I shook my head and gripped her arm. “I’m fine,” I lied. “But whatever you do, don’t trust Chester Monk in any way at all.”
I’d felt that way for years, but I felt it more than ever now. Chester was up to something far bigger than making nice with me or helping Salisbury to win an election. Salisbury was in the thick of it, too. The two of them were plotting together, and whatever it was, it was big.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jack
Iwasn’t going to say anything. That was absolutely the plan. I would keep my lips zipped, pretend nothing at all was out of the ordinary, and while my dad was distracted with his campaign and whatever he was up to with the Tech Expo, I would shift as much money as I could find into new, secret accounts and start plotting my escape from his reach.
That was the plan, at least.
“Junior, I want to see you in my office. Now,” my dad’s voice sounded over the old-fashioned desk phone he’d insisted I keep in my office.
The whole point of that phone was so that he could do exactly that, bark orders at me remotely whether I tapped on my phone to answer him or not.
I sighed, sat back in my chair, and rubbed my hands over my face. It had been a full day since the awkward encounter in The Grand Hotel’s conference room. I’d managed to avoid Dad, and fail to answer a couple calls from my mom, after my lunch withQuincy. I’d gone back to the office and done some work on the case I was currently passionate about. Dad hadn’t returned to the office at all.
I’d tested my credit cards and checked my bank accounts after heading home last night, and my money was still gone. All of it. Same for this morning. It was a good thing my fridge was already stocked and the rent paid up until the end of the month. That gave me all the wiggle room I needed to ignore my dad’s gambit and buy myself time.
I couldn’t ignore him anymore, though.
“I’ve been summoned to Dad’s office,” I told Imogen as I strolled out of my office.
“Uh-oh,” Imogen said adjusting her glasses.
I glanced back at her over my shoulder with a wry smirk.
“Oh, and, um,” Imogen stopped me before I could turn the corner into the hall. She bit her lip, then quietly said, “I’m not having any luck redirecting payroll. Your employee ID has been deleted from the system.”
My stomach twisted, but I smiled at Imogen anyhow. “It’s okay,” I said. “I think I’m about to find out what this is all about anyhow.”
I already knew what it was all about. Strangely enough, that fact kept me calm as I strode down the hall to the elevator, then waited. It wasn’t half as scary as it could have been to be summoned to the CEO’s office when you already knew what you were about to be yelled at about.
I took the elevator up one floor to the executive suites. It felt more poignant than ever that I hadn’t been given an office on that floor along with the other important people in the firm. Poignant and obvious.
“He’s expecting you,” Arnold, Dad’s admin, said once I reached the corner office.
“Is that Junior?” Dad’s voice came from the other side of the open doorway as I headed for it. As soon as I stepped in, he said, “Close the door,” in a voice that had me thinking he was probably going to toss me out the window.
I did as I was asked, then moved to stand in front of Dad’s desk. Unlike pretty much every other office in existence, he didn’t have spare chairs in front of his. He expected the people he summoned to stand in his presence.
“Tell me why you’re here,” he said to kick things off.
I settled into a stance that was as close to “at ease” as someone who’d never served in the military could get. I kept my mouth shut at first, trying to figure out how he wanted the situation to play out. Did he want me to fold and grovel, begging for my money back, or did he want me to be defiant so he could enjoy cutting me down.
I settled on, “Why don’t you tell me?” Resistance without attitude.
Dad scowled. “Are you going to be difficult or are we going to smooth over this wrinkle like civilized alphas?”
So it was a game of questions, was it?
“What do you want from me, Dad?”
Dad definitely wasn’t amused. “I want you to behave like the alpha I raised you to be,” he said, surging forward and slamming his hand on his desk. “I want you to follow the rules of the society you were born into and achieve the potential I have aligned you for.”
“Alright,” I said with the barest of shrugs.
Dad’s lips pulled back, revealing his teeth, like the wolves we all apparently had in our blood somewhere from ancient times. “Don’t get smart with me, Junior,” he snapped.
