TWENTY-SIX
The smells and sounds were the same. The clicking keyboards, the ringing phones, the scent of the carpet cleaner the weekend crew used. Even Wyatt’s desk was exactly as he’d left it, everything in its place. His assistant had placed a stack of messages on top of his desk calendar, arranged first by urgency then by date they were received. Everything the way he liked it. Routine. Predictable. Safe. These four walls had been sanctuary for more years than not. Yet, as Wyatt sat in his desk chair, staring out the row of windows, he simply felt lost.
The day outside was bright despite the chill, but the tint on the building’s windows gave everything on the other side a gray hue, reflecting Wyatt’s mood back at him. He’d spent yesterday digging through files and combing through reports, not exactly sure he wanted to see what was there, but finding what had been hiding in them anyway. A goddamned nightmare tucked in a seemingly innocuous row of numbers.
And now nothing would ever be the same.
Cary, his assistant, breezed into his office, the smell of coffee alerting Wyatt of his presence. Cary cleared his throat in that practiced way he had to let Wyatt know he was no longer alone. “Mr. Austin, so good to have you back. I brought you coffee from a new place today. Hope you don’t mind. The other was out of the kind you like.”
“Thanks. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Wyatt spun in his chair to face Cary.
Cary looked down at the steno pad in his hand. “So you have Mrs. Caracas coming in at ten. She wants to shift some investments around. Then I have Mr. Bristol in after lunch—he’s ranting about the big loss he took last week.” He rolled his eyes. “As if you didn’t warn him that it was a shit move. And—”
Wyatt held up his hand. “Just send the schedule to my email. And cancel anything I have for the rest of the week.”
Cary’s eyes widened to panicked-deer mode. “What? But you have—”
“I don’t care,” Wyatt said, cutting him off, but not having the energy to explain further. “I’m going meet with my father in a few minutes. We aren’t to be interrupted.”
Cary clamped his jaw and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Wyatt grabbed a folder off his desk and walked over to Cary, putting a hand on his shoulder when he reached him. “Thank you for keeping the ship afloat while I was gone. I know your position isn’t an easy one and that I can be a prick to deal with sometimes. You’ve done a great job.”
Cary looked stunned, as if Wyatt had spoken it in a foreign language, but he quickly found his composure. “Thank you, sir.”
Wyatt left him behind and headed toward his father’s office. It was a walk he’d made thousands of times. But never before had he carried the dread he did today. He still had a sliver of hope he was wrong, but his gut never lied. And his gut was screaming foul.
He strode past his father’s assistant, giving her a curt response when she attempted to thwart him from walking in unannounced, and opened his father’s office door. His dad was on the phone when Wyatt walked in but he waved him in anyway. Wyatt shut the door behind him and took a seat in the palatial space that the rest of the staff secretly referred to as the Oval Office.
His father wrapped up his conversation after a few minutes, then hung up the phone, sending Wyatt a smile. “Welcome back, son.”
“Thanks.”
He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. “Looks like you got some sun.”
Flashes of running through the waves with Kelsey flickered through Wyatt’s mind, a painful reminder of what he no longer had now that he was back in this gray fog of a building. “Well, it was a beach vacation.”
His father chuckled. “I’m impressed you spent that much time outside. I heard you got more than a suntan, though. Saw the email about Belle Pritchard. And I just got off the phone with Andrew Carmichael a few minutes ago. Seems you made quite an impression on him.”
Wyatt’s gaze narrowed. “What the hell is he doing calling you?”
“He’s ready to work with us. Said he needs a risk-taker and you proved yourself to be one last week.” A beaming smile broke through. “I have to tell you, son. I wasn’t sure you could pull it off. But color me impressed. You’re not as socially inept as I thought. Maybe I’ve raised a true CEO after all.”
“I’m not accepting his business,” Wyatt said flatly.
His father sat up straighter, deep lines digging into his forehead. “You sure as hell will. I’ve already confirmed with him.”
Wyatt took the manila folder from his lap and tossed it onto his father’s desk. “Tell me you’re not laundering money for your clients.”
His dad blinked, once, twice.
Wyatt leaned forward and opened the folder, pointing hard at the report on top, the red circles he’d made around certain transactions. His tone was lethal when he spoke again. “Fucking tell me that you are not putting this company, its employees, your family, and me at risk for goddamned prison.”
“Where’d you get these?”
Wyatt made a disgusted sound. “What the hell does that matter? You thought you could hide it forever? Get your minions to doctor reports before they got to me without me noticing the inconsistencies?”
His dad’s jaw twitched.
“Tell me it isn’t true, Dad. Look me in the fucking face and tell me.”
“Don’t make demands on me, son,” his father said coolly. “Especially when you already know the answer.”
Hearing him admit it was even worse than Wyatt thought. A part of him really had been hoping someone else was responsible. That he hadn’t been so blatantly betrayed by his own father. Wyatt’s temper burned through him, the need to punch something coursing through him. “You put everyone at risk, Dad. Me. I’m your goddamned son! This company is supposed to be mine one day, and you were going to hand me a fucking time bomb? All these years, I’ve been the one to stand by you even when you acted like an asshole. And this is how you were going to reward me? Do you know how much I’ve given up to be this guy for you?”
He scoffed. “How much you’ve give up? I’ve spent my life molding you into who you are, giving you everything you needed to be successful. Without me—”
“I’d probably have a fucking life,” Wyatt finished bitterly. “I wouldn’t be sitting in some office for fourteen hours a day and thinking I’m making some kind of difference, when all I’ve been doing is supporting a sham and criminal.”
His father’s face went full red now, his composure slipping. “Don’t give me some Pollyanna bullshit, Wyatt. This business is a good one and a smart one. You’re naive if you think the other companies aren’t doing the exact same thing. To land the big fish, you have to make some concessions, and helping them wash a little money is a minor one.”
“Launder a little money?” he bit out. “Do you even care where that dirty cash might be coming from? Drugs? Slave trade? Hey, it’s okay if some little girl gets sold into prostitution as long as you get your big client, right?”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Ha! Dramatic? You’re lucky I’m not fucking climbing across this desk and shaking you,” he seethed. “I want it stopped. Immediately. We need to drop the clients who don’t want to be completely above board.”
His dad sniffed. “That’d be half my list. Not a fucking chance.”
Wyatt was so disgusted at the off-handed reply and his father’s smugness, he could barely stand to be in the room anymore. All these years, he’d looked to this office like the brass ring, the ultimate sign he’d captured that goal, that his inertia hadn’t been thwarted. But now the idea of it made his skin go cold.
Wyatt rose. “You fix it. Or I’ll blow the whistle.”
His dad shot to his feet. “How can you be so stupid? You do that and we lose everything.”
Wyatt gave his own derisive sniff. “Lucky for me, you’ve taught me how to invest well. I don’t need family money anymore. I’ve got loads of my own.”
“Son—” There was honest fear in his voice now.
“Clean it up. Starting today.” Wyatt walked to the door, grabbing the handle and then looking over his shoulder. “And find another CEO replacement to groom. I’ve got better things to do.”
His father’s eyes went round. “What?”
“I quit.”
Wyatt walked out and didn’t look back.