Adored (Masters and Mercenaries #8.5)(59)

“That sounds great.” As a person who’d made a lot of money on start-ups, he would look into that. One of his clients was Keith Langston, an angel investor. He’d taken some of Sanctum’s wealthy members and formed an investment pool for promising new technologies. Keith was known for having an almost preternatural ability to find start-ups that would pay off. This was one of those ideas he would float by Keith. “It should make Dixon Technologies a fortune.”

“My brother wants the fortune for himself.”

Shit. “Patrick wants to sell the idea to an energy company, doesn’t he?”

Now that he looked back, he could remember the way Patrick Dixon had sweated the day he’d come in, how his hands had been shaky. At the time, Mitchell had chalked it up to Patrick being upset about what his brother was doing. What if he’d been nervous about selling his brother out?

Harvey nodded. “I didn’t know until he had me committed. He hired a police officer on the take to set me up and force me into rehab. He thought he could wrest the company away from me. All it would take was Frances and him forcibly buying me out. Our father put it in our bylaws in case one of us was incapacitated or doing something wrong.”

“Frances is your sister. Why didn’t she get you out of there?”

“Patrick has her believing I’ve gone crazy with rage about the solar project. I’ve been secretive the last two years because I knew Patrick would want to make as much money as possible off this tech. I want to help people. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I want to share this, keep the cost down. Patrick would never let me do that. Somehow, he found the plans and he started talking to an energy company. They’re going to bury it. The only reason I’m still alive is he doesn’t know where I hid the specs.”

“Why would he send people after me? Someone’s been making my life very difficult. There’s been a campaign of harassment against me and the woman in my life. What’s the purpose of that?”

“Our father always taught Patrick to have a contingency plan. If I’m convicted of a violent crime, they split my piece of the company and Patrick can still make his deal. It could be worth millions. It could take much longer to make that kind of money if we take the product to market. Development and retail takes money and time. He wants the money now.”

The door opened and Flynn walked through. “Ready to go?”

His brother looked particularly dapper this morning. He’d spent the last few nights in their guest room, getting to know both Mitch and Laurel, and one of the things Mitch had discovered was his brother’s penchant for wearing clothes that weren’t selected for their utility. Maybe they could shop while they were in San Francisco. Laurel would probably be shocked if he showed up in a non-black suit. Or was it navy he was wearing today? He must be getting old. He never bought navy suits. Were his eyes going?

“Give me a couple of seconds, Flynn.” He saw an opportunity. If Harvey was telling him the truth and he wasn’t a big old crazy pants who had gotten out of the asylum, then Mitch could help him get his company back, and it looked like old Harvey would be needing a lawyer in his near future. “I’m going to put in a call to Lieutenant Brighton and we’ll get this cleared up.”

Flynn sighed. “This is a lawyer thing, isn’t it? I can already see billable hours lighting up your eyes.”

Harvey’s eyes widened. “Lawyer. Yes.” He reached into his pants, but the pockets were empty.

Flynn seemed to understand. He pulled out his wallet and handed Harvey a bill.

Harvey smiled and slapped a five-dollar bill on Mitch’s desk. “There you go. That’s a retainer. Now you’re my lawyer, right?”

For five dollars? Someone had been watching way too much TV. “That is five dollars. That will retain approximately thirty seconds of my time.”

Flynn frowned. “Mitchell.”

Mitch shrugged. “I did not go to law school for five dollars, and I’ve got a baby on the way. Those little suckers are expensive.”

“Five dollars now and a promise to let you handle Dixon Technologies contracts and sales in the future. I’m firing every single person who sided with Patrick.”

A firm of that size and with those types of ideas would be worth thousands of billable hours…visions of college funds danced through his head. He took the five dollars. “You’ve got yourself a lawyer. Now let’s get some cops here because this is going to get so messy.”

Lawyers liked messy. Messy took time. Messy made money.

He wondered briefly how many lawyers actually represented the men who had harassed them. And Harvey better be telling the truth because he damn straight wasn’t repping the man who had sent someone to shoot Laurel. He would shove that five dollars so far up Harvey’s * it would come out his nose.

“I wouldn’t dial that number if I were you,” a new voice said.

He looked up and his day went to complete hell. Sharon walked in, her eyes wide, tears running down them. Patrick Dixon was behind her, a gun pointed at the back of her head.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Bradford. This one didn’t have an appointment either,” she said.

Nope. He really needed some new security to keep the riffraff away. It looked like they were going to have a Dixon family reunion, and he hoped it didn’t turn deadly.