There was a murmur in the courtroom, everyone shocked that Judge Kragle would dare send Tanner Storm, the son of a billionaire, to jail. Tanner just smiled. He’d be out in six hours, max. He had nothing to worry about.
“After your jail sentence, you’ll be under house arrest in the same building your tenants are living in. You will live there for twenty-four days, starting the first day of December, and ending on Christmas Day, December Twenty-Fifth.”
The judge paused, and Tanner’s eyes widened in shock. He felt his first stirrings of real unease. There was no way that he could stay in that building for such an extended time. It didn’t even have Internet access. How was he supposed to get anything done?
“Furthermore, you aren’t allowed to do any updates, additions, construction, repairs, or alterations on your own apartment that you don’t provide for the rest of the building first,” the judge continued. “If you want to bring the comforts of home to the complex, be my guest, but your unit will be the last to be worked on. The conditions of the building are appalling, and it would do you some good to learn a bit of humility. Your father is a good man, a man who is obviously trying to teach you much needed respect for those around you. He has served this community well since moving here, and he has given you this opportunity in the hopes that you will do the right thing.”
“But—” Tanner was getting desperate.
“I’m not finished! You will also be required to serve one hundred and twenty hours of community service during your time.”
“I can’t serve all those hours and still do my job,” Tanner burst out, fury overcoming his usual discretion.
“I guess you’ll have to take time off from work, Mr. Storm. You will serve every single hour or I’ll impose the full sentence allowed by law — five years in a state prison.”
Judge Kragle sat back and looked Tanner in the eye. Tanner attempted to exude confidence, but the set of his incredibly high-priced attorneys’ shoulders told him more than anything that he just wasn’t getting out of this.
“Do I need to scrub some graffiti off ghetto walls?” Tanner made no attempt to hide his sarcasm. He had donated astronomical amounts of money to charity in his life; his time, however, was priceless, and he wasn’t happy about having to share it — to waste it, probably.
“No, Mr. Storm. You’ll be volunteering as Santa Claus this season.”
Tanner stared back in horror as the judge banged his gavel and the courtroom erupted. Reporters tried in vain to get a statement from him as — the grossest indignity of all — he was handcuffed and led away through a back door.
Merry freaking Christmas to him!
Chapter Two
Tanner ground his teeth while he packed a bag. Nope. Wouldn’t need his hand-tailored suits. Nope. Wouldn’t need his Rolex. Nope. Wouldn’t need anything he had in his penthouse on top of a luxury high-rise in downtown Seattle.
Anything he took with him to his temporary prison would stay behind when he left. He wouldn’t want to bring back the filth he was sure was going to seep into his very bones while he stayed in that wretched building for three long weeks and change.
He’d fought the judge’s orders — paid a lot of his own money to his useless attorneys to get him out of this ridiculous sentence. They’d been sweating as they told him they couldn’t get the judge’s ruling overturned. Tanner delivered a savage kick to his newly bought duffel bag, which had the misfortune to be lying in his path.
“Are you almost ready, Mr. Storm?”
Tanner nearly growled at the two officers waiting in his doorway. He hadn’t even been allowed to come back to his penthouse without escorts. No. They thought he might be a flight risk. Damn right he was a flight risk.
They’d slapped some ridiculous contraption on his ankle as if he were a real criminal, and they were hauling him by police car to the apartment building in what had been one of the less affluent parts of the city.
Still, over the past decade, the city had vastly improved the area near where the building was located, and the site was ideal for a profitable project. With Tanner designing and building, the area would be brand new and his bank account would grow even fatter.
But nothing had gone right since he’d taken over the damned place. He’d been trying to buy off the tenants, get them to leave, and get going on demolition, but only half the people had taken his more than generous offer. The remaining tenants flatly refused to budge.
His legal team hadn’t found any loopholes yet, so he’d left it to his very efficient business crew to help out. He hadn’t known the heat in the building had been turned off, and if he’d been aware of his employees’ plans, he would have called an immediate halt. He wasn’t a monster. Not that the judge had let him get that far in his explanations.
“Not yet,” Tanner finally snapped at the officers. Their impatience was becoming almost palpable as he took his sweet time.
Tanner was beginning to think that proving his father wrong just wasn’t worth it. But he’d already started down this path and he certainly wouldn’t be called a quitter. No, he’d pretend to be a party his father’s scheme for family reunification — for now. But only because he saw the potential to add to his own portfolio. He’d construct a new complex in place of the monstrosity his father had given him. Piece of cake, piece of lucrative cake. He just had to get the stupid tenants to vacate first.
Because his father had put certain annoying clauses in the contract, Tanner couldn’t force the people out; all he could do was offer them generous moving packages. Why did everything have to be so difficult? He should tell his father to kiss off and just walk away from the whole project. And it would have been so easy to do that. Why did the though turn his stomach?
Okay, okay. He loved his family, even if they’d run into a few speed bumps over the years.
Crew was now married and in love, happier than Tanner had ever seen him. Well, that was good for his brother, but none of that was in the cards for him. He was just trying to make an honest buck — well, an honest billion bucks — and between his father and this freaking Judge Kragle, he was hitting walls left and right.
Tanner searched for the running shoes his assistant had picked up for him. He’d sent the man out to buy all new clothes from a local mall. When Tanner was down at those decaying apartments, he didn’t want to be tabloid fodder.
Hell, he didn’t know how to shop, hadn’t done it, well, ever that he could remember. Yes, he’d shopped with short-term girlfriends in some high-end malls on the banks of the Seine, but he’d never once entered a middle-class mall, or any mall, in America.