Page 7 of Unbind

I won’t shy away from it.

I’ll take it.

I’ll own it all.

Because that, quite simply, is what I deserve.

‘I see,’ I say quietly, holding eye contact with her. I can’t imagine the conversation she’s just had, the things she’s heard about me. She’s watching my face to see how I’ll react. There’s no sign of spite; she’s simply pissed off beyond belief on behalf of her employee, and so she should be.

‘What am I missing here?’ Anton barks, and I turn to him.

‘Give me a sec and I’ll explain. But first—is she okay? Nat, is that her name?’

‘Natalieto you, and no, she’s not okay,’ Gen says, picking up her coupe and taking a healthy slug of champagne. I wait. ‘She’s extremely shocked and distressed, so I sent her home.’

My mind reels at what Natalie must think of me. I recall the fire in her eyes, the way she couldn’t even bring herself to reply to my banal offer of a glass of water. No surprise there.

‘I’m waiting,’ Anton says in the voice of a man who ismost definitely unused to being on the fringes of a conversation.

I give Gen a little nod to show her I understand what she’s telling me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. It’s so fucking inadequate, but I swivel on my stool towards Anton nonetheless. Once again, this is my problem to own, to deal with, even if it makes my position as his and Gen’s preferred buyer for Wolff’s Alchemy stake untenable.

‘The guy I assaulted,’ I tell him, my voice as steady as if I was updating him on the weather. ‘The one I served time for hurting.’

He nods. He knows my history well. I was in prison when we first met as part of an entrepreneurial programme he ran for young offenders. ‘Nat’s brother, I assume.’

‘Yes.’ I inhale sharply and continue, the sound of my voice dispassionately recounting my own crime surreal in my ears, surrounded as we are by Swiss watches and crystal chandeliers and expensive women. ‘I got some of my mates to hold him down while I had at him. I beat him to a pulp, and he lost an eye and broke three ribs.’

Those were the headlines, rather than the full extent of his injuries. The prosecution made sure to spell each one out at my trial, to show colour photographs of every bruise and welt I’d inflicted, and of the back of his head, shaved so the medical staff who treated him could remove every last piece of gravel embedded in the back of his skull.

Anton sucks in a horrified breath and squeezes his eyes shut, as well he should. It’s barbaric. Grotesque. Abhorrent. And though he knows I was sent down for GBH, he’s never asked me for the specifics. When he opens his eyes, he looks at me, pausing before he speaks.

‘Fuck, mate,’ he says, and there’s an element of censure,of disappointment, there, naturally, but that’s not all. There’s also, I think, compassion, and space, and acceptance.

‘I know.’ I look down, tilting my tumbler so the amber liquid swirls enticingly around it, before forcing myself to meet his eye again. But he’s looking at Gen—for guidance, I assume.

‘We’re not here to be judge and jury,’ he says slowly. ‘You’ve had that, you’ve served your time. You deserve to be judged on the man you are today, and I’m proud to call you a friend. I’vebeenproud since the day we met.’

‘Thank you.’ There’s an ache in my throat. Anton is intimately familiar with my past. He’s mentored me for two decades now, since I was blessed enough to stumble into a business programme he was running for inmates when I was inside, and I value his friendship and support enormously. Still, there’s a vast gulf between his being aware of my past crimes and our coming face to face with someone whose family I shattered when I inflicted those vicious injuries on her brother.

‘I maintain that you’re the right person to take over the JV,’ he continues, looking at Gen again, ‘but I really need to defer to my wife here. This is her company, Nat is her employee, and I’m unclear how we proceed in light of this…revelation, I suppose, for want of a better term.’ He leans back defeatedly.

‘Of course,’ I say. I wouldn’t expect anything else. I remind myself that this Alchemy thing is a tiny deal for me, a kind of potential pet project, more than anything else. A nice little bolt-on acquisition.

I’m no stranger to the sensation of doors being slammed in my face—both literally, in prison, and metaphorically, in business. So to be back here, essentially being judged oncrimes I committed half a lifetime ago, should smart far less than it does.

Gen’s surveying me through narrowed, thoughtful eyes. She’s not being outright hostile, but she doesn’t have the personal relationship with me that her husband does. She’s firmly in Natalie’s camp, I suspect, and rightly so.

She blows out a breath. ‘Fucking hell,’ she sighs. ‘I honestly didn’t see this coming. I’ve had no problem with you coming on board, Adam. Not until just now, at least. And the JV mainly concerns itself with our overseas pop-ups—and Manhattan, of course.’

Manhattan, which opens next month, will be the only permanent Alchemy outpost and has largely been funded through the joint venture. Post Gen and Anton’s union, the JV expanded so that Wolff bought a stake in the entire group—a stake I’d assume in full if I came on board. That said, the management of this London club remains under the control of its executive team: Gen and her three co-founders.

‘So you’ve got no actual jurisdiction here, really,’ she continues. ‘But I have to say, I’m reticent to bring on an investor who has such a particularly horrendous personal history with the family of a trusted employee.’

I wait, and so does Anton, because it sounds like she’s working through her thought process aloud here. Sure enough, she keeps talking.

‘I need to chat to the guys about this, and I’d want to talk to Nat again, when she’s had some time to gather her wits.’ Anton opens his mouth to speak, but she cuts him off. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get her to sign an NDA.’

He grins fondly at her. ‘You read my mind.’

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