He's A Thief

BLAKE

I arrived on his floor and dashed through the first slit in the elevator doors as soon as it appeared. My feet sank into plush carpeting as I made my way to his office.

“Good morning Norma,” I greeted his secretary, an old battle ax of a woman who’d been with him since the beginning of time.

She lifted a white eyebrow and peered at me over the rim of her glasses. “You’re late Blake. Best go in quickly, Danny’s already been in there a while.”

I groaned, as I’d been hoping to beat my brother into the office. I actually liked my dad, so it would have been nice to have a few minutes to catch up. Guess I should have thought about that before taking so much time getting here.

“Get in there,” Norma instructed sternly. “Before Danny’s fanciful ideas have a chance to seep into the old man’s head.”

A soft chuckle I couldn’t hold in burst free. There were less than a handful of people in the world who would talk to or about my father that way. I loved Norma for it. “You’re right. Before we know it, we could be moving our headquarters to the moon because it would generate more publicity.”

The corners of her mouth twitched up. It was Norma’s version of a smile. I counted my interaction with her as a success and added the smile to my mental scoreboard before sweeping into dad’s office.

As Norma said, Danny was already in there. Like me, he was wearing a tailored suit that ran several thousand dollars. His was black to my charcoal, his hands shoved into his pockets. Pausing his pacing down the length of the office, he turned to look at me. “Blake, there you are. I was wondering when you were going to grace us with your presence. Dad and I were just talking about launching a new campaign. I have a social media strategy devised and I want to drive morale internally by setting in motion a promotion drive.”

Right down to business then. That was okay by me. Danny and I didn’t make small talk often. We both preferred getting to the point. No fake niceties exchanged that neither of us cared about anyway.

My dad, who had been absently harrumphing and murmuring while pouring over paperwork swept his glasses from his face and stood up, extending his hand to me. “Good to see you boy. How have you been?”

His iron grip closed around my fist before he pulled me into a brief, one armed hug.

“I’m good, Dad. You?”

I released him and stepped back. Grey blue eyes searched mine, questioning before he nodded with satisfaction and went back to his chair. “I’ve been busy. What do think of this social media campaign Danny’s babbling about?”

I didn’t have to look at my brother to know his own blue eyes would have narrowed to thunderous slits at my father’s choice of words. People often said that Dad could have easily been mistaken for our older brother with the similarities between us. Jet black hair, and piercing blue eyes with gray undertones, only Dad’s had lines around them that ours didn’t have. Not yet, anyway.

Danny would get them soon if he didn’t watch the scowling. I shrugged, lowering myself into a soft, black leather chair. “You know I don’t like social media, but Danny’s the marketing guy.”

“I swear you’re twenty-eight going on eighty,” Danny said. “Social media is the way of the future. Fuck, not even the future. It’s here now!”

Shrugging again, I ran a hand through my hair and winked at Dad. “At least I’m a handsome eighty.”

My father chuckled and went back to his paperwork. “Neither of you have a clue about being or even pushing eighty.”

“Neither do you.” I shot back. Dad was only in his late fifties.

“I still know a damn sight more than you boys.”

Danny walked to the chair next to mine, leaning over with his palms on the backrest. “I’ll take that as a yes for the campaign, then. Moving on. The promotions, I have a candidate in mind for the new general manager position.”

“As long as it’s not the manager of the New York property, I can probably get behind it,” I told him, reaching for my laptop in the bag beside my chair. New York was one of the reasons I had to come see my father.

Danny’s head swung to face me. “It is the New York manager, actually. Dustin’s a friend of mine, and he’s been with the company for a long time. He deserves this.”

I scoffed, firing up my laptop. “What he deserves is to go to prison.”

Dad finally looked up from the sheaf of papers on his desk. “What do you mean?”

His tone took on an icy edge. Dad knew me well enough to know I didn’t just say things like that, or make wild accusations. I was damn good at my job and he trusted me.

Pulling up the file I needed, I set the laptop down on his desk and turned the screen to face him. “Dustin’s been stealing money from us.”

“What?” Danny snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just told you, he’s a friend. He wouldn’t do that. Your math must be off. Run the numbers again.”

Irritation shivered up my spine. Thank God Dad was in charge, and not Danny. “I’ve run them again already. Three times. Your friend is a thief.”

“Fuck you.” Danny spat. “He’s not a—”

“Gentlemen.” My father interrupted in no uncertain terms. Danny shut up, but kept his glare on the back of my head. “Blake, I’ll take a look at this. But Danny, come on, you know better than to question Blake’s numbers.”

“What I know is that he’s just being full of shit to block Dustin’s promotion,” Danny thundered.

“I didn’t even know you wanted to promote anyone before I set foot in this office. Why would I randomly carry around evidence that someone’s been stealing from us on the off chance I could use it to block a promotion you propose?”

“I said I would look into it.” Dad said, looking from Danny to me and back again. I sighed, biting back the urge to punch my fucking brother in the face. He had a way of bringing out my inner teenage Neanderthal. “I wanted to talk to you about California, Blake. The property is doing well, but not as well as it should be.”

“Now there’s a manager you should be looking at then,” Danny interjected. Dad silenced him with a stern look.

“I hear the manager is wonderful, actually. I want Blake on the ground to assess the situation. The property is due for a visit anyway. None of us have been there this year.”

If it meant getting out of Florida sooner than expected, I was in. “Sure, I can go check it out.”

“Better get going. The sooner you get there, the sooner you can start ruining someone else’s life.”

I stood, fishing my phone out of my pocket. Time to change my ticket. Danny was right about one thing, the faster I got out of here, the better.