Chapter 3 – Guilt

Running a hand through his hair, he stepped off of the elevator of his building and walked towards his condo. This was, quite literally, the worst day of his life and this condo was the only shelter that he would have from it. Outside, he was the failure CEO and now compliant in investment and securities fraud. This time last week, he had been the most powerful man in this town, he had been the most powerful CEO in the world and now he was sinking back. Opening up his door, he hung his coat on the rack near the door and quickly shut the door behind him.

This place had been his home, ever since he had moved out of his parent's home. He lived on 11th Aveneue, near the waterfront and at night he had a spectacular view of the Hudson River and the Financial District. Stepping towards one of the large windows in the main room, he leaned up against the window frame and stared towards the Avenue of the Americas. He had fully intended on that being his playground, it had been his pet project for months and he had fully committed the company that his family had built into buying it. Now, his father was in control of it and he was on the verge of having the last bits of reputation that he had left, destroyed completely.

Turning back, he looked back to his home.

This was the only thing that he had left in his control, this $69 Million Dollar Condo. At first, when he had moved into it, it felt like was living in a hotel and he didn't like it. But the next morning, after the move was complete, he woke up to the sight of the sun shining over the Hudson River and he was entranced by it. More than likely, this is where he would reside, going into his forced retirement before he was thirty. And in this entire situation, the thing that depressed him the most was the fact that his career and his reputation would be gone before he hit the age of thirty.

Trevor was very rich, and he didn't have to work a day in his life, but he loved working, he loved working in general and he'd never be able to get a job in this town or in any firm in the world after this. They'd suspect him of having that bad reputation of screwing people over. It didn't matter if it was the entire workforce of INGB or the investors in John Marcus's Firm, those actions would stay with him for the rest of his professional life and they would both end his professional life.

Sighing, he walked across the main room and found himself in his hall closet, it really was its own room in general, but he liked to refer to it as his hall closet. It served as his closet for the master bedroom, and after walking to the back of the room, he found himself presented with a large safe.

He had everything that was important to him in that safe. He had about a $1 Million Dollars in cash, 5 gold bars, his social security number, his birth certificate, and his college degrees in it. Another crime that he could potentially get slapped for was the million dollars in cash and the gold bars in his safe. The US Government wanted to tax that million and they prohibited private ownership of gold bullion. It was a life line in case the bottom dropped out of his life and though this couldn't make the bottom drop out of it, he had to make sure that it was there, for his own sake.

Punching in his code to the safe, turning the dial on the front of it and saying his passphrase, Trevor opened the safe and looked inside. On the top level, the $1 Million Dollars in cash was primly stacked, ready to be taken out if necessary, the second level had the gold bullion, the third had his most important documents in it and the bottom had his college degrees. Getting down to his knees, he reached for the documents and clutched them in his hands. All of that work, all of it was worthless now, he was simply versed in the process and the history of it, but he would never be able to work at any other establishment other than INGB and that would only be at the goodwill of his father, whom he doubted would ever let him back in to the company.

OOOOO

Jake sighed as he put his car into park and pressed the button on his dashboard that would close the garage door behind him. He had just been through one hell of a day. He had returned to become the principle owner and Chief Executive Officer of his company once again. To be honest, he didn't miss it, he had been thankful to step away from it, but the company had taken some hits in the past few years under his son's leadership and he felt that it was time to go back. A year ago, INGB's stock price was at $320 Dollars a share, and then Trevor initiated the buyout of the Avenue of the Americas and the stock lost 25% of its value. That was the beginning of his thoughts of removing Trevor as CEO. Thankfully, he could always do it.

As Chairman, he represented the hundreds of thousands of investors and he made it clear to express his opinion to his son. Trevor almost never listened, and that only accelerated his demise. Sighing, Jake grabbed the tick dossier that was in his passenger seat and opened his door. Setting the folder down on the roof his car, he reached in, grabbed his coffee and shut the door behind him with his foot before making his way into the house. He was so exhausted that he forgot to lock the door and to take his keys out of the ignition. But all thoughts of his car left his mind when he made it into the house. He spied his youngest child, Shawn, sitting at the island in the kitchen, typing on his laptop computer. Sighing, he slammed his folders on the next to him and looked up, "Why are you still up? It is 11:40 at night."

