Chapter 27
Mallory
The Day of the Outing
Mallory could barely move among the wrinkle-free, tastefully tattooed bodies flocking to her at the AIM summer outing. She
scanned the crowd for Grayson, widening her freshly glossed lips into a welcoming smile to hide the anger and desperation
making her heart pound. She hated him. (She did. But also, she didn’t.)
“Ooh, are those alpaca?”
“Ms. Latham, can we take a group selfie?”
“With the alpaca?”
Mallory strolled past the life-size tic-tac-toe and led the new interns to the pen of farm animals she already regretted saying
yes to. It was the smell. Like being inside a dead whale that gorged itself on Limburger cheese. She angled her head to mask
the whisper of a double chin as selfies were snapped before resuming her search for Grayson.
The lawn was full of employees buoyed by the news of AIM’s valuation reaching an all-time high: two point two billion.
Three months ago, it’d been one point seven.
The jump wasn’t unprecedented, but it was rare; it marked AIM as a force.
It had primed her, Ilena, and Aubrey for the windfall that Mallory had always known was possible.
She’d thought it was her doing, her steering of AIM, but it hadn’t been her at all.
It had been Grayson, manipulating Mallory for the past year. From that first night after the kickoff party for “How Wide’s
My Smile,” when he’d made her feel like going public was a brilliant idea, second only to falling into his bed. To the night
six months later when he’d suggested over French 75s that a direct listing might be more lucrative for them professionally
and her spending three nights at the penthouse more rewarding personally. To the stolen moments in AIM’s offices, to sneaking
around like teenagers, not even letting Ilena and Aubrey know. To late nights that weren’t always just about sex, something
that had surprised (and terrified) Mallory most of all.
She hadn’t fallen for him. (But she had. She completely and totally had.)
Patience, Grayson had that, but also the expertise. He’d choreographed each piece of the puzzle, setting the last one into
place by inflating the stock price. He’d ensured the “unprecedented” and “game-changing” increase in users knowing the industry
would go wild over it. The kicker was, AIM had been booming. AIM had been on track to become what it was now. Grayson and his glitch only accelerated it, Mallory was sure of
that. Why hadn’t he been? Why hadn’t he trusted AIM? Trusted her?
Fucking Grayson—arrogant, egomaniacal Grayson. A simmering in her veins surged as one of AIM’s early investors sauntered over,
belly testing the limits of his buttoned Tom Ford blazer. Mallory fought her cringe as this man with a ludicrous combover
kissed each of her cheeks and placed a hand on her waist.
She backed up. Her heels crunched the shells beneath her feet, and for a second, she pictured it: Grayson’s funeral instead of Ethan’s. A rush of nausea hit her. Neither of them deserved it, though if one of them did, it was Grayson. If only for Aubrey’s sake.
Mallory excused herself with a flash of the smile that had closed more rounds of funding than she could count. The server
heading her way was a gift from the universe. Mallory snagged a glass of sparkling wine, catching sight of Aubrey. She came.
Good. Because, seriously? Fuck Ethan. And fuck the woman with the white coat that Mallory was sure he’d been cheating on Aubrey
with or had been about to cheat on Aubrey with.
Mallory raised her glass and issued a heartfelt smile.
“Why, thank you,” Grayson said, startling her.
“That wasn’t for you.” She meant to say it playfully, but for once, she couldn’t pretend.
Grayson had played her so well that if it hadn’t happened to Mallory and to AIM, she might have even offered her congratulations.
She steeled herself for the confrontation to come. “I know about the accounts,” she said, her breath heavy under her words.
His head tilted, and he started to reach for her, but pulled back at the fury in her eyes. “Whatever this conversation is,
let’s have it somewhere else.”
“As in ‘not here’? Does that mean we should leave? Your call, as always.” She paraphrased the words she’d overheard in his
penthouse weeks ago, the ones that had followed “suspicious accounts,” the same day she had discovered the error.
Recognition made his face go slack, and a piece of Mallory fizzled, the whisper of hope that she was wrong.
“Right.” She would have made AIM a unicorn without him.
He stole that chance from her. She could never forgive him.
“So this is what we’re going to do. You’re going to make a surprise announcement that you’ve become so attached to AIM that you aren’t ready to hand it over just yet.
You’re going to invest so much capital—and I’m talking backing up a Brink’s truck—that we can cancel the direct listing without raising suspicion. ”
His face transformed from that of flirtatious lover to self-preserving shark. “You don’t want that. More to the point, I don’t
want that. So why would I do it?”
Mallory strengthened her resolve. “Because if you don’t, I’ll leak the error and you as the one who created it for your own
financial gain. Understandable that someone of your vintage might be behind on the times, but let’s see, Uber, WeWork, ring
any bells? High-powered execs forced out for fraud. At least they’re not Elizabeth Holmes, trading black turtlenecks for orange
jumpsuits. Silicon Valley is not the Wild West anymore, not for something like this, not even for you. You’ll be ruined.”
“Should I even bother to deny it, or are we past that?”
Mallory hugged her arms to her chest.
“All right,” he said, “let’s do this, then. I’m not investing any more in AIM. And you aren’t leaking anything. In the game
of who knows who better, I win.” He leaned in, his voice steady as he said, “Aubrey.”
Whiplash spun Mallory’s head.
“Your CTO,” Grayson said. “Apologies, your tech genius of a CTO—as you all so often remind everyone—missed such an egregious error?”
The ice running through his veins chilled her to the bone.
“Her stellar reputation would work against her. Not such a leap to believe that Aubrey not discovering the error, not exposing
it, and not fixing it, meant she was behind it. Motive, opportunity, and know-how.”
Mallory was as repulsed by him as she was in awe.
A simple question, a subtle implication by someone of Grayson Fields’s stature, would be enough to crucify Aubrey in the press, across the industry, and on Wall Street.
Mallory’s blackmailing attempt was finished.
She had no more cards to play. She faced him, that smug grin and those eyes that she’d once seen herself in.
He believed he was smarter than everyone, that he knew best, that he knew all.
He’d better. Because if he didn’t, he’d wish he were dead. Crunch of glass, smell of wine, pooling of blood. Just like Ethan.