Page 16 of Silas's Sweetheart

Silas reached for his phone and pressed one.

“What do you need, Silas?” Wendy asked before he could say a word.

“Can you ring Ven for me and then patch his call through, please?”

“Of course.”

He clicked off and sat back, eyeing Laken.

“Let’s see if he answers.” His gut suggested something was off and Silas cursed that he’d taken his eye off the ball on this. Ven had their delivery contract for the last five years. They were reliable.

“Let’s hope so. Hales are furious at the delay because they had a rollout plan for the new range and this is fucking it up. We have penalty clauses that could cost us tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“Fuck!” Silas scowled. “Barely two fucking weeks in and already things are turning to shit. How the fuck is this gonna look if the press catches wind of it?” he groused.

Laken gave him a cheeky grin that knocked years off him. “I’m just grateful the horse shit will be aimed in your direction.”

It was often a competition between Laken and Rue as to who could be the more serious. Laken kept mostly to himself, he’d been the hardest to get to know when Dad and Popi had brought him home. They hadn’t shared the reasons behind Laken’s adoption into the family, and Silas, who had his own secrets as a teenager he never wanted to share for fear of making himselflook weak, hadn’t pried. Years later, he felt it had been a mistake to give Laken that space when it caused a distance between them, one he’d struggled to breach. It was a regret he harbored but didn’t share, not even with Booker.

“Hey, you forget I’m used to horse shit being aimed at me,” Silas fired back, smirking.

“Rather you than—”

The phone buzzed, and Laken stopped talking as Silas reached to take the call. “Ven—”

“Sorry, it’s me. Ven isn’t in the office and hasn’t been for some time from what I can glean from the temp secretary they have. She didn’t say much and was quite cagey, but I got the impression something is seriously wrong.”

“Fuck it all.” Silas pushed his chair back to stand, needing to move. “Can you get in touch with Martin at Express for me? Tell him it’s urgent if he tries to fob you off,” Silas added when he checked the time. Four-thirty on a Friday was not the best time to deal with this kind of problem.

“Will do.”

The line went dead, and Laken groaned. “I’ll go grab Isley before he leaves, and Ziggy. We need to look at all the options. All the stock is already with Ven, we’ll need to collect that and then figure out how best to get it to Hales with the least delay.”

As Laken spoke he stood, tugging on the cuff of his suit jacket, his dark gray eyes narrowed with a focus that said there was no way he could come up with a convincing story to suggest not involving Ziggy.

“I’m not sure Ziggy has worked through the pile of work I’ve already landed on him,” Silas bluffed, masking his thoughts.

Laken, who’d turned to exit the office, stopped and gave Silas a shrewd look that forced him to maintain eye contact and not reveal his agitation. “Why do I get the feeling something’s amiss here?”

Clever fucker!

Silas hated the jerky shrug he gave. “What’s to miss? Ziggy has deadlines, like we all do.” Silas had made sure of that so he could keep the man well away from him.

Just one brow arched, and Silas could tell he had let something slip when Laken turned more fully to stare at him. “You’re wasting time!” he snapped. “Go find the others.”

“You need a better poker face,” said Laken.

Silas was looking at the closed door before he could think of a comeback. His urge to chase after Laken was disrupted by his phone buzzing once more. He took his seat and answered.

“This better be life and death. I got dinner plans with the wife and she’ll have my balls on a platter if I’m late,” Martin said, right off the bat.

“Ven at Dore’s Delivery has done a vanishing act, or so it seems. I have a consignment of summer season clothes sat in his warehouse that should be in Hales Department stores. They should have been there a week ago. I’d say this is an emergency.”

There was a moment of silence followed by several cuss words that put a smile on Silas’s face. “You done cussing me out?” The years of doing business meant he took no offense to the salty mouthed owner of Express.

They weren't as big a company as Dore’s, but Silas had worked with them for over a decade and trusted Martin to come through for him in this pinch. The size of Starling Enterprises meant they had to use several hauliers to manage their worldwide logistics. No one company could offer everything they needed, it just wasn’t possible.

“You’ll owe me a bouquet the size of a damn car and a fancy meal, maybe even an expensive bauble, cause I ain’t paying for you fucking off my wife!”

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