Unlikely Hero

Brock Vencenza glad-handed the board members, smiling and nodding, making all the right noises. He just had to wrap this up and then he was off to the Cayman Islands for some richly deserved R&R. Deep sea fishing, baby.

He saw the last concerned stockholder out the door and headed for his desk, closing down his computer and tossing a few files into the in-box for Stephanie.

Speak of an angel; his intercom buzzed, Stephanie's voice coming next. "Brock, there's an Eric on the phone, says he has to talk to you. He won't even give me his last name, sir."

Brock frowned. Eric? Now there was a name he hadn't heard in awhile. Years. A lot of years. Enough years that it couldn't be the Eric his mind had automatically pulled up.

"It's probably just a salesman, Steph. Tell him I'm on vacation." His yacht was calling to him. Calling.

"I already did. Brock, he sounds too upset to be a salesman."

Brock growled. "Fine. Put him through." Steph was getting soft if she couldn't put off a nuisance call. He pressed the button for the outgoing line and barked out his name.

"Brock? Brock, it's me. Please, love. I need help." It was his Eric -- his silly, goofy, soft-hearted, ridiculously idealistic to the point of absolute fucking madness Eric -- with hysteria in his voice.

It might have been nine years and Eric might have dumped his ass hard, but Brock didn't even hesitate. "What do you need?"

"Help. Someone's kidnapped my daughter."

Brock stood up and grabbed his briefcase. "Where are you?"

"I'm downstairs. The security guard wouldn't let me in. Please, Brock. Josie's only three. She's got to be so scared."

"Don't move. I'm on my way." He hung up the phone and nodded to Steph as he passed her desk on the way to the elevators. "I'm off. You know the cell number if there's an emergency."

"Have fun, Brock."

He nodded to her again as the elevator came.

Two minutes later he was in the lobby, scanning it for his ex. God, nine years. That was a lot of fucking water under bridges that were long ago burned.

Eric Wilson was standing there, looking completely out of place in the glass and steel modernity of the lobby, reminding him oddly of the Scarecrow from Oz -- still as skinny as always, dressed in a button-down, a pair of khakis, a ball-cap. Jesus. The man had no fashion sense and was all arms and legs and nose and huge blue eyes and… Right. Zero fashion sense.

None.

And he looked like fucking shit.