"Three essays, one for English and the other two are for History," Shawn said, not taking his eyes off of the computer. Jake had long come to the conclusion that his youngest son's work ethic and habits were much like his own, Trevor had Rose's habits and ethic, "Really important, and why weren't you home at 8:00 like you normally are? It's a two way street there Dad."

Jake smiled and settled himself on the stool and flipped open the first folder and the pen that he had attached to the folder itself, "I've had a very interesting day. I had to reverse a lot of bad decisions in twenty four hours that were made collectively over two years. That's why I'm late, and by the way smart ass, your mom knew I'd be late, I told her when she came down to the city and lunch with me. Speaking of which, where is your mom?"

"Sleeping," Shawn responded dully, "Morgan too, I was planning on going to sleep myself too, but I want to get these over with right now, is that okay?"

Jake nodded and wrote some notes on some problem areas that he had found in the cash reserves report, "I take it she told you what happened?"

"You and the Board removed Trevor as CEO of the company, he made the mistake of putting a freaking pension fund in an Investment Firm and he's going to go down for fraud and bribery," Shawn chuckled, "I can see where he got his business brains from, I know that it's stupid to do all of that."

Jake smiled, "Ever consider getting into the family business?"

"Every day of my life," Shawn nodded, still not meeting the curious glint in his father's eyes, "I've never really admitted this, because I knew you'd never let me live it down, but I've always admired everything you've done and I've hung on every word you always told Trevor, he never did that."

Jake smiled, "I might have a son take over for me yet."

"First rule of business," Shawn began.

"Don't trust anyone," Jake and Shawn said at the same time.

"Trusting people can end up screwing you over," Shawn added at the end.

"But Trevor's screwed himself and I don't know what to do," Jake retorted.

Shawn nodded, "College Degrees don't always guarantee that the recipient of them is going to do well in the real world. That Master Degree and that Bachelors at the end of the day don't mean shit if you're not prepared for it."

"You shouldn't dig at Trevor all the way," Jake told him, as he signed off another report that he had just skimmed over. In hindsight, he should have read all through it, but Jake had developed a unique talent of picking out the most important points in an incredibly convoluted and complex multipage document, "He's brilliant with numbers and stocks, he could pick out Million Dollars Stocks before he hit puberty, he's much better than me at it."

"But there's a difference between being good with finance and numbers then being a CEO," Shawn looked up from the computer this time, "You have to maintain the relationships between the Board, Executives and the General workforce, not just do things because you think it's financially wise. Did you ever wonder why the media sometimes refers to Trevor as the 'Failure Son'?"

"That's not true," Jake said weakly told his son.

"Is it not? Am I correct in saying that short of family, everyone on that Board wanted you back as CEO? Am I not correct in saying that when the stock when down last year, they almost revolted against you for not exercising your authority to bring him down? Am I correct in saying that from the moment he took over, you have done nothing but bitch at each other because you felt he was being foolish and naïve?" Shawn said, he was angry now, his father was trying to lessen his guilty conscious and Shawn was now bent on making his father understand that he didn't need to.

"You're right, but-…" Jake was cut off again by the younger man.

"There is no but, what you did was right, this company is your legacy and the legacy of this family and you put it in the hands of a family member who was inexperienced, unqualified, and underprepared to take care of it," Shawn brought up a finger and pointed it at his father, "All you can do now is wait and see if Trevor gets you your money back, most likely from stealing it from Mr. Marcus's other investors, and then do what you do to keep him out of prison. If he goes to prison, he won't have a shred of hope in working again, you know that I know that, all you can do is to be there for him Dad."

Jake blinked, Shawn had begun to speak again, "I can't understand why you defend him, he doesn't have any real talent beyond picking stock and balancing budgets, if he was going to be effective at all, he'd need to master the entire equation. Just help him get through it, but don't start blaming yourself, you didn't do any of this, you took a chance and it backfired."

"That's the truest thing I've heard all day," Jake realized.

"I'm glad I can help," Shawn said and looked back down to his computer.

"You ever consider becoming a lawyer?" Jake asked his son.

Shawn looked up to him and grinned, "Why would I want that, weren't you listening, I hope to have your job by the time I'm 21, so no law school for me."

