Page 7 of Tough Luck

I half expected my father to greet us in the lobby. Instead, the reception area was an absolute ghost town except for few creatives who were huddled near the espresso machine, looking like they were preparing for a firing squad rather than a Monday morning recap.

It appeared that everyone knew the boss’s health had been failing and there was a storm coming. They just didn’t know the storm was currently picking lint and elevator dust off his trousers.

The woman—the elevator ninja—didn’t wait for me. The second her feet hit solid carpet, she muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer for a freak sinkhole to swallow her whole and bolted down the left hallway without a backward glance.

I couldn’t help the smirk that followed her.

Turning right, I headed toward the corner office. The frosted glass door bore gold lettering: James Mylonas, CEO. I pushed it open without knocking.

My father was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk, looking a decade older than the last time I’d seen him. His face was pale, his posture slightly slumped, but his eyes still possessed that stubborn, sharp glint that had built Gold Standard Media from the ground up.

“You’re late,” he grunted, though a faint smile touched his lips. “And you look like you wrestled a mountain lion along the way.”

“Worse,” I said, closing the door behind me and taking a seat in one of the leather armchairs. I ran my finger through my hair to try and fix my disheveled appearance. “Did you know that your elevator has a lethal six-inch drop?”

He let out a dry cough, but it quickly devolved into a rough cough. He pressed a hand to his chest, the humor vanishing from his face, replaced by a sudden, sobering wave of exhaustion.

The smirk left my face instantly. I leaned forward. “Dad. Are you okay?”

Shit. He had obviously downplayed how sick he was. He’d said that the doctor had told him to play more golf and attend fewer business meetings.

“I’m fine.” He waved me off, his voice dropping into a rare, vulnerable register. “Or, well, I will be. High blood pressure, irregular rhythm.” He waved his hand as if he was shooing a fly away. “Bill told me if I don’t cut my stress down to zero and take a mandatory sabbatical starting today, I won’t be around to see the company hit its next anniversary.” He looked at me, his eyes heavy with the weight of a man who hated giving up control.

Bill was one of my father’s oldest buddies and his best golf partner.

“That’s why I called you. Jax has been busy keeping one of our bigger clients happy and doesn’t have the time, nor, in my opinion, the patience to run this behemoth. I need my oldest boy to keep the ship upright while I step back. Temporarily.”

I knew that my younger brother was currently in Vegas. I’d spoken with him a few days back after we all got the call from Mom about Dad’s health. I was the oldest of three boys. There was me, Jacob, or Jax as we all called him, then the youngest Chris.

Jax and I hadn’t fallen far from the apple tree. Marketing was in our blood, in our futures, no matter how hard we tried to shake it. Chris, the black sheep and the youngest, was in medical school.

“I told you I’d handle everything. You don’t need to worry about a thing,” I assured him, the gravity of the situation finally settling into my chest. “Are we still going to have the all-hands meeting to tell the staff?”

“Yeah, it was supposed to start”—he glanced down at his watch—“ten minutes ago.” He stood up.

“But before I introduce you to the whole firing squad,” my father said, standing up and buttoning his suit jacket with a heavy sigh, “I want to get you up to speed on our white whale. The Clear Creek Brewery account. It’s going to be a massive local expansion, and if we land it… let’s just say our numbers this year will be bigger than the last dozen or so have been.”

“Sounds impressive,” I said, standing up and attempting to smooth out the wrinkles left from my impromptu wrestling match.

“Anyone in mind to tackle the account?” I asked.

My dad shifted. “It’s too important to hand over to anyone the board doesn’t trust.” He shifted. “Which means, besides taking over my normal duties, they want you to spearhead it until you can figure out the best person to hand it off to.”

I nodded, understanding. After all, I had been raised in advertising. Marketing was in my blood.

I knew that my father owned a majority of the shares in the business and that the board, consisting of a few of his closest friends, trusted me to handle whatever my father saw fit to give me.

“Let’s go meet the team,” I said, giving my dad a hug.

We walked down the hallway together, my father giving a few brief nods to the staff members who were still trickling out of their cubicles and heading toward the large glass doors of the main boardroom.

When we stepped inside, the room was already packed. A long mahogany table stretched across the center, surrounded by at least twenty employees, who all looked like they were holding their breath. The nervous energy in the room was palpable.

GSM employed a little under thirty full-time staff members. This included two accounting personnel, one HR employee, and two part-time IT techs. The remaining crew was made up of marketing executives, who oversaw client accounts, and marketing assistants, who helped with the day-to-day work.

My father took his place at the head of the table, and I stood just to his right, crossing my arms as I waited. My eyes scanned the crowd, and it took me less than three seconds to spot my elevator attacker.

She was sitting near the back, a thick folder gripped tightly against her chest like a shield. The second her eyes locked onto me, all the color drained from her face. Then they bounced between me and my father and I knew that in that moment she understood exactly who I was.