47. Angel’s Trumpet – Meaning Deceitfulness Disguise Suspicion
47
ANGEL’S TRUMPET
(GHOST FLOWER, HELL’S BELLS, SORCERER’S HERB)
MEANING: DECEITFULNESS; DISGUISE; SUSPICION
CAMERON
________
G oing back to work after a full week of relaxing and having the best sex of my life wasn’t putting me in a good mood. I would rather be home with Ocean, doing anything else than wading through the PR mess that was the Extasis launch. The team had gotten ahead of it. Mostly. A wave of returns and promises to do whatever we could to make the problems right went a long way.
But it didn’t solve the source of the problem.
Everett texted me.
Everett
My office. Raina needs us.
Fuck. I hoped she’d gotten to the bottom of everything. My gut was unsettled with the worry of it. The three of us put everything into Zenith, and we did everything with intention. Yes, bad things happened, but this was still our hard work. I wouldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt to miss the mark or have people saying the things they were.
Cameron
On my way.
“I’m in Rett’s office if you need me,” I said to Oren. “But don’t need me. This is important.”
“This is about what Raina was doing?”
I stopped and turned around. Frowning. “How do you know about that?”
“She came and asked me to find and print a bunch of your correspondence about Extasis. She could ask IT for those emails anyway, so I didn’t think much of it. But she wanted them printed.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not na?ve, nor am I blind. Something’s going on, and you’re trying to find out what and why.”
I took a deep breath. Oren was trustworthy. Everyone who worked directly with us or beneath us was. The very fact that they had made it into that circle was testament enough. “Any ideas?”
“Yeah. But I’ll wait until you talk to Raina. She probably has a bigger picture. But I’ll try not to need you.”
He threw me a cocky grin before I left.
Everett was texting someone when I walked in, and Micah was on his tablet going through some designs.
“Any word from Aiden?” I asked.
“Thought we’d call him when we were finished with Raina.”
It was odd not to hear from the man for so long. He was usually very prompt, but if Everett had heard something while we were on the honeymoon, he hadn’t mentioned it.
Raina approached a minute later, her assistant following with three large binders filled with paper. She nodded when he set them on Everett’s desk. “You can go.”
When her assistant shut the door, Raina locked it behind him. I grinned. “I know we’re irresistible, Raina, but remember, we’re married now.”
She didn’t rise to the teasing bait like I expected, and that was the most frightening thing of all. Raina was always one for a joke and served it back to me on a regular basis.
“Sit down, Cam.”
Even Everett looked shaken. “What the fuck is going on?”
“A lot more than I expected or hoped, unfortunately. Honestly, it’s a good thing that the launch went poorly. If it hadn’t, we might not have found this in time, and wouldn’t have been able to pull it back.”
None of us spoke. She had the floor.
“The factories producing the Extasis toys were given the appropriate schematics. Everything they needed as normal. But the materials weren’t the same. Everything was swapped out for cheaper options before production even started.”
“What?” Micah’s voice was deadly. Design was his corner, and he took pride in it, including choosing materials specifically for both luxury and endurance. With clothing as well as our toys. “How the fuck did that happen?”
Raina sighed and sat back in her chair. “I’ll give you all three guesses, but if you need more than one, you don’t deserve your offices.”
“Joseph?” Everett ground out.
“One and the same. He was fucking careful though. Really careful. Going to the trouble of printing out all the designs and making notes by hand before going to the team and asking them to make those changes on the way to production.” She held out a hand. “Don’t worry, they won’t tip him off. I made sure everyone I spoke to signed an NDA that would eviscerate their lives before I left the room. But as long as they talked, I let them keep their jobs.”
“We might not be able to keep that promise,” I said. From a public relations perspective, at least one head needed to roll. Maybe several. Joseph’s, certainly, but if they had knowingly helped them?—
“They had no reason to question the Chairman of the Board. He was using your names and saying you’d approved the changes. Among all the other proof, is sworn and signed statements from everyone I spoke to. As far as I can tell, no one was intentionally trying to sabotage anything. They were simply misled. More than one of them was horrified, because they’ve seen what’s happening. Your employees care about their work as much as you do.”