"You might have a good shot at it," Jake said, he hadn't even opened his mind to the possibility of having Shawn succeed him. But that impassioned little rant was opening his mind to the possibility, "So your day was good."

Shawn chuckled, "I had a kick out of the news today."

"About Trevor?" Jake asked with a raised brow.

The younger man nodded, "I knew it would happen, smug moment."

"I'll make you CEO and Chairman yet," Jake chuckled and went back to his work.

OOOOO

Rose groaned and pulled the blanket tighter over her as she felt the bed sink down on one side. She was still in that place between sleep and consciousness and she must have been in a dream when Jake heard her utter a few dry words. There was something strange about Rose when she slept, when she dreamed, she talked in her dreams, every single time and she was known to say some of the wackiest shit ever. However, what she spouted off that night by far took the cake and he made a note in his mind to remind her she said it later. "Okay! Okay, make it quick and don't get it in my hair."

Jake looked at her incredulously and he couldn't help but laugh out loud and that caused Rose to shoot up. That was an after effect of spending most of her life in the Huntsclan and again, that was one of things she always did when she was woken up. Rose put her hand over her chest to catch her breath, "I can't believe you did that, you scared the holy shit out of me!"

"Okay, okay, don't get it in my hair?" He asked with an unbelieving deep chuckle, "Just what the hell kind of dream where you having there Rose?"

Rose looked down to the blanket, "You don't want to know."

"If I had more energy, I might, but for the moment you're correct," Jake nodded and as he slid his pajama bottoms on, he slumped down into the bed with a satisfied yawn, "I'm sorry I've been ignoring you, been really busy."

"It's okay," Rose nodded, "I like having time to myself."

He looked at her curiously, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Rose nodded with a smile, "And I know that you're happy about all this."

With those words, Jake leaned closer to her, "Who said I was happy about it?"

That had been the prevailing thought in the back of her mind for all of these years, that he had been waiting in the wings to pounce back on the company, but by his inflection and the tone of his voice, she suspected that she was wrong, and that surprised her greatly. This man that was now sitting in her bed and staring at her with puppy-dog eyes, waiting for her answer had built and empire of being driven and to have him just imply that he wasn't driven anymore was amazing, "Well, I've always assumed that you didn't want to leave it, that you just wanted to give Trevor a chance, but now that you're back I expected you to be on cloud nine or something."

"First of all," He said, leaning up and thumping her on the forehead, to which she promptly rubbed it and scowled at him, "You have to get something through that thick skull of yours, I do not miss it, I never did miss it. You think I like having about a hundred reports and contracts to sign before I got to sleep every night? You think I like having the pressure or the expectations of tens of millions of investors and employees on my shoulders? I don't miss it, I enjoyed my pseudo-retirement. I was still involved, but I wasn't in on the finer details and I loved it, but I had knew that if Trevor screwed up the company would need me again and I would most definitely go back to run it until I could actually train someone and someone who believes in my business model."

"You're still hoping that it's one of your children?" Rose asked dryly.

Jake nodded, "Shawn's got a lot of potential, I just need to push him in the right direction and you know, he just ranted my definition of a CEO, so I'm considering grooming him to take over for me."

Rose was serious now, "But he's still going to college, right? He said that he's going to college?"

"He said that a College Degree doesn't mean that you're a complete and total genius," Jake said with a loud yawn, "I want him to go to school but I'm not going to force him into doing it."

Rose scowled and reached up to slap the top of his head, when Jake recoiled and rubbed his head, he looked up to her, "What the fuck was that for?"

"He's going to school," Rose said and slapped him on the top of the head again, "Tell me you want him to go to school or I'm going to keep slapping you on top of the head."

Rose did it again and this time Jake caught her wrist and flung it back at her, "Rose! Damn it, stop it! I'm not going to force him to go to college if he doesn't want too and if he wants to come and work for me, I'll let him do that and if you hit me on more time, I swear that I'll-… eh… you're very lucky that you're good at having sex or you'd be out on the street before you could blink. Just don't worry about our kids Rose, they're more then capable and well off."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Rose unleashed her death glare on him one last time before turning over and leaning into her pillow.

'Fuck… I don't know what I'm doing, it's more like me making it up as I go along…' Jake thought as he leaned up against his pillow and as the lights in the room turned off with a clapping of his hands.

OOOOO