Page 101 of Lesson In Honesty

“Thank God. I know it’s a lot of money, Mack, but they were all wrong for the company. I’ll email you the recording from the drone; you made the right choice.”

“I’ll watch it when I come home.” The last thing he wanted was something else to fuck up his remaining time with Liam and Sierra. He’d have to go back, there was no other choice until he worked everything out with the business, his house, and returned to them.

“Yes, sir. Uh, enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

“Thanks.” Mack stabbed the end call button, then tried to throttle the railing with his bare hands. Fucking backstabbing asshole. When he found out who’d sold classified fucking information to the potential buyers, he’d strip them naked and tie them to the nearest railway tracks.

Why the hell would the buyers pay for information included in the sale of MVM Tech? He wasn’t withholding any of the current projects from the contract—the buyers just weren’t supposed to be privy to the Level Twelve projects until theyownedLevel Twelve.

Unless—and the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to be—they were just using the sale as a trojan horse to gain access to the building and its employees, sniff out the weak links, and appropriate data before dropping out of the contract.

They had been stalling for a while, he mused, watching his breath plume into the cold air. Changing details in the agreement, throwing in stupid clauses that made no sense, procrastinating at every step.

Buying time while they bought his people, his research, his fucking life’s work.

Snarling, he flipped through his contacts, not caring less it was the weekend and his next call was to a man who abhorred working anything more than Monday to Friday.

“Alexander Henry.” A sleepy grunt, a yawn. “Black, Hendry, and Peel, attorneys at law.”

“Who the fuck is Dean Holewinski and why is he escorting those fuckwits from Corrinthian Technologies around my goddamn building without my permission?” The tone of his voice was colder than the air around him by far.

“What the fu—Morehead?” The confusion in Alexander’s voice was clear.

“Answer the question, Alex.”

“Jesus, it’s too early for an inquisition.”

Mack didn’t care if it was three a.m. and his friend had fallen asleep two fucking minutes ago. His blood was running hot, he wanted answers, and his patience was dwindling down to the last fragile thread. “Dean Holewinski.”

“Black hired him as an intern, straight from Georgetown. Top five percent of his class, works hard, has a future ahead of him.”

A future with Mack’s foot so far up his scrawny ass, the intern would be sucking on his toes for years. “Fire him.”

“What?”

“Fire him or I fire you, Alex. My trust in your firm is currently non-existent, so you either give me a show of faith or I’m done here and now.”

“I need a reason to fire him, Maverick. There are laws against canning someone on a fucking whim.”

“How many reasons would you like? How about taking potential buyers into my building without my knowledge or permission? Without clearing it with the guy I left in charge of the safety of my property and employees?” Teeth bared, Mack wished he could wrap his hands around his lawyer’s neck instead of the wood. “If that’s not enough, why don’t we take into consideration that two of my staff—myfemaleemployees—were treated so reprehensibly during that sneaky little visit thatthey’re traumatized and unable to return to work on vital R&D projects?”

“Well, hell. I swear, Mack, I didn’t know anything about this.”

“You do now. What are you gonna do about it?” he demanded.

“Christ, I need coffee,” Alex muttered bitterly. He blew out a frustrated breath. “I need to talk to Dean before we make a decision. It’s only fair to hear his side of things.”

“Is that a companywe?”

“Give me a break. I’ve had an hour’s sleep and there’s still a glass or two of scotch swimming in my veins.” Sheets rustled, a bed squeaked. “We can’t get rid of him without going through HR—it’s there for things like this, you know that. We need a statement from him, and from your people.”

There was a process, he understood that, but damned if he didn’t want to bypass and go straight for the jugular. “You’ve got until Monday night, Alex. In the meantime, you can tell the Corrinthian motherfucker thievingbastardsthey can—”

“Deal’s off, I get it.”

“Oh, it’s more than that. They’ve stolen the loyalty of one of my people, Alex. Someone I trusted implicitly with the most precious projects I’ve got running. When I find out who it is, they’ll roll on those assholes. I want them in handcuffs, their company in ruins, and everything they hold dear ripped away.”

“That’s certainly specific.”

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