“Get out,” I mutter, not bothering to look up.
He ignores me.
“Rude,” he says, stepping farther inside and helping himself to the whiskey on my shelf. “Is this about business or the girl?”
My jaw flexes.
I keep reading.
He raises a brow. “Ah. So it’s both.”
I slam the file shut. “Why are you always here? Don’t you have a life?”
He downs the whiskey in one swallow. “Not really. My ex is trying to kill me all the time, so I’m much happier being here, when you only threaten to kill me half the time.”
“Glad I could provide emotional support,” I flip another document.
Rafe walks up behind me and looks over my shoulder. “What’s this? Oh. Their numbers dropped harder than you fell for that girl.”
My eye twitches.
This fucker thinks he’s funny…
Let’s see how funny he is when he’s facing me?
I turn and catch him grinning.
“Too soon?” he asks.
I toss a pen at his head. He dodges, laughing as it clatters across the floor.
“Look,” Rafe says, hands up like he’s surrendering, “I’m just saying—Danforth Steel bleeding out isn’t going to magically fix what happened between you two.”
I smile.
Slow.
Sharp.
“What’s funny.” He backs up a step, “is nothing about that smile is normal.”
“She shouldn’t have been in that meeting,” I say, voice low. Controlled. “She shouldn’t be anywhere near the fallout.”
“She’s part of the company,” Rafe reminds me, pacing to the window. “She was always going to be dragged into this.”
“She’s not built for war.”
“Well”—he shrugs—“she’ll have to be.”
I turn the page violently, ripping the corner without meaning to. “I’ll handle this.” I shove the next file open, then grab my phone off the desk and dial Dom. I don’t wait for him to talk before I start barking orders.
“Order the remaining inventory hijacked,” I say, while punching in a message to my logistics crew. “Every truck leaving Danforth Steel gets detoured. I don’t care how. Make it disappear.”
“On it,” Dom responds and waits for me to continue.
“Wow,” he says quietly. “You’re really doing it?”
“Oh, I’m just warming up.” I flip a page. “Next are the partners. Pull them out. Quietly. Bribe some. Threaten others. Make it look like financial instability. Just enough to get the board nervous.”