Her faint smile made me feel better. When we started Zenith, the one thing we vowed never to do was compromise. Not on what we needed, not on cost, not on having a healthy work environment.
“But Extasis isn’t the only problem. He’s starting to do it with the other lines as well. Swapping out our more expensive fabrics with ones that are less expensive. Taking a cashmere, for example, and swapping in a blend that would appear the same to most consumers but would cost half the price.”
I pulled out my phone and started typing. “I haven’t seen any reviews like that. Where are we getting hit?”
This time, when Raina smiled, it was vicious. “That’s because he hasn’t managed to do it yet. He’s only starting. Want to know how?”
Everett growled. Truly growled. Rage poured off him like a physical thing. He planted his hands on his desk and rose out of his chair. “If it’s Frank fucking McCabe?—”
“Ding ding ding, we have a winner.” Raina let the sarcasm drip.
Part of our deal with Frank involved utilizing McCabe fabrics as one of our larger suppliers. We’d already been using them in a much smaller capacity. Bringing them in to cover most of our fabric needs would infuse his company with money, which would keep it alive. But this?
“Why?” Micah asked. “I don’t see the plan in this.”
Everett settled his elbows on the desk. “Let me take a guess, Raina, and you tell me if I’m right.”
She smirked and crossed her arms. “Go for it.”
“The shareholders were annoyed by the last few quarters having even profits instead of growing profits, so they went to Joseph to see what the ‘problem’ was, and did some threatening.”
“Correct.”
Everett shook his head. We’d known about the even profits, but it hardly mattered. They were good profits. Incredible ones. Only fools thought profits could go up infinitely. Now that Firefly clothing was under our umbrella, we’d get a bump.
“And instead of coming to us with those threats, he decided he’d try to make more profit for the company by cheapening the materials. He didn’t come to us because he knew that we would say no without a second thought.”
“Yes.”
His brow furrowed. “But I’ll confess, I don’t understand forcing the marriage. Were the other board members involved?”
“Not that I can tell, but you can thank your man for that. He sent me half of this after we spoke on the phone.”
“Our man?” I asked.
Raina raised an eyebrow. “The hacker.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Micah scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why wouldn’t he tell us that?”
“No idea. But as far as I can tell, the McCabe Fabrics thing is new. He approached Frank after the offer. I don’t have proof, but I suspect he intended the marriage, and a very public search for a wife, to distract you and engage you in a PR crisis so he would have more time before you noticed. There’s no way that this never would have been found, and he knew that. My best guess is that the marriage scheme was a distraction to weaken you. He really did want to remove you if he could, but you moved too fast.”
I shook my head. “Fuck.”
“Yup. But it’s an easy fix,” she said. “The Extasis production has already been corrected, and I’ll let you take care of the rest of that, Cam.”
Everett chuckled. “You might need a promotion, Raina. This is far more than the scope of what we asked, and I can’t thank you enough.”
“I’ll keep that in my back pocket.” She winked and stood. “Let me know the plan and when you’re going to hand Joseph his ass. I want to see it.”
I nodded. “Sure thing.”
She left us alone, and for a long minute we didn’t do anything but stare at each other. Finally, Micah spoke, putting voice to everything we were thinking. “What the fuck.”
“Pretty much sums it up.”
Everett sighed. “I’m still convinced there’s one other element to this. Because the swapping of materials could be written off as a mistake or an accident when he got caught. Yes, forcing us to marry was a distraction, but he would need a bigger reason than concealing this scheme.”
I looked at him carefully as he picked up one of the binders. “You think it’s like you said before? He was prepping for a hostile takeover?”
“That’s the only thing I can think of. If he weakens us, or the board followed through on their threat to resign. Combining that with the production issues, the shareholders would start to bail, driving the price down, and someone would start buying.”
