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We needed to get everyone together and let them in on things before someone blabbed. It would only be worse if the information came from someone else.
“Cat? Why was she here?”
“Probably because I missed our usual weekly lunch. She decided to track me down. Bellamy brought her up.”
“He brought her up here?” Quin repeated, trying to put the pieces together in a way that would make sense.
“Yeah, I don’t know.”
“He knew you weren’t even here. Why would he bring Cat up here to wait for you instead of putting her in your office? Or the waiting area with Jules? Or tell her that you were off on a job, and that he would leave word that she stopped by?”
“Quin, this is Bell we are talking about here,” I reminded him, forcing a smile that felt fake. “Who the fuck knows why he does anything that he does?”
“Yeah,” Nia agreed, jumping in to help our cover, “I mean… last month I came into my office to find he had built me an Hershey Kisses castle. Literally a castle. There were turrets. And a Hershey bar drawbridge. The man is an enigma. A very generous enigma,” she added, clearly having a soft spot for him since he once heard her talking about that new iMac Pro that costs like eight grand. Then came into the office a week later to find it set up with a big white bow.
“Why the fuck did I decide to hire him again?” Quin asked, raking a hand down the scruff on his face. “He’s more of a distraction than an asset, I swear.”
“He keeps things interesting,” Nia defended.
“I imagine he is really good company to anyone you guys need to hide up here,” Gemma added.
What could you say? Bellamy was popular with the ladies. And tolerated by the men. I wasn’t exactly sure he would have it any other way, either.
“Anyway,” Quin said, shaking his head as if trying to clear it, trying to refocus. “Oh, right. Rylan. Well, Lincoln called me on his way back from his visit. Your coconspirator seems like he is losing his grip on reality. I don’t know what you know about obsession, Gem, but it can really fuck with the mind after a while. It can eat it up, become all that is left. Honestly, it sounds like he is on that path, unfortunately. It will come to a point where he will be so lacking credibility because he is so out of it that even if he did have a good story, no one is going to take him seriously.”
“People like him get pegged conspiracy theorists. And those guys get relegated to little holes in the dark web where they swap ideas with others like them, collectively trying to bring down the Illuminati and infiltrate the Bilderberg group,” Nia added. “There are a lot of brilliant people trapped in the paranoias created by their own imagination.”
She would know with how much time she spent trolling the web, coming across those types of people. Hell, knowing her, sometimes getting credible information from them. Or at least a decently fleshed out conspiracy we could use against someone if we needed to.
“But this isn’t his imagination. This is really happening.”
“So was forced sterilization to tens of thousands of poor black people in the U.S. up until the early seventies. But no one believed that either. People still don’t believe that,” Nia told her. “It doesn’t matter if the claim had merit. People will disbelieve it because of who the information is coming from. Women–especially poor women of color–and crazy white dudes with bulging eyes who live in their mama’s basements, ranting about a new world order, tend not to have much credibility. If people can’t trust them–because of their prejudice or because of their bias against uncomfortably passionate people–then they won’t believe what they have to say. Even if it is true. That’s how people work.”
“He was really gone, Gem,” I told her, my voice sad because I knew that while they had a somewhat abusive partnership, that she cared about him, she cared about his plight. She wanted his truth to come to the light.
We were proposing a solution to her problem that would take that away from him. Sure, the product would never see the light of day. And there would be some comfort in that. But I knew her well enough at this point to know her heart was breaking for Rylan and his impossible decision.
“There’s just not much else we can do,” I added, giving her a defeated shrug.
“We need to act soon since we know this product is going to launch. The closer we get to the launch, the more of a chance that they won’t take our deal since they will have put too much money into packaging, and schmoozing the stores for shelf space, and advertising. We need to get this done. And soon.”
