Page 24 of Winning Bid

That can’t be good. I struggle not to keep standing just to annoy him. His office chairs are lacking in the comfort department. In fact, everything in his office is. It’s all cold, hard surfaces, gray-on-gray. One of the first things I’ll change about his office, if I ever take the mantle of CEO like he wants.

But I sit down to make whatever else he has to go over easier. “What is it?”

He checks his phone, looking pleased, before he glances at me. “While I am certain you had your reasons for killing Neil Johnson, they are immaterial to me. What I need you to do is to clean up your mess. As such, I have hired Otto Pym.”

My face feels cold. Makes sense. All the blood has rushed away from it. With three simple sentences, Dad told me everything I needed to know. He knows I’ve killed someone. He doesn’t know why and doesn’t care. And he’s hired the sharkiest lawyer in this hemisphere to handle it.

I’m not sure when I stopped blinking, but my eyes are dry. So is my throat. I don’t even know what to say, and the only thing that comes out of my mouth is, “What?”

He smiles like the cat who caught the canary. “You seem to think you can keep me in the dark about your life. It would be funny if it didn’t prove to me how ill-prepared you are to live life without my help.”

“I didn’t?—"

“Now, now. I thought we were past lying to one another. Tell me what June told the police.”

So, he knows about that, too … just not what she said. Does he have a spy at Andre’s office? That would track. I imagine he has spies in the confessional at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

“She didn’t give them anything?—"

“What did she say?”

“She made it seem like she was a ditzy bartender who flirts with everyone and that Neil was one of them. That we were on a break then and she was looking for some comfort. But when he went off about women telling him what to do, she sent him home for the night.”

He eyes me carefully like he’s trying to suss out whether I’m lying. But finally, his gaze settles. “Was that your plan or hers?”

“Hers. We couldn’t figure anything out, so she came up with it on the fly.”

“Smart. You have a good one there, son.” He pauses, almost as though he might retract that statement. “What did Neil actually do?”

Should I tell him? Is there harm in that? “He attacked June.”

Points to my father, he looks repulsed. I guess there are things that are beneath him, after all. “And you took him out, but instead of calling the police, you called Moss.”

Moss. That has to be how he knows. But Moss wouldn’t betray me. At least, I don’t think he would.

“Given my martial arts background, I thought it best the police stayed out of it.”

“I’d hardly call a few state championships a background, but at the moment, people panic … ” He takes a breath. “Which is why you’re not ready for this office yet. If you were, you would not have panicked. You would have called the police and let them handle things. You fucked this up, Anderson. It’s a good thing I called Otto. You need a man of his skill. Do whatever he tells you to do, without question, and he will save your life.”

A comforting thought. But, then again, I’d thought the same about Moss.

“The police wish to speak to you. Otto will be with you. Don’t fuck this up.”

-

14

JUNE

Ishould tell Anderson. But each time I start to text him, my hands shake. He’s going to hate me. Even if he doesn’t, do we really need this kind of stress right now? With the police sniffing around, the collapse of his family’s fortune and legacy isn’t something he needs to deal with at the moment.

So, by keeping it to myself, I’m protecting him. Aren’t I?

Okay, I’m protecting myself. I know I am. It would be foolish to think I’m doing anything else by keeping this from him.

Instead of calling him about Andre, I use voice-to-text to tell him to meet me at home tonight instead of the hotel. I’d rather be there, where we know not to talk about legal issues. That way, if I clam up, he won’t try to dig into things. I can be evasive without him getting upset.

I can get away with keeping this secret for at least one more day and give myself enough time to come up with a way to tell my fiancé, “Hey, I accidentally helped destroy your family.” Though, I’m not sure one more day will help with that.

---