Page 179 of Hateful Games

SAMARTH: We found the mole.

ME: Who?

SAMARTH: Your former assistant, Ramesh. We caught him red-handed. Have him in lockup in the office.

ME: Keep him there. I’m on my way.

I have a lot of questions for him before I turn him in. Mainly, why he decided to fuck with me and decide to stupidly waltz in after all this time. Relief should be coursing through my veins, but his timing doesn’t sit well with me.

Is my instinct right?

Or am I becoming cynical like my father accused me of?

***

“Why did you do it?”

“Seriously? I need to explain?” Ramesh irritably huffs. His wrist cuffed to the chair Samarth forced him in before I arrived.

“Yes. It will be a deciding factor in how severely I punish you,” I lie. Leaking the company’s confidential information is the worst crime he could commit. And he did it twice. Intentionally. He’s going to be spending the rest of his life behind bars.

“You fired me!”

“I fire a lot of people. You’re not special.”

“No, you did it because of your selfish wife,” he yells.

“You’re wrong,” I calmly state, which only infuriates him further. “I fired you because you let your personal interests come in the way of my meetings. She wasn’t even an employee yet you took her orders and gave her access to my calendar as well as my emails. I can’t have staff on board I can’t trust. Sadly, you proved me correct.”

“She tricked me!” he cries with the lame and childlike excuse. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Instead of coming to me for a second chance, you put yourself into a bigger hole by leaking confidential information to my competitors, and that lost me millions.”

“I was a good employee, dammit.”

“Not loyal.” Ignoring him, I question Samarth, who is leaning against the wall behind me and observing quietly. “Why was he here tonight?”

“His account was finally suspended. So, he stupidly thought he’d try here after slipping in with his ex-colleagues,” explains Samarth. “We caught him on camera and waited to catch him red-handed.”

I’m questioning why I hired him at all. Rising to my full height, I button my suit jacket and order Samarth, “Hand him over to the authorities and make sure to confiscate all information and every file he has on his place.”

“Have sent my team an hour ago.”

“Good.” Without another word, I walk out. Ramesh’s wailing following me until I’m out of earshot.

My mood is slightly better as I drive back home and it’s ten-thirty by the time I reach it. The moment I cross the threshold, Maggie and Fire race toward me, their tongues lolling out to the side. Fire barrels into my leg so hard that he flops onto his back from the impact. While Maggie, who was right behind, slams into him and falls sideways.

The scene is so comical I burst out laughing.

I pet them both before leading them to the kitchen. I feed them some leftover bacon from the morning. They busy themselves munching in the corner while I go in search of Rosalie.

The library is empty. So, I check the bedroom.

She’s fast asleep.

While I’m not surprised she went to bed early, I’m shocked that tonight she is actually sleeping. Rather than pretending, like she has the past two nights. Unbeknownst that I’m a light sleeper, she sneaks out of the bedroom around twelve at midnight downstairs and returns back in the wee hours of the morning. Just before it’s time for me to be up.

I don’t have a single clue what she does during those hours.

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