Page 60 of Strawberry Moon

Ford let out a little growl, and the man closest to us scooted his chair a few inches farther away, looking at him like he was a feral dog invading their space.

I patted Ford on the shoulder. “It’s okay. I don’t particularly care what they think of me. You can eat your pancakes.” I turned back to the board with a light smile, meeting each of their eyes as I looked around. None of them wanted to look at me, except Eric, his whole face scrunched up in disgust. “I’d introduce you to my boyfriend, but I don’t think any of you particularly care, so I’ll save it for my actual friends.”

“That’s for the best,” Eric agreed. “And since you no longer work in this building—”

“I’ve actually never worked in this building,” I corrected him. “I mean, yeah, I became CEO by default, but I let you all do what you thought best, because silly me, I thought maybe you were sorry for being complicit in mass murder.”

“We never had anything to do with—” one of the men started, but Eric cut him off with a look.

“Frankly, puppy, it doesn’t matter what you thought. As of half an hour ago, you’re no longer CEO. I am. And you’re dismissed. Sterling owns the research you’ve been working on, and we no longer need you to be working on it.”

For a moment, I stared at Eric. My deepest concerns had been right, then. “You knew. You knew all along what my grandfather was doing. You literally are complicit.”

“Prove it.”

I looked over at Andy, and a grin spread across his face as our eyes met. “You have what you need to do that?” I asked him.

“Sure do, boss. A word from you and proof goes to everyone. Cops, sure, but also, newspapers. Watchdog organizations. All the Sterling employees.Everyone.”

“He is not your boss,” Eric hissed, even as a handful of the men present paled at Andy’s words. “I am. I own anything you’re planning on sending anywhere, and I will end your career. Your life. This is not what you want to do today, Mr. James.”

Andy laughed aloud. “This is what I wanted to do six months ago, asshole. I’m only still on this board because Archer talked me into staying. Finding out which, if any of you, were involved in the old man’s plot. You all really thought Archer was so weak and pathetic that he’d just let things ride, let you sweep murder under the rug, but we’ve been planning this since the moment we found out the truth. I’ve got enough proof to put every person on this board in prison, as accessories after the fact if not accomplices to begin with.”

The door opened behind us, and the building’s weekend security guards entered.

“Mr. Sterling and his associates have been let go,” Eric told them, motioning to me, Ford, and my lawyer, and then Andy, still sitting at the table next to him. “They’ll be leaving right now. And you’ll need to relieve them of any electronics they have on them before they go, since they have proprietary Sterling data.”

I turned to the security guard, who was looking at me in confusion, and smiled. “Hey, Ben. How’s the wife?”

“Good,” he said, uncertainly. “I don’t understand, Mr. Sterling.”

“It’s okay. Neither does Eric.” I turned to my lawyer. “As of Friday evening, who owns the majority of the stock in Sterling?”

Decent people everywhere had sold off Sterling stock when the news about our products came out. And indecent people too—the ones who recognized a sinking ship when they saw one.

“You do, Mr. Sterling. You have the controlling interest, by a rather large margin. I’m currently making arrangements to offer for all remaining stock, to expedite the process of taking the company private.”

I turned back to the board. “Congratulations on voting me out as CEO, but you’re all fired. I’m gonna go ahead and appoint a new CEO. Me, I think.” Looking back at Ben. “You can definitely escort them off the premises, and take their security passes while you’re at it. You don’t have to steal their phones, though. That was just a Hail Mary from Eric to try to stay out of prison.”

Ben blinked, but a second later, he straightened and nodded. “Yes, sir, Mr. Sterling. Gentlemen, would you like to come with us, or should I call the rest of security in?”

Next to me came the sound of a suction seal breaking, and I turned to find Ford, holding his container of pancakes, licking cinnamon apples off the tines of his fork. He grinned at me. “I figured you had these assholes in hand, so I could go ahead and eat.”

Best. Boyfriend. Ever.

“I do, thanks, babe.” I turned back to them, as Ben motioned to the door and Ford ate his pancakes. “Good luck to you all getting out of the country before the cops come looking for you.”

Andy snorted and shook his head. “Not too likely, sorry.” He gave an innocent blink when a few of them turned to look at him. “Oh, sorry, did I say that I hadn’t sent the information I gathered? That was a lie, my bad. The cops’ll be looking for you in a minute, so good luck... getting to the airport before getting arrested there, I guess? It’s been awful knowing you, and I look forward to my life without you all.” He turned to look at Ford. “What’s a guy gotta do to get his own pancakes? Those smell amazing.”

Ford grinned and took another bite, and Andy pouted. I sighed and wondered where the closest place to grab pancakes was.

41

Ford

There was one split second in the boardroom at the Sterling Corporation’s headquarters in Alexandria where I saw red. It was hard to walk down those halls, to be sure, knowing this was the place that’d manufactured Lily’s death and the deaths of so many other omegas.

But I walked through at Archer’s side, his steady heartbeat kept me calm. Since his grandfather died, this was his domain now, and I could trust him to guide the ship.

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