Bile rises in my throat. Fear slithers into my toes. I squirm and force myself to sit still. Max keeps the envelope hovering between us. I should reach out and snatch it but the thought of getting closer to him makes me sick.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say and my voice is small and weak. I hate myself for that. I sit up straight, doing my best to act like I’ve got everything under control when I’m falling apart on the inside.
“Oh, I think you most certainly do, Regan. Go ahead, take it. I won’t bite.” He shows me teeth. Straight and white.
I reach out, and accept the envelope. I can’t help but feel like I’m doing something terribly wrong.
“I don’t know why you’re giving this to me.”
“You’ll see why, don’t worry. Kieren sends his regards, by the way. And can I tell you something, just between us?”
“What?”
“Burning his car to the ground was the funniest fucking shit I’ve seen inages.” He gets up abruptly like a snake uncoiling. I flinch back, pulse rocketing. “Run that envelope past your father. Not the Whelans. Your father. Do you understand me, Regan?”
“Yes… I mean… I don’t know…”
“Good. Very good. Don’t worry, if you keep your head down, I am sure you will be fine. Unless you happen to be marrying someone I deeply despise… then perhaps not so fine anymore. Have a nice day, Regan.”
Max walks off. My bowl of salad tips off my lap and spills all over the ground. A woman nearby watches me but I can’t bring myself to clean it up. I twist and retch into the flowers behind me. Nothing comes up, but sweat breaks out across my body as I tremble.
Fuck, that was terrifying. That was the scariest man I’ve ever met. The way he looked at me, like I was a giant human doll, like there was no emotion behind his eyes at all?—
It was inhuman.
Nightmarish.
I’ve never been more disturbed by another person in my life.
I thought Liam was scary, but at least there’s warmth in him.
Max is nothing but a cold, black void.
Once I have control of myself, I grab my stuff and run back to my office. I huddle in my cubicle, fix my eyes on the envelope, and force myself to rip it open. Half of me expects snakes to slither out and bite me, sink their poison fangs into my skin.
Instead, there’s a nicely printed, laminated, and bound set of spreadsheets. Exactly like the sort of document I’d make for a big meeting, plus a black USB drive at the bottom.
I’m shaking as I flip through the pages.
I’ve seen these before. They’re financial documents. A cold horror washes over me as I realize Imadethese, six months ago. It was for a presentation I made to my father about the company’s various complex financial entanglements. Debits, credits, lines of debt and investments. All the various projects we’re involved in. This was a massive undertaking, and I was so resentful of my father when he first dumped it on my desk.
Seeing it again, in this context, is like getting shot in the guts.
I have to set it aside.
Against my better judgement, I plug the USB drive into my computer and boot it up.
More files. This time, they’re meticulously detailed, and going back years. Transactions, bank accounts, and even more, connections to other LLCs and affiliated businesses I’d only ever glimpsed into the data since coming here. Between mypresentation and what’s on this drive, it’s clear what Max is trying to tell me.
What Kieren stole when he left.
It’severything.
The whole laundering scheme. All the connections, all the bribes, all the kickbacks and the flows of capital, obscured in data and buried in spreadsheets, but it’s all there. Every incriminating bit of it.
And all in the hands of the Baranovs.
I shove back from my desk and stand. I pace back and forth, unable to help myself. This is so bad, so fucking bad.
