{"id":496,"date":"2009-01-20T14:15:40","date_gmt":"2009-01-20T20:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theproviso.com\/?page_id=496"},"modified":"2026-02-22T18:51:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T23:51:00","slug":"the-law-of-unintended-consequences","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/extras\/vignettes-outtakes\/dirty-little-secrets\/the-law-of-unintended-consequences\/","title":{"rendered":"The Law of Unintended Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

JUNE 2004<\/p>\n

Allentown, Pennsylvania<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cTAIGHT, SO HELP me, if you throw me out of my own company\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my company now, Roger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou put a gun to my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastian slowly rose to his full height from where he bent over the CEO\u2019s desk\u2014his, now\u2014and stared at Roger Oth with a well-practiced stare. Satisfied when Roger squirmed, he said, \u201cYes, I did. Knox Hilliard makes for a particularly lethal weapon\u2014especially since he was the one who figured it all out.\u201d Oth\u2019s color dropped only at the latter piece of information, which was exactly the reaction Sebastian had expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2014 Hilliard\u2019s been through my books?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that\u2019s always the risk you run with me. Family ties and all that. Man\u2019s a genius with paper trails.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a genius that even the FBI can\u2019t find his<\/em> illegal operations,\u201d Oth sneered. \u201cUnlike him, I didn\u2019t do anything illegal and you know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastian inclined his head. \u201cYou\u2019re right. Your only crime is being stupid, but either way, I don\u2019t give a fat rat\u2019s ass. Get out.\u201d When Oth balked, Sebastian tilted his head and blinked. \u201cFraud is a felony, remember. Knox could very easily convince the DA here that you were the mastermind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFen Hilliard was right about you, Taight,\u201d Oth snarled as he stalked toward the door of the massive office suite.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re such good friends with Fen,\u201d Sebastian said blithely at his back, \u201cwhy didn\u2019t you ask him to help you? He could have found your problem as easily as Knox did.\u201d Oth stopped abruptly. \u201cExcept \u2026 if you had<\/em> taken this to Fen, he would\u2019ve done exactly what I just did.\u201d Oth sucked in a sharp breath, then continued toward the door, slamming it behind him.<\/p>\n

Sebastian strode over to the window to watch Oth be escorted out of the building and off the property by two Lancaster County, Pennsylvania deputies. Sebastian sucked up a chestful of air. He dreaded what had to be done next. He\u2019d done it too many times and it never failed to nauseate him.<\/p>\n

As he left the office and clicked down the stairs, he called the next most important person in this entire fiasco. \u201cYo, Mitch. I\u2019m getting ready to do the deed. How fast can you get your process rolling?\u201d Sebastian sighed at the answer and pinched the bridge of his nose. \u201cYeah, I know I didn\u2019t give you much time. It was unavoidable.\u201d Another sigh. \u201cAll right. See you in \u2026 \u201d He checked his watch. \u201cAn hour? Your office?\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time he clapped his phone closed, he\u2019d walked across the parking lot between the office building of Jep Industries and its factory. Three at a time, he took the metal stairs that led to the grated catwalk that overlooked the entire assembly floor, which was a hive of activity. None of the people on that floor had a clue that life as they knew it was over.<\/p>\n

There, at the rail looking down: Knox Hilliard, the Chouteau County, Missouri, prosecutor. Morgan Ashworth, economist. \u00c9tienne LaMontagne and his brother-in-law, Emilio Bautista, together the holders of most of the patents of Jep Industries\u2019 specialized products.<\/p>\n

Two more Lancaster County deputies mingled around Sebastian\u2019s four cousins and all six men looked to him as he approached, all of them grim.<\/p>\n

\u201cMorg. You ready to front this and quash all the rumors?\u201d Sebastian murmured. \u201cAt least until Mitch gets it done?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d he said shortly. Morgan had his doubts about Sebastian\u2019s sanity. \u201cI hope this works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will,\u201d Knox grunted. \u201cYou just have to be able to follow it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebastian and Morgan traded glances. Knox said that like it would be easy.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u00c9tienne. Are you satisfied now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNon!<\/em>\u201d \u00c9tienne burst out in a tirade at Sebastian\u2014in French.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou shit,\u201d Knox muttered with a glare. \u201cThirty years and you still<\/em> can\u2019t be pissed off in English.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emilio laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cScrew you, Knox. I said\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t bother,\u201d Sebastian snapped. \u201cIt\u2019s not worth repeating. \u00c9tienne, shut the hell up and be grateful we got you out of those stupid licensing agreements. Don\u2019t you ever<\/em> sign so much as a check to your babysitter before you talk to us. You got it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00c9tienne glared at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to come back to bite you in the ass, Sebastian,\u201d Morgan rumbled. \u201cYou and Mitch both.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably,\u201d Sebastian returned, uneasy with the speed at which this takeover had gone down and why. He hated working blind. There would be consequences from this that he couldn\u2019t see and wouldn\u2019t be able to forestall\u2014and probably years down the road. He could only hope Knox\u2019s elaborate scheme worked, but then, Knox was a master at elaborate schemes that worked.<\/p>\n

Every. Damn. Time.<\/p>\n

Sebastian swallowed, his stomach roiling. \u201cAll right, gentlemen,\u201d he muttered. \u201cTime to put twelve hundred people out of their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

★<\/p>\n

20260222<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUNE 2004 Allentown, Pennsylvania \u201cTAIGHT, SO HELP me, if you throw me out of my own company\u2014\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s my company now, Roger.\u201d \u201cYou put a gun to my head.\u201d Sebastian slowly rose to his full height from where he bent over the CEO\u2019s desk\u2014his, now\u2014and stared at Roger Oth with a well-practiced stare. Satisfied when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":39,"menu_order":4122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-496","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23471,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/496\/revisions\/23471"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}