Page 26 of In the Midst of Chaos

“My father cut the shipment deal himself. He did it because we would earn a steady profit, and in return, he got to help a struggling family. I don’t want to have deaths on my hands for cutting off a steady income of a family that doesn’t even have a warning that this is going to happen.”

“What are you saying,Finnie?” Leon asked in an aggravated tone. “To just ignore the voting because of your dead daddy?”

Leon had always played the devil’s advocate so people would think he was on their side, but he wanted the best for the Disciples like the rest of us. Right now, he was taking it too far.

“What I’m saying,” Finley mocked, “is that we keep things how they are for one year. We try to renegotiate the terms, and we let them know that if we can’t cut a deal that’s beneficial to both of us, they have one year to find another employer. Riley, show them the papers,” she said before she sat down, giving Leon a dirty look.

Riley got up, grabbed the papers she had brought in her briefcase, and started to hand them out.

“Those are the reports for the Malaysian company. Although getting them means we would see more revenue, it also comes with a higher risk in damages and stolen cargo.”

“It’s something we have never had to worry about with our current company,” I found myself saying.

“We do this deal, and there’s more losses than wins. I am not taking it out of our employees’; that’s not what DD is about. We lose, then it’s coming out of your paychecks for the mistake of not doing your fucking homework.” Finley rose from her seat and walked out of the meeting amidst all the murmurs that broke out.

“May I see the files?” Axton asked Riley.

“More than an airhead bimbo.” She smiled sardonically at him.

“Our two proxies are also nays,” I told the room before I also walked out.

Chapter Ten

Past

The days following my awkward kiss with Nashton were dreadful since he hadn’t come home. I could assume it was because he was ignoring me. I hated that he was at the club because Nate just had his party after becoming an official brother.

That meant pussy twenty-four seven, and that would make my silly kiss seem like child’s play.

Water droplets splashed against my windowpane. I hated when it stormed, everything ricocheted against the tower. It was loud, annoying, and scary.

Yes, I was scared of storms.

Knowing that I shouldn’t, I knocked on Huxley’s door. He used to be my best friend, the one person in the whole world who understood what it meant having one foot in the world and another in the underworld. Then things changed when he started to develop feelings for me, or so he thought because I didn’t think he really saw me, and I feared what would happen the day he found out about our arranged marriage.

I feared I wouldn’t be a person to him but a legacy. Power always came at a price, and I had paid it.

The boys’ rooms were all spread out since they loved each other but needed their space, and it was easy to get lost in the manor. When I got to Huxley’s door, I knocked, but I left after five minutes of no answer.

Sighing, I went to the lowest room in the manor, knowing that I would feel safer there no matter what. Just as I was passing the kitchen, I jumped when Eleanor spoke to me.

“Fuck, you scared me,” I told her as I held my chest.

“Language,” she scolded me because a proper lady should never curse, at least in front of others.

I made my way to the kitchen island where she was sitting down with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in another. Eleanor was gorgeous in an old Hollywood glamour era kind of way. She had a dark pixie cut with big doe eyes and full red lips.

“Trouble sleeping?” She cocked her head.

I nodded. “My father used to stay up whenever it thundered, said he got his best ideas in the midst of chaos. That you could find yourself in the storm.”

Eleanor smiled at me. She reached across the table and stroked my cheek. “You are wise beyond your years, my sweet Finnie. You’ll make my son very happy.”

Bile rose up my throat whenever someone mentioned my upcoming nuptials to Huxley.

“Why are you up so late?”

She smiled sadly at me.

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