17. Matthew
17
MATTHEW
“ F uck. I just want her back!” I punched the wall just inside my apartment, bruising my knuckles in the process.
I was reeling from how we’d left things and my frustration had bubbled to the surface the second I set foot back in my apartment. I backed away from the wall, from anything that was destructible since I didn’t have it in me to clean up any more messes, and decided to take a shower to try and decompress instead.
You would think sex would have done the trick but that went to shit fast.
The water fell over my body in rivulets, and I threw my head back as I shampooed my hair. While I didn’t work out religiously, I tried to eat clean enough to maintain the toned body I had gotten in my late teens.
I grabbed some more soap from the pump dispenser and massaged it over my stomach, working my way lower and lower. Having sex with Cassie in an alleyway wasn’t planned, and it should have satisfied my desire for her, but instead it made me crave her more. As loath as I was to admit it, maybe Holden was right and I definitely had some pent-up tension I could use help relieving.
I grabbed my cock, which had grown hard with thoughts of how it felt to have Cassie back in my arms, taking it roughly into my palm, stroking it a few times. Like so many times since I’d reached puberty, I fantasized about Cassie. Her legs, her breasts, her ass, even her smell. But unlike all those times before, I couldn’t get her look of despair out of my head.
After she’d run away all those years ago, it took some time before I could work up the courage to use Cassie as inspiration again. I thought about random women from movies and magazines, sometimes recounting my past sexual encounters, searching for something to bring me the same satisfaction, but none of them did the trick. There was no denying that she was sexier than any porn.
This time was different, though. She was no longer some obscure fantasy, a memory from the past. She was real and even more beautiful than before. I could recall the way she felt pressed against me. How she kissed me. The way she grabbed my arms, and the soft moans she made. But her anger and the look of disgust and disappointment in her eyes was different. It all felt different. She was different.
It felt wrong to use her image to get off when she seemed disgusted by the sex we’d had. I groaned, throwing my head back in annoyance. I released my grip on my cock and turned the water all the way to cold. I’d just have to find another way to relieve some of this tension. Maybe a trip to the gym would do the trick.
When my body started to tremble from the frigid water, I shut it off, stepping out into the bathroom. After I grabbed a towel from the rack and tied it around my waist, I went to the liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. I wasn’t much of a drinker, especially not when I was alone, but now seemed as good a time as any to start.
Glass in hand, I made my way to the safe in my bedroom. After I disarmed it, I pulled out Cassie’s locket, the one I’d given her when we were sixteen, the one I had kept all these years. After she’d run away, I’d found it on the floorboard of my car. Opening it and seeing the words engraved there depressed me even more. I mourned the fact that she would never get to read those words, the ones I had spent hours perfecting, the ones I had been waiting for the right moment to share with her. When I gave her the locket, I told Cassie to never open it. It was a risk that she would peek, but she had promised that she would wait until he told her to open it at the right moment. I never got the opportunity to share what the locket said because we had ended far too soon. Not wanting to further spiral into a state of melancholy, I closed it and placed it back into the safe. Even with her words of finality, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it.
Making my way to the armchair in the living room, I slumped down into it, careful not to spill my drink. Rocky settled down on the loveseat across from me and plopped his head down, settling in for a nap.
“What a fucking life!” I grumbled, taking another sip of the bourbon.
This pity party continued for the rest of the evening until the early morning hours…
It was a little after seven the next morning when my phone started ringing incessantly. I raised my head from the back of the chair and grabbed the phone beside me. I squinted to see the name, the morning light and hangover wearing on me. My stomach roiled with a mix of nausea and anxiousness.
Holden.
“Hello,” I croaked out, sounding like a chain smoker.
“Yo, Matt! You gotta get down to Adams Point now. And don’t talk to anyone until you get inside your office. I’ll be here waiting.”
What. The. Fuck. Holden never got to the office before I did, and he certainly never gave a shit about my tardiness.
“Holden, there better not be another stripper in my office. I’m not in the fucking mood.” I spat the words, realizing how late I was. I had become a workaholic who typically lived at the office. Fuck, Wyatt was gonna have my ass on a silver platter.
“Matthew! That was one time, and it was your birthday. Stop being such a fucking prude. He was very kind and generous with his time.” Holden chuckled on the other end of the phone.
“Fuck you! I’ll see you in twenty.” I hung up the phone, jumped up, and headed to my bedroom. I spun around the room like a tornado, trying to get ready as quickly as possible. I typed out a message to my driver, letting him know I was running late.
After I filled Rocky’s food bowl, I went for the elevator, knowing I was probably forgetting files I needed in my haste to get out of the apartment. But I really didn’t give a shit. It was not like my job was curing cancer or something meaningful like a school counselor like I’d wanted to become when I was younger. No, I had become part of the greed that I had hated growing up.
I got into the waiting town car with a brief greeting to my driver. As we took off down the street, I hung my head, trying to avoid looking out the window and adding to my nausea.
A hop, skip, and a jump later, I stood in front of the tall building that I had started to loathe entering each day. Nothing had been what I had signed up for, that was for sure.
I contemplated going to the coffee shop on the corner, but I remembered the urgency in Holden’s voice, and against my better judgment, walked toward the building's doors.
With a nod to the receptionist and a reminder to hire an assistant who could get me coffee, I rode the elevator to my department's floor.
When the doors opened, I found Holden waiting for me, briefcase in tow. Instead of his jovial disposition, Holden seemed on edge, nervous even. Fuck, maybe Holden needed a stripper.
