You never met your grandfather, and maybe that’s a good thing.
Lyrius crossed the room while his older half-brother was still speaking, and he could feel his nephew’s eyes watching him ashe took his place behind Kyara’s chair and placed his hands on her shoulders.
It was a claim of ownership, and everyone in the room knew it.
He was a selfish and unpleasant man. He didn’t marry my mother because she was the hired help. He wanted to marry Lyrius’s mother because of her money, but when her parents asked him to sign a prenup, he dumped her instead. Then he took me in, groomed me to inherit Wallace International, and when he realized I had no head for business but Lyrius did...
The older man’s face contorted with a painful grimace.He was shameless enough to call for Lyrius on his deathbed. Asked him to help me with the company, and Lyrius agreed under one condition. That our relationship never become public because it would hurt his grandparents if they were to know of it.
Once Henry was done speaking, the door opened on cue, with Lara walking in to read out loud Cyrus’s list of violations in his three years of employment history.
“Internal Investigation Report, Wallace International,” Lara read, and her voice had gone into the brisk professional register she used for client briefings. “Subject: Cyrus Henry Wallace, Senior Associate, Accounting.”
Cyrus made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Bullshit!”
“Compiled by Office of the General Counsel in coordination with Human Resources, with the cooperation of the office of the Chief Executive Officer.”
“I’m being framed, Dad! Can’t you see what’s happening?
Lara turned to the next page as if she hadn’t heard anything.
Kristine Campbell, terminated without cause...
Kyara paled as she realized who it was Lara was talking about.Kristine...was the reason Cyrus had been in such a good mood last year.
Pearl Villar...
Hilda Penn...
The list went on and on. Kyara couldn’t believe she had been so blind all these years. And while Cyrus contested them all—
Item three: Collusion with Didi Peyton, Senior Associate, Marketing, in the unauthorized appropriation of company funds for an unsanctioned trip to Las Vegas.
Item four: Embezzlement
It was only when Lara talked about Cyrus stealing company funds that he went berserk, lunging toward Kyara without warning—
Oh God, help!
Her eyes automatically squeezed shut.
But nothing happened.
Instead, she heard a loud, hard sound—like someone’s fist connecting with another person’s face—and when she opened her eyes, it was just in time to see Cyrus falling to the floor as Lyrius knocked him out cold.
Everything had happened so, so fast, and Kyara could only watch in stunned silence when everyone, Cyrus’s dad himself included, seemed to take everything in stride. It was as if they had a meeting about this beforehand, and everything—including Cyrus being bodily carried out on a stretcher, which somehow just happened to beimmediatelyavailable—was going according to plan.
But surely...that couldn’t be so.
Right?
She turned her gaze to Lyrius and the company’s CEO. They didn’t resemble each other at all, and maybe that was why no one had ever expected them to be half-brothers. No one would have suspected such a thing, and that was why the rumors...
“Do you need anything before I go?”
Lara’s voice drew her out of her thoughts, and Kyara could only shake her head. “I’m...I’m good, and...” She managed awobbly smile for the other woman. “I know you have a hand in this.”
“Well, of course.” Lara’s lack of hesitation in confirming her involvement had Kyara laughing, the sound of which consequently caused Lyrius to look their way, and when her boss arched his brow—
