Hayden

“How’s paradise?” Landon asked as he answered my call.

I pushed my chair away from my desk and rested my right leg on my left knee.

“It’s fine.” Why did we have to go through this rigmarole of Landon trying to point out that I lived a charmed life? I rolled my eyes, desperate to get down to business. “I’ve asked the captain to take us down the Italian coast over the next week or so.”

Landon cleared his throat as he stopped giving me shit and became the focused professional he was with others. “Not a problem. I have contacts all over that area who can make drops if you need them and I have a mobile team following you. I’m glad you called, actually.”

“Why? Your bear-baiting skills need sharpening?”

I could almost hear his grin at the other end of the line. “Well, yes, as it happens. But I also wanted to let you know that I finished tracing the finances of your senior team.”

“And?” I asked, gripping the phone a little more tightly.

“There’s a few things that we need to follow up. One with Anita and one with your finance director.”

“Anita? There’s no way she’s the leak.”

“We need to do some investigating. But she opened a bank account just over a year ago and there have been chunky payments into that account that total just shy of a hundred grand.”

My heart began to knock against my ribcage. Anita was the one I trusted over everyone. It couldn’t be her. She’d worked for me for ten years and been part of the team before we had seven figures on our balance sheet. But what Landon had found didn’t sound good. Anita and I didn’t share anything personal, but I assumed she and her husband didn’t have a lot of money. From what I’d heard when my office door was open, she was putting two kids through university and was finding it tough. I’d given her a ten percent pay rise when I’d heard that, although she’d never asked for a raise in the whole time she’d worked for me. Perhaps her kids’ education had been her Achilles’ heel. Had Cannon found her weak spot?

“You’re talking about my assistant, Anita? Fenton?” I asked. Perhaps Landon had mixed up the names.

“Yes, Anita Fenton. The bank account activity is unusual. But I need to trace where it’s coming from. We’re on it.”

“Okay, well let me know as soon as you can, please. I can’t imagine it’s her, but if it is . . .” The woman had access to everything I’d ever touched. I kept nothing from her; I trusted her implicitly. If she wanted to, she could cause chaos back at Wolf Enterprises.

“We’ll find out what’s going on.”

“I might call her. Check in.” I’d not spoken to her for a few days, and I could tell she was uncomfortable with me being away from the office. She’d tried to be respectful and not ask too many questions, but I could tell she wanted to know more about what I was doing.

“Don’t set off any alarm bells. Don’t try to question her.”

“I’m not an idiot.” That wasn’t conclusive right now. And if Anita was the source of the leak, I was pretty sure I’d be up for Idiot of the Year. “Did you say something about my finance director?”

“Actually it’s not the director. It’s his reports. The controller and the treasurer.”

“What’s the deal there?” Jesus, it sounded like Landon was investigating the entire company. Perhaps Cannon had more than one person on their payroll. It was clear they were coming for me, just like they’d come for my dad all those years ago.

“I’m not sure. A couple of calls to unregistered mobiles. An account in the Cayman Islands that one of them holds.”

“An offshore account? Why would anyone working for me need an account in the Cayman Islands?”

“It’s actually not that unusual for finance professionals. I see it all the time, especially if they’ve spent part of their career abroad. But it makes my job harder.”

I swallowed. Landon never admitted he found things difficult. It wasn’t his style.

“Also, I don’t think I asked you, but who’s the newest member of your team?”

I’d poached all five of my executive team from positions in other companies—I’d handpicked them—none of them had applied for the job. “My strategy director was the last person I recruited.” Sally’d been on the other side of a negotiation and she’d done her best to kick my arse. I’d decided I’d rather have her inside my tent pissing out than the other way around. “But that was over two years ago.”

“What about other women?”

“There’s Jean and Helen.”

“I don’t mean other people on your executive team. I mean women.”

Was he five? “You mean girls I’ve fucked? Well, you know the score there.”

“Are you still as prolific as you’ve always been?”

I chuckled and amusement sliced through my anxiety. It seemed so odd that my brother was asking me personal questions in a way that was clearly meant to be professional. I was used to a different side of him. “Prolific? Jesus, I bet locker room talk was boring when you were in the SAS. I fuck a lot of women, but they never come back to my place. I don’t take them to dinner or talk about my day with them.”

“So it’s just shagging. No pillow talk?”

“You want details? Okay, well if you must know, generally I like to start with getting my dick sucked. I like women to take their bra off for that but leave their knickers—”

“Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear about how bad in bed you are.”

Given how differently our lives had turned out, it always surprised me how quickly we reverted to our teenage selves around each other. There were lots of upsides to being successful, but there were downsides too. I didn’t get to kick back with the guys much. I didn’t have many friends. They’d been abandoned along the route to the success. And at work I was the boss—a leader. I was deadly serious and laser focused. Landon was really the only person in my life I could joke with.

“Think about it. Is there anyone you’ve shagged over the last couple of years you changed your MO for? Maybe she turned up to your place, naked, wearing just a fur or maybe you’ve fucked some office junior—”

“Hey, that’s enough. I’ve never taken advantage of a junior member of my staff. Like I said, there’s no one. I’m not saying there aren’t girls, but I never bring them back to my place and I never discuss work with them.” I fucked to forget about work. It was my release, the way I disappeared from the stress of the day.

“Calm down.” Landon paused. “If you’re sure then we’ll put all our efforts into the office. I just want to make sure we’re not missing anything. I expected it to be easier. Whoever it is has covered their tracks.”

“When I call Anita, I could ask her to arrange for me to be sent a couple of IMs and have her send them to me on USB.”

“IM?” Landon asked.

“Information Memorandum—the sale particulars of a company.”

“Sounds good. It could help flush someone out. That way if Cannon swoop in and buy any of the companies whose sale particulars you’ve requested, we’ll know Anita is the source.”

“Right, Einstein.” I hated to consider the possibility that Anita was the leak but if she was, I needed to know sooner rather than later. She had too much access to too much information. More than anyone, she had the ability to destroy me and I wasn’t going to let that happen.