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Dominic swept from the room with the grace of a wildcat to grab his phone. When I didn’t follow him, he returned to my doorway, tapping his foot against the frame twice, knowing it would irritate me enough to get me moving.
Stefen lit up as we entered the conference room. He didn’t mind my assistant coming with me, none of my executive team did. Dominic went to enough meetings so they didn’t bat an eye when he showed up.
“Perry, I’m excited to show you what I have.”
I smiled. Tightly. Because Dominic was right. Stefen was close with my dad and these past few years without him hadn’t been easy on any of us. Especially me. If I separated Stefen from his role, he was a good guy. But that wasn’t what we were meeting about today. No, apparently, that was a tiny accessory for a car thatcouldbe applied to racingifwe modified it. Why couldn’t he just focus on what we did provide and not what we could?
The meeting began with Stefen putting a presentation on the screen while he talked about what he’d made. Minutes ticked by of me itching to get out of here before I said things I couldn’t take back.
Slowly so as not to give myself away before I had my prize in hand, I stole Dominic’s pencil. The brand he spent way too much of my money on, but I didn’t balk at since he pretty much got whatever he wanted as long as he ran things with the precision a large hospital system could appreciate.
He scowled at me as I tightened my fingers around the piece of wood and lead.
Snap!
A shiny loafer kicked mine where no one could see. It was a reflex on Dominic’s part. When one of his pencil’s broke, a part of his soul died.
His scowl deepened. He stared at the two pieces in my hand just below the table, then tried to pry the corpse from my white-knuckled fingers as he kept his eyes on the screen in front of us.
We didn’t have a typical boss/employee relationship. It was better as far as I was concerned.
A knock—a soft one—made my heart sing with joy that this nightmare was finally ending. At least for today.
Peyton’s calm voice floated through the room. “Mr. Altair?”
I glanced over my shoulder, silently pleading with him to end my misery and fast.
“You’re needed.”
My hands met mahogany as I pushed back from the table, tucking my tablet under my arm, and stood. Dominic did the same.
“Sorry to interrupt the presentation, Stef. Be sure to email me what you have. I’ll take a look at it.”
He smiled. It wasn’t as big as it was when I walked in. “Will do.”
I felt like shit, but I could only handle so much. By this late in the day, I was done. And it was Monday. I had four more days of this and that was only if people left me alone over the weekend, which wasn’t likely.
The air felt different outside the conference room. Cleaner, like freedom.
“Don’t look so happy,” Dominic whispered. An inch taller than me, he was easy to hear and didn’t have to bend to speak to me.
Why did I surround myself with tall people? It wasn’t like I was short. Six foot one, just like my dad was. Everyone seemed bigger though. Peyton and Greer were both taller than me too.
Peyton didn’t speak as we went back to my office, where I spent the rest of the day going through the financials my CFO emailed me.
Shit was bleak.
Like where was the nearest bank and who had a ski mask kind of bleak.
I raked my hands through my hair, pulling the ends hard to try and snap some clarity into myself. I could fix it. I would. How? Fuck if I knew.
This was what I’d been dealing with since my dad died. PJS was already on the downward slide, then Dad had a massive stroke and his life ended far too soon.
Now it was me running the show. Sure, I had my uncle. My relationship with him was complicated, and that was putting it nicely. While the company name was Perry, Jordan, & Sons Auto, the reality of it was, Jordan didn’t want anything to do with the business. My dad originally wanted his brother to do this with him. Jordan wanted to shift his focus elsewhere. The name remained. A tie between brothers, although Jordan never owned stake in the company, neither did his son.
While everyone on both sides of Dremest knew what Jordan did, no one, not even the cops, had enough evidence to do anything about it. Except me. I had everything I needed. Dad made sure of it. Would I use it against Jordan? No, because I was afraid of him and rightfully so, given who he was and what he did.
So, Uncle Jordan walked around like the mafia boss he was, while money poured in from the trafficking of guns and drugs he did. I got to sit here with my head a mess, trying to figure out how I was going to keep us from going so deep into the hole we’d never get out.
