We were fighting a war.
“This is the beginning of the end,” said Colson, echoing my thoughts. “Things escalate quickly from here.”
“Good,” grunted Ripley. “I prefer a straight up fight to all this skulking around.” After an awkward moment, his gaze shifted to me. “Not that uh, skulking doesn’t have its benefits too. Sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” I smirked back at him.
Another series of alerts lit up on the screen. The headlines were devastating, too. The kind of life-ruining shit people in Donovan’s inner circle had nightmares about.
“Reuters picked it up,” Colson announced, excitedly.
“Fuck yeah,” Ripley hooted.
“Won’t be long before the SEC’s involved,” said Theo. “That’ll be sticky.”
“The stickier the better.”
A thought occurred to me.
“After this, it’s going to be hard to hide what we’re doing to his accounts,” I reasoned. “Donovan’s going to start combing through his financials. Getting them ready forscrutiny.”
Theo bit his lip and nodded. “I’ll accelerate the transfers then. Drain the money faster.”
“And go after more people,” said Colson. He put a finger on the screen. “Him next.”
All three of us blinked.
“Why him?”
“I know this asshole, he plays golf with Donovan. Always calls me ‘Colton,’ no matter how many times I’ve corrected him.”
“Fuck him then,” Theo nodded grimly. “He’s toast.”
I faded back, taking in the scene of all three men huddled around the glowing laptop. The camaraderie of the moment filled me with a quiet joy. This level of emotional inclusion was something I hadn’t felt in a very long time, and I knew it was missing in theirs, as well. We were no longer merely uniting over a common enemy. The bonds we’d built went so much deeper than that.
Heat flowed up and around me, wrapping me in warmth, in safety, in solidarity with these men. The glass walls of the house stood sentinel, guarding us from the storm outside.
“Our days here are numbered then,” I lamented quietly. “Aren’t they?”
I must’ve sounded borderline miserable. When they turned to face me, I saw sympathy in their eyes.
“They always were,” Theo affirmed softly.
I lowered my gaze, but only for a moment. Two hands slipped into mine. A third, tilted my chin to look up atthem again.
“But after this?” Colson said, ever so gently. He took my face in his hands and smiled.
“We runatDonovan, and not from him.”
