Alex

“The Citrix project is missing somewhere around a million dollars,” Mr. Davis said.

We were in my executive conference room, discussing each department’s concerns. Missing money was a departmental concern, but it should have been brought to my attention as soon as it was discovered. Nobody should wait for a staff meeting to discuss something like that.

I was surprised because Mr. Davis had been working for Ross Enterprises as our CFO for twenty years and should have known better. I’d never cared for the guy. He was one of the last remaining employees from when my father ran Ross Enterprises. Charles Davis was in his early fifties and only around five foot five. He had one of those beer bellies that hung over his pants. Ever since I was a kid, I wondered if his hair was real or fake. I assumed, since it had never changed colors or appeared washed, it was fake. Over the past few months, I noticed he had become increasingly more anxious and uneasy whenever I came to his office unannounced.

The other executives started to shift in their seats. They recognized I was about to lose it. But this was a blessing in disguise. Mr. Davis needed to be let go, and he had just given me a reason.

I tried to reply calmly. “I must have misunderstood you. Did you just say we are missing a million dollars like it doesn’t fucking matter?” On second thought, it didn’t come out all that calmly.

“I’m reading you the report the Citrix project account manager typed up,” he said angrily.

Shannon King, the human resources manager, was shaking her head. I understood why she was doing it, but I didn’t care. Mr. Davis was going to get fired. Charles should have been investigating how the money went missing, not relying on an account manager’s report. Mr. Davis was lucky I was firing him instead of throwing him off the top of the building. Shannon should have been happy with me too.

“You’re fired. Fred, please escort Mr. Davis out of the building.” Fred was the top security officer at Ross Enterprises. He had been in the same unit as my brothers. When he needed a job after leaving the military, I’d hired him. The man was built, with muscles in places only body builders could have. Smart people didn’t mess with him.

“You can’t fire me!” Mr. Davis yelled as Fred escorted him out of the building.

I can fire anyone I want, I thought with bravado, while making a mental note to call the lawyers. They were going to be making extra money this week.

The remaining executives were all quiet. Shannon was writing down what I assumed were notes to save me from a lawsuit. I gave her job security.

“Does anyone remember who the account manager for the Citrix project is?” I asked.

Scott White replied, “Jessica Patterson was the account manager for that project. They have been looking to promote her to a larger role. I’m not sure if she is still working on the project.”

Scott was the vice president of Ross Enterprises, and I relied on him for many of the everyday operations. He was in his early thirties. We attended the same school growing up, and later, we both went on to Harvard. When I took over the family business, neither my brothers nor my sister wanted to work at Ross Enterprises, so Scott became my number two.

“Sarah, please get Jessica up here now.” I tried not to snap at her because she was my sixth assistant this year. I had stopped sleeping with them, which cut down the turnover somewhat.

“Yes, Mr. Ross.”

This was going to be a mess. I hoped we could figure it out before the media got wind of it. A financial issue like this could affect our revenues. I needed it resolved before it got any larger.

“We will continue this meeting next week, unless any of you have more bombs to drop on my plate. If you learn anything else about this problem, let me know.”

All the executives except Scott filed out of the conference room. Scott followed me back to my office. “About time you fired that asshole,” he said with disgust in his voice.

“If you didn’t like him, why didn’t you do it sooner? You knew I didn’t like the guy.”

“It’s hard to get rid of your father’s employees,” he said.

I had to agree. Despite my earlier bravado, I had a hard time getting rid of people that had worked for my father. Scott and I both respected my dad and his choices. But it was well past time to get rid of Charles Davis.

“What do you think about Jessica taking his position?” I asked Scott. Jessica had been offered a job at Ross Enterprises a few years back. She started as an intern and worked her way up, and she had done an outstanding job on a few projects.

“She’s a little shy, but she knows her stuff. I expect this would be a good fit for her. But if you promote her, you can’t fire her when she rattles off statistics,” Scott said in mock warning. “I’m going to take a look at the project financials. If I find anything, I will notify you.”

“I’m going to call Dad and get Ricky’s number. In the meantime, let’s keep this quiet and see if we can figure it out.”

Scott nodded and left, heading back to his office across the hall from me.

“Mr. Ross, you needed me?” Jessica whispered. I hadn’t noticed she had entered my office until she spoke. I realized I fired people all the time, and my employees were convinced I was an ass, but if they did their jobs, I didn’t terminate them. Though, sometimes I did fire people for little reason. If they invaded my personal space, they would likely be looking for a new job.

Jessica was in her late twenties or early thirties. She had long chestnut-brown hair and always wore clothes too big for her. She was on the short side, perhaps around five foot three. When I looked at her, she appeared close to peeing her too-big gray slacks.

I didn’t have time for timid people. I needed competent employees. So I decided to see if Jessica was ready for this promotion with a little test. If she didn’t work out, I would move her back to her current role. “Can you explain the report you gave Mr. Davis?”

“I noticed the financial sheets hadn’t lined up for the last few months. I reported the issue to Mr. Davis, but he ignored me. I started an investigation to find the missing money and discover how much was missing. I put together another report and gave it to Mr. Davis.” She handed me the report. It was well composed, and she had more confidence once she started to discuss her work.

