Chapter 5- Goodbye Mike.

Lucas's POV

I watched her from the corner of my eye as I set the second mountain of files on her desk. The sound of the stack hitting the table made her jump slightly, though she tried to mask it through forced composure.

“Do the same for these and make sure it's done by tomorrow,” I said flatly but couldn't help myself to allow a small smirk appear on my face as I felt the smallest curl of amusement inside of me.

I was probably being too cruel or harsh, but just because she can think on her feet doesn't mean she gets to be in paradise.

No ordinary secretary could possibly chew through half of what I had dumped on her that's why I was surprised that she finished the first round. Now, I am just testing my limits here.

How much more can I push? Or can she push even?

Deborah, however, wasn't ordinary. I knew I hit the jackpot. The way she answered my questions for the interview without hesitation. Her instincts were as sharp as steel.

I walked back into my office and sat on my chair as I watched her fight through exhaustion, irritation and probably the urge to murder me. Her jaw was tight with determination which was entertaining… cute even. I tried to hold back my laughter every once a while as I could see her mutter a curse under her breath or maybe she was muttering along with the music she was listening to. Either way, she looked cute.

Her first day and I treat her like this. She's probably quitting on me tomorrow, which will be a shame really, I want to know the girl that was able to blow my mind out of the water.

My lips twitched again but it quickly faded before she could see. My thoughts kept going back to her. Not the billion dollar contracts waiting on my desk, but the sight of my new secretary, stubbornly fighting her way through the impossible load I had buried her under.

For reasons I refused to name, I found myself almost looking forward to what she would do next.

The rumble of my stomach brought me back to reality. Already midday, besides I didn't take a heavy breakfast. Mornings demands me to be sharp and on my toes, but by afternoon everything would have cooled down a little. I stood up and walked out.

“I am going for some lunch.”

She muttered something under her breath but I couldn't tell if she was giving me approval or she was cursing. For someone listening to music who is buried under this pile I am shocked she isn't humming to the rhythm of her music.

The private restaurant was a world apart from the glass and steel of Blackridge Logistics. The lights were dim, the conversations were low and the plates were arranged like miniature sculptures. I sat at a corner table, the city spread out like a map beyond the windows.

“The usual Mr Blackridge?” He asked whilst pouring me a drink.

“Yes please.”

He walked off leaving me to my thoughts. Hopefully, she would have made progress by the time I reached there. It's not like I don't need the files, I do. I have a client coming in and I can't find the file for that client. Maybe the board was right, I do need a secretary, unfortunately.

The waiter brought my meal. Which was a simple bowl of mayo salad.

My phone buzzed against the table. I silenced it on the first ring but gave in on the second.

“Lucas,” Kensington voice was tight and clipped. “We've got a problem. There's been movement out of one of our accounts. Unauthorized transfers, significant sums. My team and I are currently running tracebacks now, but it looks like it's being siphoned in small increments to avoid detection. Someone's definitely clearing house.”

I listened for a second whilst clutching the fork I had in my right hand making my knuckles turn white. These leakages could be anything or anyone but none of the possibilities were acceptable.

“Put the rest in my inbox,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now, call the inner circle. Everyone handling blanking or the logistics channels should meet at the house in forty minutes.”

Kensington hesitated. “Are you sure you want to pull everyone?”

“Did I stutter? You come to me with problems instead of solutions. So I will find the solution myself and you are still questioning me,” I scowled at him. Perhaps, I was too harsh besides he was still working on it but I had a plan of my own.

“Will do.”

I hung up placing the phone on the table a little too hard, as I noticed some people looking at me.

When I find that person…

I walked out of the restaurant and into my black Mercedes. I was still pondering over what could have caused this and why they'd do this. “Take me to the house.” With a nod from the driver he started the car and we set off there.

The safe house smelled of antiseptic and leather, the kind of sterile comfort I preferred that the public eye wouldn't see. I didn't bother with all the pleasantries when they came within the hour. Obviously, they were all nervous. Because a meeting midday only meant trouble.

I took my seat at the head of the table. “Please sit,” I said gesturing the rest to follow suit.

“How has your day been?” I asked, my tone as friendly as it can be.

“Fine.” They all said in unison like small scared little children. Well, they should be scared.

Kensington dumped the folders on the table. “We flagged the transfers last week. They started as drops, small almost rounding errors but then it started escalating and quickly. Either someone's has been selling access or someone inside is redirecting funds.”

When he said that I looked around the room. Mike was lean and brittle as always, Rosa was steady and watchful, Javier had nervous hands and a quick tongue and Carter is the kind of man whose silence was a weapon he'd often used.

I opened the spreadsheets my eyes skimming the lines. I set the paper down and looked around the room with slow, deliberate patience.

“Tell me about access,” I said. “Who touched those keys?”

One by one they accounted for shifts and processes. The answers were the same but different. I sulked back in my chair looking up to the ceiling feeling betrayed or disappointed.

Probably and disappointed.

