جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

Valerie's PovThe auction house was full by the time I arrived.Forty seats. Every one taken, the room smelled like old money and fresh nerves, which was the particular combination that showed up whenever significant assets changed hands publicly.I had been in rooms like this before on the wrong side of the table. Today I was not on the wrong side of anything.Marcus leaned close as we found our seats. "Lot fourteen is the one," he said. "The Meridian commercial property. Cassian leveraged it as part of the credit facility. The bank called it in. It goes under the hammer in about forty minutes.""What is the reserve?" I said."Eight point two million," he said. "Our ceiling?""Whatever it takes," I said. "Within reason.""Define within reason," he said."Eleven," I said. "If it goes past eleven we let it go.""Understood," he said.We sat through the first thirteen lots. Office furniture from a collapsed retail chain. A warehouse in the south district. A restaurant lease, the room th

Valerie's PovThe Business Leadership Award was not something I had campaigned for.Marcus had submitted the nomination eleven months ago as a visibility exercise during the early days of V. Intl going public. By the time the invitation came through, the company had grown past the point where we needed the visibility. But I accepted anyway because declining an award looks like something to hide.Dante was beside me at the table. We had done this three times now. Sat beside each other at public events without it being about anything except being there. It was getting easier each time.The ceremony was two hours of speeches and short films about corporate responsibility and then a dinner. I was three tables from the main stage when my category came up. I accepted the award, said the right things, and came back to my seat."Short," Dante said when I sat down."I said what I needed to say," I said."You could have been warmer," he said."I was warm enough," I said."Two sentences about th

Cassian's PovThe pawn shop was on a side street off the financial district, it smelled like old carpet and dust and the particular staleness of things people had given up on.I set the watch on the glass counter. The man behind it picked it up without looking at me, turned it over twice, set it back down."Four hundred," he said."That watch cost eleven thousand," I said."That watch cost eleven thousand new," he said. "It is not new.""It is three years old," I said. "It has barely been worn.""Four hundred," he said again. He did not move.I took the four hundred.I called Reeves from the pavement outside. He picked up on the second ring."Tell me you have something useful," I said."I have updates," he said. "Not all of them are what you are looking for.""Then tell me the ones that are," I said."The lawsuit," he said. "My contact at the court says it has been received and logged. Sterling's legal team filed a response within four hours. They are calling it frivolous.""It is not

Cassian's PovI had been parked outside the V. Intl building for forty minutes when Reeves called."My men have been pulled," he said. "Your cover is blown. She knows."I watched the front entrance of the building. People going in and out. Nobody who looked like her yet."How?" I said."Someone tipped her," he said. "From inside. Someone who knew the details of the surveillance and passed them directly.""Who?" I said."I do not know yet," he said. "But the information that reached her was accurate. Names, shift times, method. That is not something that comes from a guess.""Someone in your operation," I said."Or someone in yours," he said.I thought about Davies. About the four remaining staff in the Collier Street building. About my lawyer who knew everything and had been asking me increasingly careful questions for weeks."Pull everyone," I said. "Shut it down.""Already done," he said. "Mr. Thorne. I have to be honest with you. This is getting into territory I am not comfortable

Dante's PovShe told me in the morning.I had not slept well. I had lain awake running the video in my head. The small room, the cracked voice.She came into the kitchen while I was making coffee and she said, "I am going to go."I set the coffee down."No," I said."I have thought about it," she said. "I have the reasons. Let me say them.""Say them," I said."If he confesses on record it gives us something the legal filing alone cannot give us," she said. "His own words. A direct admission of the forged documents, the asset transfers, the fake marriage. That is not just a criminal case. That is everything. It closes every possible avenue he has for challenging anything we have done.""We already have enough," I said."Enough to win," she said. "His confession is enough to make it undeniable. There is a difference.""He asked you to come alone," I said."I am not going alone," she said. "I am taking two security staff. They will be outside whatever room he puts us in. And you will be