Page 62 of Winning Bid

“Possible? Yes. Legal? No. But it is commonly done. It's a way for investors and whoever else to protect themselves. By keeping those pseudonyms in place, it prevents people from complaining about things like conflict of interest. Sort of one of those things that people do all the time but nobody talks about. If the IRS got wind of it, of course, he'd be screwed.”

“And you gathered dirt on a pseudonym?”

God, but he's innocent. “The best way to have a solid pseudonym in a corporation is to make sure that they have an online presence. And that's not difficult to fake. I just wish I knew which of the board members was his pseudonym. Hell, since I didn't see too many commonalities between the boards, it's probably more than one.”

Anderson's jaw grits tight. “Which means that he knew that you didn't know that he's on those boards.”

Slowly, I nod. “Whether or not he believes I'm a traitor is one thing. But setting you up to believe that I am? That was on purpose.”

“And the only way that we prove this is by breaking into Andre's office, isn't it?”

“Yep.”

“Shit. You have access?”

“I do. He gave me his spare key card to his office a while ago, and he never asked for it back.”

Anderson pauses. “Wait, so how did you figure out this was going on?”

“Over the hundreds of documents that I have procured for Andre for this project, there was one with your father's name on it. Some company where he's the majority shareholder, and he couldn't hide it. I knew from that point on that Andre was up to something terrible.”

“Why did you assume the worst over one company?”

“For one, he's been making big moves about buying a bunch of companies all together at the same time. So they had to have something in common. And two, it's Andre, the bastard who kidnapped me to upset your father. It wasn't that hard to put together. The man is a sociopath.”

“Yeah, on that. Why in the hell did you agree to go work for him?”

It's a valid question. “I thought he was in my corner. And I thought that maybe having a sociopath in my corner wasn't the worst thing. Not to mention the fact that your father got me blackballed from every other company in town. It was either switch to a new industry, or move. Or take the job with Andre. I knew that taking a job with Andre would piss your father off, and that was honestly a big bonus.”

He smirks at that. “Fair enough. Let’s go steal some documents.”

32

JUNE

As we pull into the parking garage, I go over the plan again. “Right? So if somebody finds us in his office, what do we say?”

“That you forgot some documents, and you're here to make sure that you don't screw up a big presentation.”

“And if they find us making copies of those documents?”

“Same thing. You say that it's not unusual for lawyers and paralegals to be there late, right?”

I nod. “But it is pretty late now, and it's gonna be kind of weird to explain that. Do you think that this is a bad idea?”

“Considering when we were in the hotel that one paralegal texted you in the middle of the night and he was still at the office, I think it'll be fine. I imagine everybody here knows that Andre doesn't accept any excuses for screw-ups. This is just a natural consequence of that.”

I blow out a breath of relief. “All right. We can do this.” Just as I unbuckle my belt, he grabs my hand. “What?”

“Are we sure we can do this? Is this the best way to go about things?”

Is he asking that now? “If you can think of a better plan, tell me before we go in there.”

Anderson stares ahead. Silence falls in the car as he thinks. If this man can pull a better plan out of his ass before we get out of the car, great. I don't exactly see another way out of this. Doing anything against Andre could be a death sentence. But he shakes his head. “I've got nothing.”

“Okay, then let's do this.”

We get out of the car and go into the building. Pretending everything is normal used to be second nature to me. But right now, it feels like hell.

---