“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” Holden grumbled as I walked right past him toward my corner office without so much as a “hello.”
As soon as we were both inside and the door was closed behind us, I looked at Holden expectantly, waiting to hear what was so fucking important.
When Holden didn’t speak and started pacing the room, I sat at my desk and took a pen from the cup and threw it at him, grazing his shoulder.
Holden grimaced, palming the back of his neck.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, losing my patience.
I dug in my desk drawers for a bottle of ibuprofen. When I came up short, I leaned back and threw my arms up in frustration, succumbing to the headache.
“Well, remember how I said I needed to tell you something but then I forgot …” Holden goaded, “I really shouldn’t have. It was important, but I’ve been so wrapped up in Bee, and I think we’re going to take the next step soon …” He trailed off, looking down at his feet.
Growing frustrated with Holden beating around the bush, I clapped my hands together, trying to get him to stay on track. “What did you need to tell me?” I said through gritted teeth, my head still pounding from the copious amounts of bourbon I drank last night. This conversation was so not helping with the ache forming between my temples.
“Right. Well, you see …” Holden stuttered, nervously. “Wyatt came by my office last month and asked me to work on a project for this sister company he said he acquired a few years back. He told me that it was urgent and asked me not to tell anyone what I was working on. I just figured he didn’t want Adams Point’s competitors finding out that he had this company. But as I crunched the numbers and did some digging, things didn’t add up. I couldn’t find any public records for this company, Nardini Industries,” Holden explained, and he blew out a breath.
“So he doesn’t really have a sister company?” I inquired, too hungover to process all of this.
Holden shook his head. “That’s the thing … he does have assets tied up into this. I can see the wire transfers.” Holden went into his briefcase and pulled out a file, handing it to me over the desk. “But the person’s name on most of the documents is Parker. Wyatt’s name appears as an investor, just like the forty other people in the portfolio. The location of the bank was a tip-off and struck me as odd.”
I took a minute to think about what Holden had just divulged, hung up on the fact that Nardini was Parker’s last name. Why would Wyatt have a secret company and give money to his brother-in-law who he couldn’t stand? I looked through the file, scanning the pages, willing them to say something different then what I was concluding.
Holden shuffled apprehensively, looking anywhere but at me.
I searched for the location of the bank where the deposits were transferred to. Cayman Islands. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out any of this.
I slammed my fist against the desk in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why would he do this?”
Holden winced. “Yeah, I didn’t understand all of it at first. But I knew something seemed off, so this past week since Bee’s been working a lot, I had some time to look it over. Once I saw the Caymans, I started to realize that it was probably a shell company. The hidden money, the fake names, Nardini. It just started to add up.”
Enraged, I jumped out of my chair and turned to look out the glass windows. “Not to mention Wyatt hates Parker, and to want to give him all that power is out of character in and of itself. What a fucking prick. To set your own family up like that?”
Holden nodded. “So what are you going to do? I know how much you look up to Wyatt, but you have to admit this shit is fucked up, Matt, even for him. I mean, if shit goes down, Parker will take the heat for it all, and Wyatt can play the victim. That’s just evil.”
He dug into his briefcase, pulling out another file. “Here’s the rest of the information. I haven’t looked through it yet.”
Wyatt probably chose Holden thinking he was too boneheaded to notice the discrepancies. It was a grave oversight on Wyatt’s part. While Holden was fun-loving, he wasn’t dumb.
I shook my head and muttered thanks to my long-time friend, disgusted with my adoptive father. This was a man who spoke of hard work and dedication, yet he had zero loyalty or integrity.
I had worked my ass off and completed all of what was asked of me by my parents. I felt obligated after being adopted by such a wealthy, affluent family. But now to learn what Wyatt really stood for—I was fuming, so fucking pissed at all the bullshit I was put through. And for what? A company with a CEO who was dipping into illegal shit and framing his brother-in-law in the process?
No wonder Wyatt had been so adamant about my taking on more responsibility and his ultimate goal to phase Parker out his role of CFO. If Wyatt replaced Parker, Parker would seem like a disgruntled employee who stole from Adams Point if Nardini Industries were to be discovered. It was all so messed up. What type of person did that to their family? If Wyatt was capable of this, I had to wonder what else he was capable of. What else had he done up until this point? Was Adams Point even legit? Could I be implicated in any of this? And was anything real anymore?
These questions ran rampant in my mind as I frantically walked back to my desk, hoping to look through the files more closely.
My stomach sank as I was hit with the realization that so much of what Cassie had said throughout the years was probably true. If only I had believed her.
Holden lay down on the couch, huffing as he attempted to get comfortable. “So what are you gonna do now?”
Well, that was a loaded question if there ever was one.
I turned to look at Holden. “For starters, get up, this isn’t your bed! And I have no fucking idea. If I confront him, he will probably just deny it.” I pulled at the ends of my hair.
“Well, I mean, those papers are pretty damning, and we can try and dig up some other shit to strong-arm him with the statements of transfers?” Holden suggested, straightening his body on the couch.
“That’s good!” I wagged my finger in his direction and wiggled the computer’s mouse to jolt it out of sleep mode. I began logging into a few banks that I had access to, seeking out more evidence of my adoptive father’s deceptions.
“Is this a bad time to tell you that I’m going to propose to Bee?” Holden blurted out, wincing from another pen being thrown at his head this time.