Chapter 2
LUCAS
“You have got to be kidding me.” Lucas Chambers stared at his lawyer in complete disbelief. “Seriously. You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Chambers.” The lawyer, an older woman with graying hair by the name of Elise Cairn, shook her head. “I know this must come as a huge shock, but it’s only a matter of time before it hits the press. We need to decide how you should react, and quickly.”
“I think we already know the best — and only — way to react to this. Lucas needs to distance himself from the company,” Lucas’s PR specialist, Oscar Jones, spoke up. “The press is going to have a field day with the news anyway. If he’s even close to this, they’ll think he’s guilty.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Lucas protested.
“I had no idea this was going on.” His hands balled into fists.
He wanted nothing more than to upend the large oak conference table around which they were sitting.
Even the view of LA outside the expansive picture window didn’t bring him the satisfaction it usually did. Not today.
“We know that,” Oscar said calmly. “The police know that. But the press don’t, and the facts don’t matter as much as the headlines.”
“I want to talk to Jim,” Lucas said. “Before we make any decisions, I want to talk to him. I need to know what he was thinking. I need to ask him how he could do this.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Oscar said. At the same moment, Elise shook her head.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Adams is already in custody, so it won’t be possible to talk to him for a while. And more than distancing yourself from Omegron, you need to distance yourself from him. You need to make it clear to everyone that you didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Of course I didn’t know what he was doing.” Lucas got to his feet and began to pace. As he did so, he ran one hand through his short brown hair, a habit from his college days that showed his frustration. “Do we know how much he took? Or how long this was happening?”
“Not yet,” Elise said. “More information will come with time.”
“I’ve already asked the accountants to go through everything.
” Lucas shook his head, his blue eyes flashing with annoyance.
“I just can’t believe this was happening right under my nose.
And I can’t believe Jim would do this to me.
” He turned back to the people assembled at the conference table. “How could he do this?”
“Again, Mr. Chambers, this is why you need to stay away from the press,” Elise restated. “You’re clearly agitated and with good reason. This must feel like a betrayal.”
“Of course it is.” Lucas stopped his pacing and slumped back into his chair.
“I’ve known Jim since college. He was the first person I wanted to work with me when I started Omegron.
And now I find out that he’s been defrauding the company behind my back?
Probably for years? What could that be other than a betrayal? ”
“I have to agree with Elise on this,” Oscar said. “You need to take a step back. Be out of the spotlight for a while.”
“What does that even mean?” Lucas snapped. Immediately, he realized he’d spoken too harshly and pulled back. “I’m sorry, Oscar. I know this isn’t your fault. It’s just a lot to deal with.”
“I recommend getting out of LA for a bit,” Oscar said. “Even out of the country, if possible. Otherwise, you’ll have journalists following your every move trying to get a soundbite out of you, and that isn’t what we want right now.”
The thought of leaving his precious company in such a precarious state turned Lucas’s stomach, but he knew Oscar had a point. He could step back for a day or two. Taking a deep breath, he sank back into his chair. “How long? How long do I need to leave the country for?”
“A few weeks, probably,” another member of the PR team spoke up. “Until things blow over.”
“I can’t do that.” Lucas shook his head. “I’ve never taken a day off, not since I started Omegron. I can’t just walk away when things are at their worst, not for more than a few days.” Without him, the company would probably crash and burn.
“I don’t see any other option,” Oscar said. “And we’ll have to delay the launch of the SolPhone 3, for sure. Launching a new product right now would look like you’re trying to cover this up.”
Lucas sighed. He knew his PR team had a point, but this was hard to accept.
Today was meant to be the launch day of a new revolutionary phone that Omegron had spent the past two years perfecting.
It was supposed to be a triumphant occasion and a culmination of a lot of hard work.
Instead, Lucas had come into the office to find it crawling with FBI and police officers, and Jim, his business partner, being hauled away in handcuffs.
“You’re right.” He sighed again. “I know you are.”
“The company will be in good hands while you’re gone,” his CTO, who had remained silent until now, put in. “We know exactly how you do things, and we’ll keep everything on track.”
Lucas managed a nod, but his stomach twisted again.
