Page 43 of Christmas in Vines

Looking back to the many meetings Ethan and I had sat in about shareholder acquisition, lawyers needed days, some times weeks, to draw up the papers because each investor was unique. There wasn’t apro formatemplate to download off the internet, drop your John Hancock on and it would be made law. Maybe I had time.

Shoving from the chair, I went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and looked around my flat. It was not as clinical as Ethan’s was, with the stark colors and lateral lines, but it was… empty. Bracing my elbows on the counter, I thought back to the happily ignorant days bringing women here, women who had no expectations of me and me having none of them, to have a hot night and part ways in the morning.

Now—now, I felt different. I was shocked at how twenty days could change a person. Back when I knew I had a comfy office to sit at, could just hop on Amazon and order anything I wanted, and cruise clubs night after night, I didn’t have a care in the world.

Not about the working man.

Not about the poor or homeless.

Blithely calling Clarkston ciders pig swill.

I was disappointed by that person.

Possibly disgusted too.

The coffee maker beeped, and I took my cup of hot joe to drop some cream and sugar in before going back to my desk. Gazing at the screen, an odd thought came to me—did Winslow use the corporate communication app X-Sat that me and Ethan used at times?

If he did, did he know about the secret glitch in the system that backed up messages to the cloud but could be accessed by anyone with the same number? Maybe they did know and didn’t give a damn. I knew I didn’t back then when I only saw through the eyes of a corporate mogul. What peon would have the balls to hack me when I was richer than Midas?

But how do I go about getting Maxmillian’s number?

Drumming my fingers on the desk, I thought through my ideas; I could ask Willow for it, but that would look suspicious, and I’d have to answer for that tomorrow. Or—I could take the harder route, make a fake page on Instagram and bait Maxwell, the horny douchebag.

Rolling my neck, I grunted, “Here we go.”

It took two hours, a takeout meal from a Chinese place down the lane, a glass of scotch and mobile game of ping-pong until the douche took the bait. He sent his phone number with a text,hit me up. I’ll make it worth your while.

“Oh, I am going to hit you all right,” I snorted while loading the cloning program with his digits.

No, it was not legal, I damned well knew it, but I was ten million miles down the rabbit hole by now and there was a spark of light at the end. If there was nothing there, then, I’d delete it and forget all about it—but if there was something, I would not hide it. This could be the one thing that saved Willow and her father from destruction, if that was where Winslow was heading.

As I waited for the program to load, I made another cup and texted Ethan.

Thank you for doing as I’d asked.

Dropping the phone, I rubbed my face. Even if I did find something nefarious, how could Willow get a hold of it? Could I just walk up to her and hand her a stack of papers about Winslow? What about an anonymous drop on her doorstep?

“That wouldn’t work, idiot.” I huffed. “They could always say it was baseless propaganda and deep fake shit. That wouldn’t fly, but what would though?”

The program loaded and I grinned, accessed the app and started scrolling through the messages until I came to a set of voice notes.

“…When are you going to start on it?”that was Maxwell’s incensed voice. “I gave you all the details you needed, Dad.”

Details? On what?

“Calm down, Maxwell,”Maxmillian said calmly. “We’re working on it. The offers have been sent, and some of them are taking the money. In due time, we’ll have enough to force our hand.”

That did not sound good. I clicked on a third voice note.

“Well hurry the hell up.”Maxwell snarled. “They need to know you cannot cross a Winslow and get away with it.”

Wait…was this something else? Were they talking about some other company or some other moneybag’s family that stepped on the young douche’s toe or something? I clicked another voice note but this was not one I recognized.

“Your father is right, Maxwell,”the man said. “We’ve laid the groundwork, buying out the other shareholders and now we almost have enough. When they take our more than generous offer to buy in, your father’s shares, combined with mine, will be enough to take over Clarkston’s Ciders—”

My mouth dropped and my blood turned to ice.

“—Getting revenge on your ex-girlfriend is not the only applicable motif here,”the man said.“My brother has been screwing me over for years, shutting me out of managerial decisions and ignoring my ideas. Ideas that would have made us take over the Sullivans and the fucking Vegas years ago. Now though, he will have no choice but to take the backseat and watch.”

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