"How do I look?" Jaime asked her husband.
"Like a goddess," he smiled. "Is this what you had in mind for a wedding gown?"
"I never actually decided on what I wanted to wear to what would've been our big, fancy wedding. I'm quite happy with what I wore to our actual wedding," she smiled. "You need some help with those?"
"Please," John said and Jaime fastened one of his cuff links on his right arm before she moved to his left. "Nervous?"
"You have no idea," Jaime chuckled. "If this goes as planned, we will be rid of Marcus."
"It will go as planned because you planned it."
"You do know that I'm just a girl from Iowa who got lucky, right?"
"You're not lucky, my love, you are brilliant," he smiled before he pressed a soft kiss on her lips.
"Let's go get 'em."
"Isn't it past your bedtime?" Marcus whispered as they stood in front of each other.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jaime smiled.
"I'm sure I could find out," he told her.
"Not when your people are jumping ship… literally and figuratively," she chuckled as she took a sip of champagne. After her talk with Gary a week before, Jaime got a call from Carol that one of Marcus' ships had an engine failure before a fire started and the crew had to bail out. "You're not gonna be able to do much of anything soon."
"I'm not scared you," Marcus laughed.
"Too bad. You should be."
Jaime and Marcus stared at each other for a long moment before he was called to the stage. "Excuse me."
"I give you Alexander Marcus, CEO of Thirty-One International," the announcer said. Marcus walked up the short set of stairs and began talking. Jaime didn't pay him much attention.
"We ready?" Jaime asked.
"We are," Spock smirked. "Let us join the others."
"… is something that we all must work for," Marcus said.
"I wish he would just shut up," Bones grumbled.
"Ask and you shall receive," Jaime smiled as Spock killed the microphone remotely and a video popped up on the screen behind Marcus.
"This is the second time this month that we've had a failure in the ship's engineering department. I think this one might be catastrophic. The captain doesn't look happy. As a matter of fact, he's down right pissed," a guy in his twenties, wearing Thirty-One International gear, said into the camera from inside one of Marcus's ships. He turned the camera to one of his friends. "What do you think, Slone?"
"I think it's easy to be mad at the engineers but this is a problem with a bunch of ships across the board. Fires and broken equipment. I think Marcus should've sold the company like he said he would. It's not worth it to get ourselves killed delivering cargo. The captain is thinking about contacting the World Shipping Council. This is ridiculous."
The video changed.
"I don't care how you do it, do it," Marcus said on the screen.
"Sir, we're talking about a school," Bradley told him.
"Is that a problem?" Marcus asked.
"Sir…" Bradley started but Marcus gave him a look. "No, sir."
"I want her dead. Make sure he shoots a few other people so it just looks like he snapped on his former classmates. Kirk is a mechanical engineer, he'll find her in Etcheverry Hall," Marcus said. "Finney. The kid's name is Benjamin Finney."
The video changed.
"You think I would just sell them out. You're crazy," Stiles, beat up and bloody, said to Marcus.
"I'm disappointed in you. Mister Stiles," Marcus sneered. "I'm giving you an opportunity to expand your horizons. Why take Harrison's scraps? Why work for that child who married his son?"
"She's smarter than you on your best day," Stiles told him.
"What? You pass that cute little ass around the office too?" Marcus chuckled.
"Go fuck yourself," Stiles spat.
"It didn't have to be this way," Marcus said before he made a gesture to someone off-screen. The other man moved in and snapped Stiles' neck.
The video changed.
"Carol, sir?" Bradley asked. "I can't."
"You work for me," Marcus growled.
"I work for her too and she's your daughter. If you don't give a damn about her, that's your problem but there is no way in hell I would do anything to hurt her, let alone have her killed," the bodyguard said.
"You think you'll end up with her? That's cute. She's weak. I tried to make her into what she should be but she's never been able to do what needs to be done. You're better without her."
"You're a monster."
"You just figured that out. Bradley, I'm disappointed."
"So am I. I quit," Bradley said.
"You can't quit. I own you."
"No, you don't."
"What is all this?" someone behind Jaime said. Other party guests expressed similar thoughts and questions as more videos played.
"You," Marcus looked at her. "You did this."
"I'm just a little girl who married into money, I don't know what you're talking about," Jaime shrugged.
"You think you can mess with me. You have no idea what I can do to you," Marcus growled.
"Nothing. You can't do a damn thing to me," she told him as the FBI agents made themselves known. "I told you that I would teach you something. Like, did you know that the fiduciary clause in Carol's contract is absolute?"
"Carol would never move against me," Marcus smiled.
"Except she did," Jaime smiled. "The warrant that these lovely federal agents have for your arrest was issued this afternoon. Carol petitioned the same judge to activate the clause in her contract to give he control over Thirty-One International."
"It'll take my lawyers an hour to…" Marcus started.
"You mean the company's lawyers. They don't for you any more, they work for me… well, for the moment," Carol told her father. "I've decided to sell the company like you should've done last year."
"Nobody will buy it from you," Marcus was seething and Jaime was loving it.
"My brother has already agreed to purchase Thirty-One International," Spock said.
Sybok was a corporate raider. His whole job was to buy companies for dirt cheap and sell the pieces. The deal they made with Carol was simple, Harrison Shipping would take over the contracts and pension for the employees and Sybok would get everything else. The price was the best part.
"For one whole dollar," Jaime smiled.
"I didn't even want that but the government has rules. Once Sybok pays all the back taxes, it'll be a half a million dollar investment anyway," Carol smirked.
"You're nothing without me," Marcus told his daughter.
"That's where you're wrong," Jaime chuckled. "With Harrison Shipping's expansion, we're in need of people with experience. Wanna guess who got herself a new job?"
"I will destroy…"
"Me and my family… yadda, yadda, yadda. We did this dance already, Alexander. You're a manipulative murdering asshole. What's more, I can prove it," Jaime said as Spock put the financial records on the screen. "The payouts. The contract killers. The memos where you ignore the concerns of your ships' captains while their crews get hurt or die. Failure… refusal to pay the insurance. And this is just the stuff our thirteen year old prodigy found last week. Add that to the stuff that Carol and Bradley gave to us for the feds and, well… you don't have a leg to stand on." They stared at each other for a long moment before she smiled. "I'm not so little now, am I?"
"Alexander Marcus, you're under arrest," Robbins said. Jaime watched as her dad's friend cuffed the insufferable asshole who's been giving them so much grief. "You have the right to remain silent. I strongly suggest you use it."
