“Come on in,” Sara’s voice crackled over the speaker.
The gate wasn’t locked.
Inside, Darren was sitting at the dining table, a bowl of sugary cereal in front of him and the carton of milk beside it.
“Cole!” he said, surprised to see me. “About last night,” he began sheepishly, his spoon hanging in the air between the bowl and his mouth.
He should be sheepish. He had taken Harriet to the bonfire without informing me, and I had thought I had made it clear the morning of the full moon that I wouldn’t allow him to recklessly endanger her.
“In future, nephew, inform me of your intentions before you take my omega,” I told him.
“Yeah, of course, sure,” he said.
“Cole,” Sara called, interrupting us.
“We’ll continue this conversation later,” I told him and continued to the kitchen to throw away what was left of the coffee before heading upstairs to Sara’s home office.
Sara’s home office was more cosy than professional, smaller than her office within the Pack House. A large window faced the door. On one side of the room was a metal standing desk withher desktop computer and a walking treadmill under the desk. On the other side was a leather sofa in front of a low coffee table, where Sara sat waiting for me.
“Cole,” she greeted and smiled.
The smile seemed forced. It had been forced for the last couple of years, ever since Darren’s first shift. It wasn’t his fault. No one could blame the current situation on him.
Fate was a bitch.
“Sara,” I replied and walked in, closing the office door behind me and sitting on the opposite side of the sofa, making myself comfortable.
We were always playing this game now.
I hated how Sara looked at me. Like a liability. Like I hadn’t already given everything, and still more was being asked of me.
“Your call last night worried me,” she said, and for a moment I thought I saw the sister I once had, that maybe there was genuine concern behind her eyes.
Wishful thinking.
“Not enough to check on me,” I replied.
Her eyes narrowed subtly.
“You’re a big girl; you can take care of yourself,” she said.
“Why have you called me here, even sending your spy to collect and deliver me?” I asked.
“You’ve messed up,” she said.
I sat forward, noticing the plastic folder on the table beside her. She reached for it and handed me the folder.
“It’s the exposure sheet and covenant summary for IronGate Strategic Infrastructure,” she told me as I opened the folder.
The exposure sheet showed over three million in unsecured debt, due to the new valuation of IronGate’s assets.
“I never saw this. The Risk and Assets team never brought this to me,” I told Sara.
“It was in your executive report at the start of the week,” Sara answered.
“I’d have acted, demanded immediate paydown or injection of liquidity, and arranged a meeting to renegotiate terms. I couldn’t have missed this,” I said, reading over the reports.
“You did,” Sara replied, her tone clipped. “You sent a text—a text, really, Cole?—to James saying that it would correct next quarter.”
