His words make no sense. Who would do this and why?
“At first, we thought it was the fire,” he continues, pacing. “But it’s so much more than the fire.”
My mother sinks into the couch. “Much more.”
My throat tightens. “What happened?”
He grabs a paper and thrusts it at me. I have no idea what I’m looking at. “Three shipments of steel are now missing. If that weren’t bad enough, clients are pulling orders. Partners are backing out. Investors are withdrawing funding. Our entire operation is on hold.” He drops the page. “And it all happened in hours . . .”
I stare.
But I can’t even form words, because that’s a lot to wrap my head around.
“And PR?” he snarls. “A nightmare. Anonymous leaks. False scandal. Someone feeding the press garbage that looks just true enough to stick.”
“Who would do that?” I whisper.
“That’s the fucking problem,” he roars, gripping his hair. “I don’t know.”
My heart jumps. “Dad, calm down—”
“Calm down? Calm down?” He throws up his hands. “We’re bleeding. Someone is gutting us from the inside out.”
Mom rubs her temples. “We’re going to have to sell assets.”
My father whirls toward her. “We will do no such thing—”
“We have to,” she snaps, voice shaking. “Unless a miracle drops from the sky, we don’t have a choice.”
He slams his fist against the mantel. “We are not selling pieces of what I built!”
I step forward. “Dad . . . do we have enemies?”
He goes still. Then lets out a harsh breath. “Everyone has enemies. But not any who would do this.”
“Could it be hackers? It could be a cyber attack.”
“This isn’t a cyber attack,” he fires back as though my suggestion is ridiculous.
I hesitate. Just a breath. A tiny fracture in my composure. It smells like corporate warfare, but why?
I breathe out slowly. “So what do we do now?”
My father sinks onto the leather sofa. “We’ll tighten operations. Cut spending.” He buries his head in his hands. “Fuck. I don’t even know.”
I take a slow breath, looking at him and then looking at my mother, who is currently rubbing her temples.
After a few more seconds of silence, my father lifts his head and meets my stare. “We will find the son of a bitch who did this to us, and we will end it.” He leans back, exhausted. “We’ll regroup tomorrow.”
My mother nods. “We’ll figure it out.”
But the silence afterward says none of us believes that.
She turns to me. “You should stay the night. Just in case we need you.”
“Yeah. Okay,” I answer, before I slip out of the room and head outside. I need some air after all of that.
I step into the garden without thinking. Once there, a tight breath leaves my chest.
