Chương 4
Scheduled meetings he avoided until avoidance became more expensive than attendance.
Translated his impatience into sentences other human beings could survive.
He had considered this proof that he was efficient.
Now he wondered how many pieces of his company had been speaking to Claire because they had given up speaking to him.
The thought irritated him enough that he rejected it.
“For four years, you let me believe you were an employee with no financial interest.”
“I was an employee with a financial interest.”
“You know exactly what I’m saying.”
“Yes.”
“Did HR know?”
“About the inherited stake, yes.”
“Legal?”
“Yes.”
“My father?”
“He knew my grandfather’s structure.”
“Did he know you?”
“I met him twice.”
Adrian stared.
“When?”
“Once when I was twelve. Once when I was twenty-four.”
“You never told me that.”
“It never came up.”
“You’ve been my assistant for four years.”
“Executive assistant.”
“That is not the part of the sentence I’m objecting to.”
She looked down at the desk.
“Your father didn’t remember me the second time.”
Adrian’s anger found nothing to do with that.
Thomas’s decline had begun years before anyone used the word decline. Names escaped him. Then appointments. Then the route to a restaurant he had eaten at every Thursday for two decades.
He had still known his passwords.
Until the end, he had known those.
Adrian looked toward the photograph.
“Did you tell Priya about Northstar last night?”
“She already knew Northstar had consolidated the proxies. She didn’t know I was the beneficial owner.”
“When did she find out?”
“Three fourteen this morning.”
“And by seven twelve she had called an emergency meeting.”
“Yes.”
“To remove me.”
“To decide whether you remain CEO while this is investigated.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
“To the person being removed, remarkably similar.”
Claire’s expression softened for less than a second.
“You’re not helping yourself.”
“I wasn’t aware I had hired you to help anymore.”
“You didn’t.”
He looked back at the files.
Nathaniel Cross’s signature remained on the screen.
“You think Cross did this.”
“I think Cross’s name appears twice around a recipient that received money from your father’s account.”
“That’s not evidence he moved it.”
“I know.”
“Does Priya?”
“Yes.”
“Does the board?”
“The audit committee has the documents.”
“Then why are they meeting about me?”
“Because the authorization came through a device registered to your family office, and because your credentials touched the same system yesterday afternoon.”
Adrian’s head turned slowly.
“What?”
Claire’s eyes stayed on him.
“At four twenty-two, someone logged into the estate dashboard using your user ID.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know you say that.”
“I was here.”
“So was your phone.”
“My phone was with me.”
“Most of the time?”
He glanced at it.
The device sat beside his hand.
Yesterday had been a blur of people entering and leaving.
Lunch in the boardroom.
A call downstairs.
Twenty minutes in the fitness room.
His jacket hanging in his office while he showered after the gym.
“Claire.”
“I’m not accusing you.”
“Everybody keeps saying that directly before accusing me.”
“I’m telling you what the board sees.”
He stood abruptly.
The chair rolled back an inch.
His movement was fast enough that Claire’s shoulders tightened.
Adrian noticed.
He stopped.
The knowledge made him feel worse than the accusation.
He picked up his phone.
“I’m calling my mother.”
Claire stood.
“Not yet.”
He stared at her.
“You don’t get to say that.”
“If someone manipulated her—”
“If?”
“—then calling her from this office may warn the person who did it.”
“My mother is seventy-two years old.”
“Which does not make her incapable of making a phone call.”
“Be very careful.”
Claire’s voice remained quiet.
“I am being careful.”
“No, you’re implying my mother stole forty-two million dollars.”
“I’m saying someone used credentials she may have access to.”
“Same implication.”
“It isn’t.”
Adrian looked at the screen.
His mother’s name was already beneath his thumb.
He hesitated.
That hesitation embarrassed him.
Claire saw it and looked away, giving him the privacy of pretending she had not.
He lowered the phone.
“Who else knows?”
“Priya. Jonah. Bank fraud. Outside counsel. Cross may know we’re looking.”
“May?”
“He was notified of the board meeting.”
“Did you tell him why?”
“No.”
“Priya?”
“No.”
Adrian considered it.
“Then we have thirty-eight minutes before he arrives.”
“He’s already in the building.”
Adrian looked toward the door.
“When?”
“Seven fifty-six.”
“And you waited until now to mention it?”
“You were busy firing security.”
He gave her a look.
Claire’s mouth moved faintly.
This time he did laugh.
One short breath.
It surprised both of them.
Then his phone vibrated.
MOTHER.
The name lit the screen.
Neither spoke.
It vibrated again in Adrian’s hand.
Claire watched his face.
He answered.
“Mom.”
A pause.
Eleanor Cole’s voice came thinly through the speaker, not loud enough for Claire to hear words.
Adrian’s shoulders changed.
“Where are you?”
Another pause.
“No. Stay there.”
His eyes lifted to Claire.
“What did Nathaniel ask you to do last night?”
Silence.
Longer this time.
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Mom.”
Claire looked toward the windows.
When he spoke again, the CEO had vanished from his voice.
It was only a son.
“Tell me exactly what you did.”
His mother talked for nearly a minute.
Adrian did not interrupt.
At one point he reached for the desk and missed the edge by half an inch. He corrected the movement and rested his hand flat on the glass.
Claire pretended not to notice.
Finally he said, “Don’t call him. Don’t call anyone. I’m sending someone to you.”
He listened.
“No, Mom. No. I’m not angry.”
His face said something else entirely, but not at her.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“I know.”
He ended the call.
The phone remained in his hand.
Claire waited.
Adrian looked at his father’s photograph.
“She did it.”
Claire drew a slow breath.
“Did she say why?”
“He called her.”
“Cross?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Ten fifty.”
May you like
“Before the transfer.”
“He told her there was a problem with one of my deals. He said I couldn’t be involved because the board would have to report it.”
