was sneaking onto the property.

It was fucking because the security guards knew who was coming through the gate.

“What you did was incredible, Jacob. I know how hard you worked to get into Cornell, the things you sacrificed and the things you went without in order to get your education. You’re a good man for it. You’re a role model for men like me,” Derek said.

“I am. At least, I should be. I could be a greater role model, though, if I had the seat you did.”

I saw the understanding I was beginning to come to slap Derek across the face. He went from opening his body to his friend to closing himself off. He crossed his arms over his chest and walked out from behind his desk, and I cursed every movement he made.

His desk was the only protection he had until I could get to him, and I wasn’t ready to give away our only surprise just yet.

“You’re just a rich boy who had everything handed to you, Derek. You’re a billionaire born to a millionaire of a man. Your greatest complaint is that your father wanted you to take over his business, and you didn’t want to. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing else,” Jacob said.

“Jacob, where is this all coming from?” Derek asked.

“At thirty, you make more money than you would never need, and I’m still stuck working my ass off behind spoiled rich boys.”

I watched Jacob slide his hand into his pocket before he pulled a gun from it. Derek’s eyes were wide, and my heart was beginning to slam in my chest. All of it was falling into place. The wink in the hallway after Emma’s office. The fire alarm being pulled. The way he had cozied up to me and how he watched me whenever I was around.

Holy shit. Jacob Carl was the man harassing Derek.

“You should have taken the warnings, Derek,” Jacob said as he raised his gun. “You should have listened to the eye in the sky.”

I raced from the shadows as I watched the gun being leveled at Derek’s chest. I saw his eyes grow wide as he whipped his gaze over to my body. I stepped up onto the coffee table, launching myself into the air as Jacob squeezed his weapon. The loud crack of the gun reverberated off the corners of the room, startling Derek as he yelled at me to stop.

I could see the bullet traveling, piercing the air and making its way for Derek’s body. Time itself halted in its tracks as I went flying through the air, doing the only thing I knew I could. My feet touched down onto the ground, and I lunged, throwing myself between Derek’s body and the bullet. His arms were reaching out for me, trying to get me to stop as his body moved away from the bullet.

Jacob’s eyes were wild as he stood there, watching me fly through the air as I tried to make my way to Derek.

Tears crested my eyes as I thought about what could’ve happened had I not come out of the washroom. I saw Derek’s body plummeting to the floor as I screamed. I saw myself hunched over his dead body as I cradled him against me. I saw the floor stained with blood, and it coated my fingers and stained my jeans, the blood of a man who made me feel things I’d never experienced in the all my life.

“No, Sam! Don’t!”

“You don’t deserve that chair! But I do!”

The crack of the gun was thunderous as I landed on Derek’s desk. I rolled off the side and onto the ground as the entire world went silent. I could feel someone’s hands on me. My ears began to ring, silencing the room around me as the floor thundered below my back. Feet were shuffling, and my chest was panting. I slipped my hand into my pocket and withdrew my pocket knife as I felt something warm dripping onto my skin.

I saw Derek’s face hovering over mine, his eyes full of fear, wide with terror. I assumed the worst as I rose up to take stock of his body, hoping and praying I’d pushed him out of the way in time. Tears that were cresting my eyes now poured down my cheeks as an urgency flooded my veins. I felt the need to rise, defend what was mine, and protect what had been so violently mutilated.

But not before I heard a voice pierce the silence my ears had forced me into.

“Fine. If that’s how it’s going to be, then the both of you can go.”

Jacob.

The man trying to kill Derek was his friggin’ best friend.

THE END