Page 55 of Discretion at Its Finest

I didn’t follow them home. Instead, I drove straight to the Newman Trust. I needed my head cleared, my mind on straight. The feelings, the emotions, they could wait. I had business to attend to.

The elevator pinged as the lights hummed above, the building quiet. Alexander was already inside the conference room, sleeves rolled up and tie loosened. A half-dozen open files lay scattered across the table. He didn’t even look up when I walked in.

“Good,” I muttered, shutting the door behind me. “You started without me.”

“You’re late,” he said, his version of a reprimand. He didn’t waste any more breath on small talk. Instead, he tapped a stack of printed files with a pen. “Gregory finished the investment list.”

That got my attention. I shrugged off my coat and tossed it onto a chair, leaning over the table as I scanned the mess laid out in front of me. Pages and pages of losses. A dozen reckless acquisitions. Money funneled into sinking ventures, half-baked start-ups, and partnerships that should’ve never passed preliminary review.

Alexander exhaled softly through his nose. “Raymond wasn’t lying when he said he needed help. Half these investments Gregory made weren’t just failures… they were corporate catastrophes.”

“Those are his specialty,” I said dryly, flipping to the next page. “But catastrophes make good camouflage.”

Alexander’s gaze flicked up to mine, knowingly. “You’re thinking of using them.”

“I am using them,” I corrected coolly. “Gregory just delivered the blueprint.” I tapped the list. “Everyone thinks this is the problem.”

I flipped through, scanning page after page. Hundreds of thousands, millions, dropped into black holes. Venture capital flushed down drains. Doomed investments, dead-start businesses, partnerships no one with a brain would have approved. A paper trail so messy it could hide almost anything.

“This,” I said, lifting the top sheet, “is what we’ll show the board. Standard fixes. Tightening budgets. Cleaning up his mistakes. All very noble and responsible moves,” I continued, “while we figure out how to move the incoming money somewhere they’ll never think to look.”

He nodded slowly. “There are a few possibilities we have. Gregory’s screw-ups left three old accounts open. No one’s touched them in years.”

My jaw ticked.

Perfect.

“And no one’s monitoring them?”

“Not closely. The board thinks they’re empty. They assume Gregory just forgot to close them.”

I smirked. “Of course he did.”

Alexander slid another folder toward me. “If we funnel the new investor capital through those accounts, it’ll look like part of the clean-up. No flags.”

“The press will eat it up,” I said. “‘Look at Kaufman, fixing his brother’s fucking mess.’ Savior narrative accomplished.”

“You think your ego can handle it?” Alexander asked, and I shot him a glare before I looked down at the list again.

“We siphon funds through the holding accounts, route them into the start-ups I built on the coast, write off the returns, and let Newman Trust carry the illusion of stability until I’m ready to pull the plug.”

Alexander nodded. “We may need a buffer if investors get nervous.”

“They won’t,” I said, taking a seat, leaning back in the chair calmly. “Not while they think I’m the one holding the place together.”

Alexander didn’t say anything for a moment. Then his voice lowered. “And what about… the test results?”

For a second, it felt like the air was knocked out of me.

He watched my expression, his eyes following my every move. “What did they say?” he pressed further.

The conference room faded, the papers, the numbers, Gregory’s incompetence, Raymond’s desperation. All of itblurred into nothing. Only one truth stayed long enough to cut through it all.

“Positive,” I said finally. The word lodged in my throat on the way out. My voice wasn’t steady. I hated that he could hear that. “The results were positive. He’s mine.”

“And she still hasn’t told you,” he murmured.

“…No,” I said quietly. “She hasn’t.”