Taming the Shrewd Read online

  Taming The Shrewd

  Zach & Elaine

  Z.L. Arkadie

  Z.L. Arkadie Books

  Copyright © 2018 by Z.L. Arkadie Books

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-1-942857-41-9

  Created with Vellum

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to the following:

  Edited by Cassie Cox of Joy Editing

  Cover Design by Z.L. Arkadie Books

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 1

  Zach Lord

  With one eye narrowed, Zach Lord looked up at the gray sky. He was searching intently for something in the great beyond but had no idea what he was looking for. Or maybe he did.

  Regardless, Zach felt way too antsy. It was ten thirty in the morning, a chilly sixty-two degrees, and sprinkling in LA. He inhaled the smoke from his cigarette, and the bitter taste made him scowl. It had been ninety-seven days since he’d sucked on one. He hadn’t craved a cigarette until yesterday, after the call from Mike Falk, his uncle’s attorney. A drop of rain dotted his open eye, so he closed it but continued glaring upward as he recalled their conversation.

  He was in New York and had just finished closing another deal. ZYX Technologies had sold for double the asking price. There was a bidding war. One buyer wanted to gobble up the company and dissolve it to eliminate the competition. The other wanted to nurture what Zach’s team had developed and make it thrive. Fortunately, after all the numbers were crunched—which included the three percent interest in the company that he would keep—the latter buyer had won the bid. So Zach was flying high as he strolled down Lexington Avenue while on the phone with Megan, his assistant.

  He’d just told her to postpone his flight to Sydney since he needed to stay in New York for a few more days. An old acquaintance had given him a line on a new start-up that was seeking backing from his company. The guys who founded the business were young, smart, and pretty reckless. They needed someone with Zach’s experience to come in and take their product to the next level. Zach couldn’t wait to assess the situation. The bigger the challenge, the better their chances. Then his phone beeped. Out of sheer habit and without ever intending to answer the other caller, he looked at his screen to see who it was.

  Zach stopped abruptly when he saw the name Mike Falk. That was his uncle Butch’s lawyer. Mike called only when necessary, and what he usually needed was an on-the-spot expert opinion regarding the strength of a company they were about to invest in. Butch owned and operated BLB Wealth Management, one of the country’s top investment firms.

  “I’ll call you back,” he told Megan and then answered the other line. “Yeah, Mike.”

  “Hello, Zachary. ”

  Mike sounded somber, which made Zach nervous. “So what can I do for you?” he cheerfully asked in an attempt to offset Mike’s dreary tone.

  “How are you doing, kiddo?”

  Zach frowned. “I’m fine. What’s up?” he asked.

  “I guess it does us no good to beat around the bush.”

  “Beat around the bush about what?”

  “Butch died this morning.”

  Zach stopped in his tracks and squeezed his eyes shut then opened them wide. Nope, he wasn’t having a bad dream. “What?”

  “Your uncle died this morning.”

  Zach felt choked by his collar, so he tugged it. “I don’t understand.”

  “I hate being the bearer of this kind of news, especially when it involves Butch.”

  A face popped into Zach’s mind. “Does my mom know?”

  “No, I’m sure she doesn’t.”

  Zach scrubbed his face with his free hand. His mom, Sarah, and Butch weren’t particularly close, primarily because Butch didn’t get along with her husband, Zach’s father, Langston. Zach wanted to call his mother right away and break the news to her. She should hear it from him, but first he needed the details.

  “How the hell did he die?”

  “He’d been sick for a while.”

  Zach looked up and down the busy avenue, barely able to absorb his surroundings. “Is this a fucking joke?”

  “I wouldn’t joke about this with you, kiddo.” Mike paused. “Your uncle had cancer.”

  “Cancer? No way. He would’ve said something to me or my mom if he had cancer.”

  “I don’t know what to say to you other than you know Butch. He likes to do shit on his own terms. He was ornery in that way. But listen, we don’t have time to rake him over the coals for being an asshole about this. Where are you right now?”

  “Wait a fucking second,” Zach barked. He needed a fucking moment. “Just wait.”

  Zach needed to sit. His head was spinning as he turned in circles, looking for a bench or patio table. There was nothing. Instead, he focused on the passing cars and the people whooshing by as if they had all the cares in the world, just not the same as his. Suddenly it sank in—his favorite uncle was actually dead. And of cancer? Butch was sixty-three years old. Sure, he’d lived on the edge. He ate whatever the hell he wanted and drank libations as though they were flowing from the fountain of life.

  Women were his weakness, and his current wife, Betsy, was his fifth. Butch always married age-appropriate women, but he liked his side pieces forty years younger. But it wasn’t the women or strong drink that kept Butch up all day and most of the night. Like Zach, his uncle was addicted to his work. The exhilaration of making a lot of money for his clients gave Butch the kind of hard-on no female in the world could ever inspire. So if any of his uncle’s indulgences had sent him to an early grave, Zach would’ve felt better about saying goodbye to him forever. But holy fuck, he never thought he’d be mentioning “cancer” and “Butch Benjamin” in the same breath.

