Page 84 of The Acquisition

A couple of steps had me almost out of the room before Evie called me to stop. "Jana, don't run away. I need you to help me set up something to honor my mother."

My chest squeezed and my knees felt weak. I couldn't turn around to face her, but I knew I couldn't abandon her either. "You've got my number. I may not be close by, but I'll always be here for you."

* * *

Standing in the middle of my apartment, an odd restlessness came over me. I'd fought to get all this back, and now it was all tainted by memories of Colter. It didn't matter we never spent time here together. All the things in my apartment, carefully chosen over the last four years, no longer brought me joy. Now they were useless things I'd sold my soul to retrieve.

My phone rang, and I dug through my bag to retrieve it. Stryker's name scrolled across the screen. "Tell me my father isn't causing trouble already."

"Nothing I can't handle. He's been pretty quiet actually."

"Well, that's alarming," I murmured.

"I actually just wanted to see how you were settling into your apartment. I also got the name of an attorney for you."

I exhaled. "That was fast."

"It sounded like it was a matter you wanted resolved quickly. Are you okay?"

"Not really," I admitted. "I'm here, surrounded by all my things, but—"

"They're just things now? I bet you wonder why you gave up so much to get all it back."

I nodded. The words seemed hard to force past my lips. "Something like that. How did you get so astute?"

"I've had some experience with a similar situation. What do you know about me?" he asked.

"Just what Caroline told me. You are a professional interim CEO. She said you were a friend, and I could trust you. That was all."

"Caroline found me when I too was cast out of my family. I was broke and had nowhere to turn. She threw me some work that turned into another job and another. It's been nearly fifteen years and I'm still doing it. However, I've done things to try and get back in the good graces of my father."

"How did that work out?" I asked, curious to hear if there was a scenario where my life didn't feel like a complete disaster.

"I've given up on my family. They're a bunch of malignant narcissists and I'm lucky to be free of them. There is someone who is wrapped up with them, someone innocent, that I've got unfinished business with."

I hummed a sound I felt displayed my sympathy and understanding. I started to pace. The need to escape my apartment was overwhelming, but where would I go? Work was no longer a refuge. I wasn't ready to run into Colter.

"Let me guess," Stryker's voice cut through my mounting anxiety, "you're feeling trapped and need somewhere to run?"

"In a nutshell," I agreed.

"Good. I could use your help. I said your father was being quiet, but not still. He's trying to gather his forces. It seems he only has one move."

When my father tried to take over Anderson Global he did so by finding a proxy to stake a claim, a weak one, but a claim to inheritance nonetheless.

"Is he buying stock?" I asked.

"He's trying, but he's not allowed to buy enough to have a voting position on the board," Stryker answered.

The failure of the vodka brand brought scrutiny by the SEC and several other alphabet agencies. Maxwell was under investigation at the moment, but knowing how loose his morals were, it was likely they'd end up finding something. And in the meantime, he couldn't make any large stock purchases.

"He's looking for someone to act on his behalf," I said.

"I think he's found someone," Stryker growled.

"Last time he found someone with a familial connection and tried to exploit that to gain control. There isn't a single person in the Anderson inner circle who would betray them that way."

"No, but there is someone just on the outside of that circle who might be motivated to turn on them," he said.

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