Page 144 of Priceless

“No idea. But as far as I can tell, the McCabe Fabrics thing is new. He approached Frank after the offer. I don’t have proof, but I suspect he intended the marriage, and a very public search for a wife, to distract you and engage you in a PR crisis so he would have more time before you noticed. There’s no way that this never would have been found, and he knew that. My best guess is that the marriage scheme was a distraction to weaken you. He really did want to remove you if he could, but you moved too fast.”

I shook my head. “Fuck.”

“Yup. But it’s an easy fix,” she said. “The Extasis production has already been corrected, and I’ll let you take care of the rest of that, Cam.”

Everett chuckled. “You might need a promotion, Raina. This is far more than the scope of what we asked, and I can’t thank you enough.”

“I’ll keep that in my back pocket.” She winked and stood. “Let me know the plan and when you’re going to hand Joseph his ass. I want to see it.”

I nodded. “Sure thing.”

She left us alone, and for a long minute we didn’t do anything but stare at each other. Finally, Micah spoke, putting voice to everything we were thinking. “What the fuck.”

“Pretty much sums it up.”

Everett sighed. “I’m still convinced there’s one other element to this. Because the swapping of materials could be written off as a mistake or an accident when he got caught. Yes, forcing us to marry was a distraction, but he would need a bigger reason than concealing this scheme.”

I looked at him carefully as he picked up one of the binders. “You think it’s like you said before? He was prepping for a hostile takeover?”

“That’s the only thing I can think of. If he weakens us, or the board followed through on their threat to resign. Combining that with the production issues, the shareholders would start to bail, driving the price down, and someone would start buying.”

“How do we prove that?” Micah asked.

“We don’t have to,” Everett said. “We have more than enough here to remove him. And I have half a mind to replace the entire board along with him.” Then he smiled. The kind of smile that made people absolutely terrified of him. “Not to mention, despite the four hours of hell he dragged us through, I don’t think Frank quite understands the agreement he signed if he thinks he can get away with it.”

I watched him flip through the binders Raina brought until he smiled. “We don’t have quite enough to void the deal with him, since he can claim that Joseph misled him, just like the production line, but we will.”

Pulling out his phone, he called a number, set his phone on the desk, and put it on speaker. A deep, accented voice answered. “Hello?”

“Want to explain to me why you took everything to my employee instead of directly to me?”

Aiden laughed. “She was already digging around it. Figured I’d save you both some time. Besides, you deserved to enjoy your honeymoon.”

The three of us shook our heads. We’d met Aiden in college when he was an exchange student from Albion, an island nation just off the coast of Europa, and to this day we’d never met anyone quite like him. Fucking brilliant and terrifying. He knew way too much, and it was good he was on our side.

“Well,” Everett said, “we appreciate it.”

“I’m sending you the other documents you asked for now. The ones about your wife.”

I frowned, and Everett mouthed the word “Trust.”

“Thank you. We need one more thing from you, but I can’t ask you.”

Another chuckle. “That’s a pity. If you can, let me know.”

“I haven’t had a chance to review everything yet. There’s a lot here. But it seems like you had to look at a new family connection. Our wife’s uncle.”

That was Everett setting up deniability. He’d already asked Aiden to look into Frank in connection to this. He knew who the asshole was. But he’d been looking into the problem with Extasis, not Frank specifically.

Leaning forward, I stared at the phone like I was able to see through it. “I did see that. Congratulations. Becoming a monopoly one company at a time.”

“Fuck off,” Micah said with a laugh.

I swore I felt Aiden shrugging. “Can’t fuck off if it’s the truth.”

“I hope he understands what he got into with us,” Everett said. “It would indeed, be a pity if he thought he was untouchable and decided to do things which might get him in trouble.”

“Mmm. Yes. That would be a shame. People can get in over their heads so easily nowadays.”

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