  “Are you ready to continue? I don’t have all day,” Mike said.

  Zach cleared his tight throat. “Okay, yeah.” He wasn’t ready, though.

  “Listen, I don’t want to be an insensitive asshole here, but you knew Butch. Business goes on even if he doesn’t.”

  Zach stopped rubbing his eye. “I know. And I’m in New York today and flying to Sydney tomorrow.”

  “The funeral’s tomorrow. I need you back here in LA so we can talk.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “There are some details that need handling, and you’re the only one who can do it.”

  Zach sighed sharply. “What details?” Changing his plans was the last thing he wanted to do.

  “I can’t tell you over the phone. I’ll tell you tomorrow. The funeral starts at ten. The service will be held at the temple on...”

  “Fuck,” Zach said, rubbing his eyes again. “I don’t do funerals. Butch knows that. He won’t expect me to go.” He stared at the passing cars as his eyes regained focus. It had just occurred to him that he was speaking as though his uncle were still alive, because no matter how hard he tried to come to grips with the reality of Butch’s death, he couldn’t.

  “No problem. Then meet me at Mount Sinai cemetery for the burial.”

  “I don’t do those, either.”

  “You’re killing me, kid. Then don’t come into the fucking service. It starts at eleven. I’ll meet you at the gate of the mausoleum at fifteen after eleven. My secretary will text you the details. Be there,” Mike said and hung up.

  Zach made a beeline back to his hotel room. Once inside, he was sweating up a storm, so he stripped out of his jacket and damp shirt then downed a scotch on the rocks before calling his mother, Sarah. When he told her the news, she was quiet.

  “Mom, you still there?” he asked.

  “I am,” she softly said. “I can’t make it to the funeral, but I’ll send Jean my condolences.”

  He jerked his head. What the fuck. “Jean was his third wife, Mom. He’s now married to Betsy.”

  “Oh, well, I don’t know her.”

  “Mom, are you okay?” She sounded indifferent about her brother’s death, which wasn’t like her at all.

  “I’m late for one of my classes. I’ll call you later.” She ended their call.

  That was yesterday, and she’d never called him back. He hadn’t followed up with her, either. As he stood at the gates of Butch’s final resting place, he was still wondering what in the hell was behind her reaction.

  The rain was pouring down, but Zach wasn’t compelled to seek shelter inside Butch’s mausoleum, which was fit for a king. The building had to have been about fifteen hundred square feet. It was made of white stone and had columns, a domed roof, and golden double doors with stained-glass panels in the middle of each. He speculated that the inside looked like a scaled-down version of the Sistine Chapel, but there was no way he was going to verify his guess. He’d rather remember Butch alive and picking his brain for business tips while pretending to already know everything Zach told him.

  Zach checked his watch then huffed impatiently. Mike was twelve
minutes late. Zach walked to the nearest trash can to discard the rest of his cigarette. He decided to get back on the wagon while reaching into the pocket of his leather jacket for another. The contradictory nature of his urges hadn’t escaped him.

  “Shit,” he muttered, scratching his forehead, then he sighed heavily and tossed the entire pack of cigarettes in the trash.

  Butch’s dead body was in that fucking mausoleum. He would never see his uncle again, and Zach thought that perhaps he should run into his uncle’s final resting place and kiss his cold body goodbye. After taking a moment to check in with himself, he just couldn’t do it. Dead bodies—and the spirits and shit that they left behind—gave him the willies. Now his uncle was joining the others in the universe of the unseen and unheard.

  Zach had to get the hell off the grounds and was just about to race to his car, where he would text Mike and tell him they could meet later for a drink at Rocky’s in Santa Monica or some other place of Mike’s choosing, when a beautiful woman wearing a black business suit galloped past him. He had turned in time to catch a glimpse of her stunning face under the expanse of a wide black umbrella.

  Zach couldn’t take his eyes off her. The woman’s skirt and jacket fit her sexy curves like a glove, and the scent of her perfume was sweetly alluring. Zach wasn’t the kind of guy who lost his mind over beautiful women, yet he couldn’t look away from her as she scampered past the iron gates and kept running until she entered Butch’s final resting place. It took a few moments for the effect she had on him to wear off. He was about to turn away and text his uncle when he saw a man walking toward him from the back of the mausoleum. Zach couldn’t see the man’s face, but he had a familiar walk. The man raised a hand, and that was when Zach knew it was Mike.

  The beautiful woman was no longer on Zach’s mind as he walked toward Mike, but his anxiety was back as well as his extreme curiosity regarding what was so important that their meeting had to take place right then and there. The two men shook hands when they were face-to-face.

  “How long have you been out here?” Mike asked.

  “About twenty minutes.”

  “It’s raining. You should’ve come in.”

  Zach folded his arms. “I don’t mind the rain. So what’s this about?”

  “Cutting to the chase, just like your uncle.”