He didn’t trust anyone with Omegron. The person he’d come closest to trusting was Jim, who he’d appointed as CFO, and that had turned out terribly.
Leaving the company now felt like abandoning everything he’d spent the last decade building.
But his team was right. Staying here would open him up to more media scrutiny and, in the worst case, make it look like he was covering things up.
“Tony,” Lucas said, turning to his assistant, “could you arrange for my private jet to fly me down to Cabo in a few hours? I’ll spend a few weeks at my house there.”
Tony looked a little pale. “I’m sorry to say it, but your jet is out of commission at the moment. It’s been locked down, along with the rest of Omegron’s assets, until the investigation is complete.”
How can this be getting even worse? Taking a deep breath, Lucas stood, looking at each of the members of his team.
“I understand. I’ll get a car to the airport.
” It wouldn’t kill him to fly commercial.
It wasn’t that long ago that he’d flown commercial all the time, and at least he could easily afford business class now.
“I’ll arrange a car right away.”
“You’re making the right choice,” Elise said. Lucas wasn’t so sure, but he nodded.
“Keep me updated, all right?” he said.
“It would be better if we didn’t,” the CTO said kindly. She smiled at him with an expression of understanding that somehow made Lucas even more annoyed. “The less you know right now, the better.”
Lucas swallowed his frustration as best he could and nodded. “I’ll see you all in a few weeks.”
Then he left the conference room. The Omegron offices, usually pristine and modern, were a mess.
Most of the employees had been sent home, and the FBI had confiscated some of their equipment and files.
The office looked like a ghost town, which was hard to see.
Just yesterday, they’d been buzzing with enthusiastic energy as everyone planned for the big unveiling of the new SolPhone.
Now, the desks stood empty and there was a faint tapping sound that he’d never heard before.
Lucas went to his office, where he gathered his things before heading downstairs. The moment he stepped outside, a wall of press descended on him. The PR team was right. This was a mess.
“Mr. Chambers!” A young man stepped in front of him, pushing a camera into his face. “Did you know what your CFO was doing?”
“No comment.” As overwhelming as this was, Lucas knew what to say.
“Were you in on it?” an older woman asked, jostling in front with her phone raised. “Did you benefit from the stolen funds?”
“No comment.” Lucas stepped around her, moving through the wall of people.
“Can you confirm that you met Mr. Adams in college?” another reporter asked.
“No comment.” He finally broke through the wall of people and stepped into the waiting car. Closing the door, he savored the moment of silence, even as reporters knocked on the window.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
Back in time, Lucas wanted to say. Take me back ten years. Let me have a different college roommate. Let me choose anyone other than Jim to be my CFO. Let me have figured out what he was doing in time to stop him.
“The airport,” he said instead. The driver nodded and started the car.
They pulled out, away from the crowd of reporters in front of the Omegron headquarters, and Lucas leaned back in his seat.
As the wide boulevards, palm trees, and shining buildings of LA rolled by, he tried to calm his racing thoughts.
He couldn’t believe that such a close friend had betrayed him like this.
And he couldn’t believe that he had to leave his company at such a perilous time.
Omegron was Lucas’s baby. He loved that company.
He worked evenings and weekends without hesitation.
He never dated seriously, choosing short-term relationships over long-term ones so that he could focus all his efforts on growing Omegron into the tech giant he knew it could be.
He barely had a life outside of work at this point, but it had paid off: Omegron had been thriving.
Stock prices had been skyrocketing. Everyone had wanted a SolPhone.
Now what? Lucas knew the company’s stock would take a drastic downturn now that the public was finding out that someone in the C-suite had defrauded the company. All his dreams, all the work he’d poured into the company over the last ten years, could disappear in the blink of an eye.
And where would that leave Lucas? He didn’t even want to think about it.
I won’t talk to anyone for the next few weeks, Lucas resolved.
I’ll hole up in my vacation house, watch TV, and hit the gym.
Once this was over, he’d return to LA and rebuild Omegron.
That was all that mattered. He couldn’t let himself dwell on Jim’s betrayal.
He had to keep moving forward until this all blew over.
If it ever did.