My tone softened into something almost lazy, but it was still sharp enough to send a chill down each of their spines.

“You know… this whole thing reminds me of a story I once heard. A strange one, but you'll love it.” I tapped my fingers on the wooden table as I let out a big sigh. “There was a lighthouse on the edge of a cliff, tall and white, it's light sweeping over the sea every night. But here's the off part, the sea beneath it had no ships. Not a single one. No vessels passes by. Yet, the keeper lit the the flame religiously for years. Until one morning, the town found him gone. His clothes folded neatly by the door, his lantern extinguished.

Some said he walked into the sea, others swore the lighthouse itself swallowed him whole. But a fisherman, who was an old drunk, claimed he saw the truth. He said the keeper wasn't tending the sea at all. He was tending the shadows inside the light. Feeding them. Protecting them and when the shadows got hungry enough… they took him.”

My lips twitched into a ghost of a smile as my eyes widened. I enjoyed confusing them like this. Some would think I have lost all my sanity.

“Funny, isn't it? You think you're guarding the light when all along, it's the darkness you're feeding. Until one day it decides it's had enough of you.”

The silence that followed wasn't just silence, it's was like the walls themselves were listening.

I watched them closely. I watched the micro-expresions, the flicker at the corner of an eye, a throat that swallowed too hard, fingers that wouldn't stop tapping. Mike's hand which has been steady on a folder began to tremble.

“Mike,” I said in a casual tone. “Walk me through your logs last month.”

Mike's voice was level. He gave the timeline, the names were supplied, the servers were mentioned and he also showed the clean hands of his crew.

“As I said sir, it's not from my side.”

You see, that right there doesn't add up to me.

I could feel the hair in his neck prick. I could imagine his pointed nose getting longer and longer as he spoke. He was taking too much. Too many qualifiers. Too many defensive ornaments around the truth.

I pushed a single sheet across the table to him, a routing log, only someone from the inside could easily explain.

“Explain this entry then buddy.”

His face blanched.

Got him.

“It wasn't… I d-didn’t m-mean…”

He glanced to the others as if looking for salvation but there was none. I saw the fumble, sweat at the lips, a stutter that betrayed him.

Because Mike never stutters.

He babbles about pressure to pay a debt, threats about a contact who'd promise him to fix everything, something along those lines. The more he spoke the less coherent it became.

I listened as attentively as I could like a judge listening to a litany of sins.

I felt none of the outrage the others did. I was calm. This betrayal could be used to my advantage, a clean useful tool I could use. Mike was very useful but now he was compromised.

When Mike's voice finally broke entirely, a quiet, defeated doing that erased the bravado of earlier years, I made the decision.

It was not a decision made in frenzy, it was a calculation.

Exposure versus control.

Rumor versus certainty.

Mike's leak had not just put money but reputation, channels and people at risk. Repair could be made, the stain could be cleaned but mercy was a cost I was unwilling to pay. I spent my whole life crafting this empire and I will not allow it to be torn down.

Franklin’s brick by brick quote had just hit me hard.

I rose slowly and deliberately. The others shifted, sending the change in atmosphere. I walked to Mike as if to offer a hand. He didn't smile. He looked me in the eye, catalogued the fear there and saw how small he had become.

“I trusted you,” I said quietly with a shed of tear in my eye. “You broke that trust.”

Mike tried to speak. “L-Lucas, I-.”

“You'll make this right,” I told him with a faint smile.

His relief was immediate and foolish. He started explaining how he would transfer back funds, how he would confess to contacts and cut ties. He was still playing for reprieve.

I cut him off with my hand.

“Goodbye Mike,” I whispered.

What followed next was a loud and deafening bang and the room smelled suddenly of cheap cologne and the metallic edge of expectation

I felt myself moved, a controlled motion that had been rehearsed in darker corridors and past lives. It was quick, final enough to prevent further pleasing, clean enough to avoid spectacle. Mike crumpled, the sound of him hitting the floor like a final punctuation mark.

The full stop.

Silence hammered the room.

Rosa's hand flew to her mouth in horror, Javier swore low and Carter's face was unreadable. Kensington looked like a man who had just seen how the gears inside his machine truly turned.

I stood over Mike for a long beat and let the stillness settle into him. He didn't look triumphant, he looked peaceful.

“This stays here,” I finally said, my voice hollow as I forced control back into my tone. “We handle this internally, no calls, no records. We bury what needs burying.”

They nodded, their faces pale as they knew the gravity of the act compressing into pragmatic moves that would soon follow. Insurance policies, loyalty tests, overwrite of access credentials. I was thinking two steps ahead.

I wiped my eyes as I stepped into the sunlight, the city seemed louder as if the ordinary world had resumed around a private violence. Mike was a threat that I had to remove to preserve control. And control has to be preserved. I slid into my car and instructed the driver to take me to my usual bar.

Perhaps it's best that Deborah doesn't find out that I am a bad person.

Infact calling myself a bad person is harsh isnt it?

I am doing everything I can to protect my family.

I mean who wouldn't?