  Zach shrugged.

  “Butch has made you trustee of his estate, which gives you…” Mike said.

  He felt himself leaning away from the bearer of news he didn’t want to hear. “I know what it gives me.” He suspected what Mike had to tell him had something to do with business, perhaps one last minor request. But hell, Butch had a wife and fucking Linus, his stepson, who was president of BLB. They got along. Why in the hell didn’t Butch make him trustee? “Does Linus know about this?”

  “Yes,” Mike said with a firm nod.

  From the look on Mike’s face, Zach could tell his cousin wasn’t happy about it. “What about Betsy?”

  “What about her?”

  “What did Butch leave her?”

  “Nothing.”

  Zach snorted. “Fucking Butch. He’ll eventually let the ladies know what they really meant to him.”

  Mike looked at him as though he couldn’t give a damn about figuring out what Zach meant by that.

  Zach shook his head. “At least that explains why she’s not taking my calls.” He had called her twice last night, before and after his flight, and once that morning. “But I don’t have the time, manpower, or desire to run Butch’s operation and mine too. But he knew that.”

  “I know. But Butch does what he wants.”

  “So what’s Linus supposed to do?”

  “You have to ask him. But Butch wasn’t happy with his work.” Mike put a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “As you know, you can always designate another trustee, but…”

  “All right,” he said. “Then I designate Linus. Let’s get going on that.”

  Mike was shaking his head. “He’s not an option.”

  “He’s an option if I make him one.”

  “That’s not going to happen, and we can talk about a short list later.”

  “A short list?”

  “Maybe Sarah…”

  “No. I don’t want my mother near Butch’s business, and she wouldn’t want to be near it, either.”

  “That’s fine. But before we figure it out, there’s one matter I need you to take care of immediately. It’s regarding a talent agency, AMTA.”

  “What does Butch’s business have to do with a talent agency? He stayed away from the entertainment and arts sector,” Zach said.

  “He had his hands in a lot of pots.” Mike glanced slightly to the left then right, then he took two steps forward to get closer. “But I need you to disburse his shares back to the original shareholders,” he whispered before handing Zach an envelope that had been tucked between his arm and the side of his chest.

  Zach started ripping it open. “You mean sell the shares back to them?”

  Mike put a hand on top of Zach’s. “Not here. But we want you to get rid of them. No moneys should be exchanged.”

  Zach scratched the back of his neck. “Why the hell not?”

  “It’s what your uncle wanted.” He turned and looked over his shoulder as funeral goers began pouring out of the mausoleum. “I have to get back. Come by the office in the morning to sign some papers. Seven o’clock.”

  Zach stopped himself from grabbing Mike by the shoulder to demand he be up-front about what the hell was truly going on between Butch and AMTA, but he didn’t want anyone to know he’d been at the cemetery. Last night, he’d already held his own personal memorial service for his uncle. Before bed, he had two shots of whisky, one for Butch and another for himself. Then he sat for a long time, replaying good memories of his uncle as he tried to resolve all the lousy feelings that were stirring inside him.

  It wasn’t as if he were one of those men who wouldn’t let himself cry. He was just too angry at Butch for not letting anyone know he was sick. Plus, he wasn’t ready to run into Betsy or Linus now that he’d heard why she wasn’t answering or returning his calls. Butch had left her nothing, and she had put up with a lot of his shit over the six years they had been married. His uncle was a lot of things, but never had Zach suspected him of being that cold-blooded.

  Zach would let Betsy grieve for a day and cool down a bit, then he’d arrange a meeting with her. He would give her exactly what she deserved, everything. So he rushed to his car and got the hell out of there before anyone could see him.

  Curiosity was killing Zach. He tore open the envelope as soon as he walked into his Malibu beach house. Last night, his flight had arrived late. He hadn’t expected to be back in LA for a while, so there was no food in the refrigerator and no cook on staff. He had the Uber driver stop by Molto Famoso Subs so he could pick up a foot-long meatball sandwich for dinner. He’d eaten only half of it then, and since he was back home, he took the rest out of the refrigerator and warmed it in the microwave for a minute and a half. Now that he had breakfast and lunch on a plate, he carried his flimsy meal into the den.

  He flopped down on the sofa and absorbed a view of the ocean. There was nothing spectacular about it, really. It wouldn’t be worth much until sunset. That was when the view started living up to its multimillion-dollar price tag. Zach focused on the waves, which rolled smoothly into shore and back out to sea. Their movement was nothing like the rough couple of days he’d had. He took a few more bites of his sandwich then stared at the envelope. It was time to see what was behind Mike’s bizarre instructions regarding AMTA shares.

  Time ticked by. He was captivated by what he was reading. His uncle had purchased his shares of the company almost six months ago when the price had dropped to record lows. All the previous shareholders had owned stock in the company since 1951. There were six names on the list that Zach recognized, and they were men from families with old and strong money. Not only that, but they all had sold their shares to Butch within the same week.