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.
Wearing the scratchy jail clothes for the last three days had been seriously unpleasant, and he was determined to ban the color orange from his sight. But how much better were things now? For three weeks and more, twenty-four painful days, he was going to be stuck in denim and cotton, and even worse.
Polyester.
Tomorrow he had to put on a flipping Santa costume. Just the thought made his head itch. Who knows how many sweaty bodies had been in the same suit? He'd insisted that his assistant have it professionally cleaned. At least the senile judge had allowed him that much.
The man obviously needed to retire. It was long overdue and the judge looked like freaking Santa Claus himself. Maybe Judge Kragle should be the one down at the mall letting a bunch of sticky, snot-nosed brats climb all over him.
"Let's go," one of the officers said, this time not as pleasantly.
Tanner had dragged his feet long enough. If he didn't walk with them willingly, the fuzz were going to throw the handcuffs back on him and escort him through the building in a far less dignified manner than by simply walking behind him.