Now here I was, welcoming him into my safe space—my workspace—like an idiot. Letting him parade around all day in those perfectly tailored pants and aim those soft, ridiculous smiles at me from across the floor while regulators combed through our files.
Fucking perfect, Sebastian.
Well fucking done.
The office was dark except for the glow of my monitors. Legal emails. Compliance updates. Cash projections. Three different timelines showing how long we could keep things moving if the freeze dragged on.
None of them were acceptable.
“I’m not interested in waiting,” I said into the phone, pacing behind my desk. “Waiting is how we bleed out.”
Oscar exhaled quietly. “We can’t move forward on the state projects until the auditors clear the authorization chain.”
“I’m aware,” I said, jaw tight.
Three hundred units stalled mid-construction.
Two infrastructure bids suspended.
Millions in progress payments frozen.
Payroll, however, wasnotfrozen. Neither were vendor contracts. Nor insurance. Nor the lights currently burning money above my head.
“We’re prioritizing private work,” he continued, cautious. “But if this review runs longer than expected?—”
“It won’t.”
Silence met me on the other end of the line. I knew I couldn’t will this problem away. Oscar knew it too. Which was why the tension stretched between us—it was him waiting to see if I’d finally lost it.
Get it together, Sebastian.
“I need updated projections tonight,” I said. “Best case. Worst case. Model thirty days.”
“That’s… aggressive.”
“That’s realistic.”
Another pause. Papers shifting.
“We’re still trying to identify what triggered the audit?—”
“It didn’t trigger itself,” I snapped. “Somewhere in that authorization chain something doesn’t match, and until we find it, we’re fucked. So dig.”
“We are?—”
“Dig faster.” The words came out sharper than intended, but I didn’t take them back. “I want every document tied to those approvals reverified. Every signature. Every submission. If something is missing, I want to know before the auditors do. Send it to me. Everything.”
“Yes, sir.”
I ended the call and pressed my fingers hard against my eyes.
The building hummed around me—elevators, distant voices, the steady rhythm of a company still functioning while a critical artery remained clamped shut. The circulation hadn’t stopped yet. It was just running on what had made it through before the whole fucking mess imploded.
Somewhere in that chain, one missing authorization, one irregular document, one overlooked detail had stalled everything. Until we found it, we were stuck in place. Burning time. Burning money. Burning credibility.
A soft knock sounded at my door.
“One second,” I called, not looking up.