“I believe we should create a fraud hotline,” Jessica said. “I read an article where forty-two percent of fraud cases were turned in on an internal hotline. Only three percent of fraud cases were caught by an outside agency.” Jessica proceeded to list a few more statistics. Based on her explanation, she was convinced someone had gotten into our IT systems and stolen the money.

“I will take that into consideration. You’re being promoted to CFO. Get with human resources in reference to your promotion. I want you in my office tomorrow morning with an update. You can go now.” The expression of surprise on Jessica’s face as she left my office almost made me laugh.

“Sarah, can you get my father on the phone?”

I walked toward my desk, waiting for the call to come through. Looking out the window, I started to realize how empty my life felt. I worked sixty-hour weeks. I didn’t spend much time with my family, but I spent way too much time with Scott at the bars. Perhaps it was time to start settling down and stop acting like a playboy. That way, I might also keep more female employees. I was so deep in reflection, I almost missed Sarah calling my name.

“Mr. Ross, your father is on line one,” she said through the intercom.

“Hello, Father.”

My dad had started with nothing and turned himself into a billionaire. When he retired, I took over Ross Enterprises. We all had the option to work for the family business or start our own company. The twins, Asher and Antonio, opened a security firm after retiring from the military. Their company tried to hire down-on-their-luck, ex-military employees. Asher and Antonio’s firm had been doing extremely well for the last two years.

Aaron was a movie star. He had wanted to be a movie star his whole life. He had used his own talent to make it in the industry and didn’t rely on his name at all. For the past three years, Aaron had been nominated for an Oscar. Last year, he finally won his first one.

Ever since we were kids, we knew Allison would become a doctor. She loved to help anyone when they were hurt. Two years ago, she did her first fieldwork for Doctors Without Borders. Now, we only saw her a couple times a year. She would visit briefly then head back out to her next location.

My dad chuckled in his deep baritone voice. He knew whenever I called him “Father,” I needed something. “Hello, son. It’s so good to hear from you. I know this isn’t a personal call, since you never call to chat and never call from work. So what’s going on?” One thing I loved about my father was that he always got right to the point.

“Do you still have Ricky’s number?” Ricky was who Dad consulted when he needed to locate something awry in IT. If our system had been compromised, I didn’t have faith that the current IT staff could locate the problem. “We found some discrepancies with the Citrix project. The account manager thinks we’ve been compromised. I need someone to look at the digital footprint.” Whatever a digital footprint was. Hopefully, Ricky would be able to find a breach.

There was a long pause on the line. I looked at the phone to make sure we hadn’t been disconnected.

“Ricky retired, but I have a new individual you can call,” he said, a hint of delight in his voice. “I’ll see if this person can meet us tonight at our usual restaurant around eight o’clock.”

“I’ll see you there, Father.” I didn’t know what he was thinking, and I didn’t have time to worry about ulterior motives. That could wait until later. Right now, I needed to work on the new mall project.

Martha Ross

“Martha, where are you?” Alexander Sr. bellowed.

Some days, my husband didn’t understand how loud his voice was. We lived in a ten-thousand-square-foot home, which Alexander had built for me. After all these years of being married to him, I still couldn’t believe the wealth we had.

“Darling, you don’t need to yell. I’m right here.”

He walked into the room and wrapped his arms around me. Whenever he held me, I forgot everything except him. We might’ve been together for thirty-two years, but I still melted in his arms.

“I have wonderful news.”

“Okay, what is this great news?” I asked with a sigh as he pulled me in tighter.

“Someone stole a million dollars from Ross Enterprises.”

I was stunned. I waited for the punch line, intrigued and a little worried. My husband hadn’t been this excited since the last time he worked a large merger. After a moment, I replied. “Can you please explain why this is good news? Last time I checked, losing money wasn’t good.”

Energy was vibrating off him, and I could see the wheels turning in his brain. “Alex believes his company was compromised digitally. I found the perfect person to investigate the intrusion.”

“What do you mean you found the perfect person to investigate the intrusion?” Then his words hit me, and all I could do was groan. “Please tell me you are not trying to use this issue and his company to get Alex married.”

“Of course that’s what I’m doing. I want grandkids. Out of our four sons and one daughter, none of them have given me what I want. The person I found will be the perfect match for Alex and will give me grandkids.”

I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. “Honey, how do you know anyone our son’s age that would be a perfect match? I want grandkids also, but we need to let them do this on their own and find their true love, as we did.”

“We were married when we were in our early twenties. Alexander is now in his thirties. I have waited long enough. Bridget Boggs has an IT firm with a specialty in finding digital something or others. I don’t understand all the technology stuff.”

I didn’t recognize the name at all. “Okay, I’ll bite. Who is Bridget Boggs?”

“She’s the daughter of Samuel Highmore.”

“We’ve been looking for Katherine Highmore and her two daughters for years. When did you find them?”

“Katherine now goes by Greta. I finally found her a few months back. Bridget has done well for herself and her family. She runs one of the best IT firms around, and we need her to look at the issue.”

“That girl has been through so much. You are not going to play matchmaker with her and our playboy son. I will not have her being hurt.”

“I will make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”

This was a bad idea, and I knew it. But I also loved that girl and felt guilty for not helping the family after the incident. We had looked for them for years. We wanted to help them. Their father was an evil man, but the girls had gotten the wrong end of the stick.