Page 102 of Sexting the Boss
There are photos. Not of anything sexual—this isn’t revenge porn—but of accounts, off-the-books meetings, and wire logs that never made it into company audits. Some of the names on the receipts are shell companies I had traced three years ago. Some are fake charities. One is her cousin’s boutique that magically received a “retention grant” just before an IPO round.
“She’s been skimming off the backend since before I took the company public,” I say. “But she was careful. The only reason I caught it is because Dan—my old friend—used to cover for her.”
Lila looks up sharply. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. And Victoria had Sabrina Hayes smoothing the books during quarterly review.”
Her mouth twists. “Oh fuck. She’s a smug little narc.”
“She’s a climber. Always has been.” I set my plate down and take the phone back. “I didn’t go after them before because I didn’t want to burn the whole firm down. But now?”
Her voice drops. “Now?”
“They dragged you into it,” I say, keeping my voice even, “and Gavin Hale is part of it.”
Her hand stops midair, pizza forgotten. “He’s not freelancing,” I continue. “He’s on Victoria’s payroll.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “What?”
“He’s listed as an external compliance contractor under a shell entity tied to Lane,” I say. “Different alias. Same routing structure as her offshore accounts.”
She stares at me like I just tilted the floor under her.
“No,” she says. “Last I checked, he was doing private consulting. That’s how he paid for the hotels. That’s how he explained the cash.”
“He wasn’t,” I reply with a sigh. “He was being paid through her.”
Silence.
Her eyes narrow slightly. “You ran him, didn’t you?”
I’m not going to lie about this. “I ran the network around you,” I say. “After the deli, I wasn’t going to assume he was just some jealous ex.”
“He’s not jealous,” she says flatly. “He’s territorial.”
“He’s also funded,” I say. “And not by coincidence.”
Her shoulders go rigid as the math finishes itself. “That means he didn’t just show up at my office,” she says slowly. “He didn’t just happen to bump into me.”
“No.”
Her fingers curl into the edge of the box, knuckles pale.
“They placed him,” she says.
“Yes, and you’re never going to need to be afraid of him again.”
Her gaze searches my face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we control the timing,” I answer. “We decide where, and when, and how this ends.”
She studies me for a long second, and something shifts behind her eyes. “You think this is just strategy,” she says quietly. “You think it’s positioning and leverage and clean exits.”
“It is positioning and leverage,” I reply. “It’s also protection.”
She lets out a breath that isn’t steady. “You don’t understand what he does,” she says.
I frown at her. “I understand enough.”
