Harlan #3
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing is funny,” Silas says, losing all of the humour. “My current worry is what Cassie is going to confess to. She’d fucking agree to murder if she could convince herself it was her fault.”
Unfortunately, he’s right. The thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
“She’s too nice, and unfortunately, she’s very good at making herself the villain,” Isaac adds, his shoulders drooping.
“She apologised to a chair once,” Evander says.
I look at him in confusion, but he’s not kidding. “A chair?”
“It was in her way, and she knocked it by mistake,” he says.
“A fucking chair.” I stare at him in horror.
He smirks at me. “It looked upset, bro.”
Isaac groans. Silas starts laughing. I hate all of them.
Cassidy is an anxious, overworked omega who has somehow convinced herself being loved and being useful are the same fucking thing.
A lie I’ve been more than happy to let her believe.
Like a fucking fool.
“Someone pointed HR at her,” I say, and Isaac frowns.
“How do you know that? Her email never mentioned anything about that,” Isaac says.
“Mine did,” I say, rubbing my face, cringing at the longer-than-normal stubble. “They never named Cassidy, but I put the dots together.”
The humour vanishes instantly, and Evander lets out a string of curses in French, dragging one scarred hand through his thick brown hair.
Or maybe Italian, I have no idea.
“So, we have a few scenarios. Someone is setting her up because she’s an easy target,” Isaac says. “Or, a more likely scenario is, they’ve used her as a distraction.”
My eyes narrow. “Explain.”
Isaac folds his arms in front of himself, leaning towards me, caramel-brown eyes steady despite the shitshow unfolding around him.
“If I leaked something and wanted attention off myself, I’d point people at the employee least likely to fight back, and the one who has the most access,” he says. “Cassie is that girl. She’s sweet, non-confrontational, and working on the largest campaigns, thanks to being mentored by you.”
Fuck.
I hate how much sense that makes.
“We’ve all heard the rumours,” Evander continues. “And who is to say whoever set all this up hasn’t either? They might be using them to their advantage.”
“Which brings Gemma back into focus. Again,” Silas says calmly.
Too calmly.
I know my brother, and this is the tone he uses when he’s trying to hold onto the control he’s known for.
“When I went to rescue Cassie—”
“How did you even know she was there?” I ask, and he gives me a dry look.
“I always know where my omega is,” Silas says, and I frown. “Gemma made more than one comment about how Cassie was servicing me.”
“That fucking bitch,” Evander snarls.
“How dare she—”
“Enough,” Silas says, placing his hand up in the air.
Evander and I fall silent, but not by choice.
“The comments went over Cassie’s head,” Silas continues. “But everyone else knew exactly what she meant. The woman is a snake, and she’s more than capable of manipulating Cassie.”
“Which makes her your prime target,” I say, and he nods.
“I’ll be extremely surprised if she’s not involved,” he says.
“Her name is top of my list for firing,” Evander comments. “It was before this shit. She’s one of the trainees who is underperforming, struggling to maintain the workload, and has maxed out her company card.”
“She’s maxed out her company card?” I demand.
Isaac reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out his phone.
“Her limit is meant to be ￡5k per quarter,” Isaac says. “She blew through that within her first fortnight here. All on networking activities.”
“I see.” I shake my head. “I didn’t realise first years were given such a high budget.”
“She’s the only one with a budget that high,” Evander says. “Most aren’t even given a card. I think it’s to do with her financial situation and not being able to submit reimbursement receipts when she doesn’t have the initial capital.”
“I see,” I say with a frown. “Good thing you’re looking into that, then. I clearly haven’t been paying enough fucking attention to the trainee programme.”
“Don’t blame you. Most of them are shit,” Evander says.
“Focus,” Silas snarls, and I startle at the hostility in his tone.
He’s extremely wound up.
I look around the room, wondering what else we’re carrying that the others don’t know.
Every new piece of information somehow keeps leading back to the same uncomfortable truth.
Cassidy has been struggling for far longer than any of us realised.
And somehow, we’ve all missed parts of it.
“What else is there?” I ask.
Isaac frowns. “What do you mean?”
“What else have we missed?”
The question lands heavily, and nobody has an answer immediately.
Silas looks around at us and lets out a feral sound that has all three of us straightening up.
“One of the things that stuck out to me most today when we talked was how much she wants to be seen as useful.”
I sigh. “I’ve noticed that, too. She wants to succeed, more than anything else.”
Evander nods. “Even at the most simple of shit. Any minor error has her spiralling.”