AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Kyle—” I say but he cuts me off.
“If you want to punish anyone it’ll be me. You will not come after my wife. She’s the sole reason that Dean Walsh wasn’t able to become more of a problem for this company. Without Riley’s help, I never would’ve figured out who was behind all of this.
“Not to mention the ways in which Riley’s hands-on consulting work aided in improving our company’s employee-turnover rate in such a short amount of time. And how smoothly the merger with Sam Waterson’s company is going, all thanks to her.”
He looks at me with such softness that my knees weaken. I glance down to see he’s taken my hand into his. I should pull free of his grasp, but he tightens his hold. Hope swells in my chest that he’s silently telling me he won’t let me go.
“More than any of that,” he continues, “she’s the love of my fucking life. So,” he turns to face the room again, “if you even think of hurting her in any way, you’ll have to go through me first. As all of you know, I’m a formidable opponent.”
There’s stunned expressions from just about everyone in the room.
“Be that as it may,” Adam Bachleda speaks first, “Kyle, we cannot let someone who knew this deception was taking place right under our noses, and didn’t say anything, become the next COO of this company. As the board, we have the ability to overrule any decision your father makes should he not comply with our determination.”
“Consider this my resignation,” Kyle declares.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-yell at him.I need to tell him about my suspicions about Adam Bachleda.
His only acknowledgement of my question is to squeeze my hand. Yet, he continues to glare down at the rest of the people in the room.
“I’ll make it easy for all of you. You want to hold someone accountable, then it’ll be me. Andonlyme. I quit Townsend Industries. I’ll fucking start my own company and use every bit of my knowledge and savvy to pay every single one of you back for this.”
A few grumbles around the room sound.
“Kyle,” one of the men says, “it’s not about you. It’s about the stockholders. We have an obligation, and if someone doesn’t take responsibility for this—”
“That’s enough,” Aaron Townsend’s booming voice slices the air. “I’ve just filed the paperwork with the SEC to privatize Townsend Industries.”
There’s a slew of murmurs from the board.
“If you all were paying attention,” Aaron Townsend continues, “you should’ve seen this coming.” He turns stormy hazel eyes, that remind me so much of Kyle’s, to me. “One of you in particular.”
He turns and glares at Adam Bachleda.
“Thanks to my daughter-in-law, who told me she recognized your assistant’s voice while out to dinner with my son and while he was in a meeting with you and Sam Waterson, I was able to put two and two together,” he tells the room.
“Oh shit,” I murmur.
I remember last week’s call when I told him about the familiar voice I heard in the bathroom while out to that business dinner with Kyle. And again, only weeks ago, in Kyle’s office.
I couldn’t pinpoint the voice but knew I had heard it before. Kyle’s father must’ve figured it out.
“Because your good-for-nothing son couldn’t hack it here, you wanted to ruin this company,” Aaron says through gritted teeth.
“You’ve ruled this company with an iron fist for too long,” Adam Bachleda declares, rising to his feet.
A few officers and federal agents enter the room a beat later. It’s clear what their intentions are by the shiny handcuffs in one of the lead agent’s hands.
“Now, you can take that money that Ryan Nick used to bribe you to pay for a fucking criminal attorney. Oh wait, the feds will freeze that money along with most of your other assets.”
Aaron turns to me and nods. His face is set in a scowl, but I somehow think that’s him giving me his approval.
“Come with me,” Kyle says, taking me by the hand, not waiting for me to reply.
“Where are we going?” I demand as we make our way down the hall.
“Someplace where I can put you over my knee for what you just did.”
We come to a stop at the entrance for the private elevator where Kyle punches in the code.