“How do we prove that?” Micah asked.
“We don’t have to,” Everett said. “We have more than enough here to remove him. And I have half a mind to replace the entire board along with him.” Then he smiled. The kind of smile that made people absolutely terrified of him. “Not to mention, despite the four hours of hell he dragged us through, I don’t think Frank quite understands the agreement he signed if he thinks he can get away with it.”
I watched him flip through the binders Raina brought until he smiled. “We don’t have quite enough to void the deal with him, since he can claim that Joseph misled him, just like the production line, but we will.”
Pulling out his phone, he called a number, set his phone on the desk, and put it on speaker. A deep, accented voice answered. “Hello?”
“Want to explain to me why you took everything to my employee instead of directly to me?”
Aiden laughed. “She was already digging around it. Figured I’d save you both some time. Besides, you deserved to enjoy your honeymoon.”
The three of us shook our heads. We’d met Aiden in college when he was an exchange student from Albion, an island nation just off the coast of Europa, and to this day we’d never met anyone quite like him. Fucking brilliant and terrifying. He knew way too much, and it was good he was on our side.
“Well,” Everett said, “we appreciate it.”
“I’m sending you the other documents you asked for now. The ones about your wife.”
I frowned, and Everett mouthed the word “ Trust .”
“Thank you. We need one more thing from you, but I can’t ask you.”
Another chuckle. “That’s a pity. If you can, let me know.”
“I haven’t had a chance to review everything yet. There’s a lot here. But it seems like you had to look at a new family connection. Our wife’s uncle.”
That was Everett setting up deniability. He’d already asked Aiden to look into Frank in connection to this. He knew who the asshole was. But he’d been looking into the problem with Extasis, not Frank specifically.
Leaning forward, I stared at the phone like I was able to see through it. “I did see that. Congratulations. Becoming a monopoly one company at a time.”
“Fuck off,” Micah said with a laugh.
I swore I felt Aiden shrugging. “Can’t fuck off if it’s the truth.”
“I hope he understands what he got into with us,” Everett said. “It would indeed, be a pity if he thought he was untouchable and decided to do things which might get him in trouble.”
“Mmm. Yes. That would be a shame. People can get in over their heads so easily nowadays.”
Everett smirked. “Anyway, thanks again. Send us your invoice for the work.”
“I’ll make sure to double it.”
The line went dead.
Everett closed the binder and put it back. “We should have what we need soon enough.”
“It won’t be legal.”
“We don’t need it to be. We can get Frank to admit it, I’m sure. And once he does, it doesn’t matter. If he doesn’t, our lawyers can get what we need legally.”
Micah spun his stylus back and forth through his fingers. “You asked him for Ocean’s trust documents?”
“Before the honeymoon.”
“Why? She said we could have them.”
Turning to his monitor, Everett pulled up his email. We hadn’t had a chance to talk about this in all the frenzy. “Because even though she agreed to let us look at them, I knew Frank wouldn’t give them to us, and I didn’t want Ocean to worry about it. Have you ever heard of a trust fund that pays out at thirty-five? Or gives the trustees complete control over someone’s finances? That’s not a trust, and I don’t trust Frank and Laura at all.”
A text chimed on my phone. Our combined text thread with Ocean.
Ocean
My uncle wants to talk to me so I’m heading over to the Caldwell mansion if I’m not home when you get there.
Maybe it was the discussion of her trust, or maybe it was because I was falling in love with my wife, but I couldn’t quite explain the fear in my chest. Her uncle had already tried to force her hand into being a spy for him. The more deeply involved he got with Joseph, the more desperate he would be.
We knew he was involved now, but we didn’t know how deeply, and that was terrifying. We had no idea what Joseph had told him or what kind of agreements he’d made, but Frank held no love for his niece. He’d already hurt her, if not physically. If she refused him, which she would, how far would he go to make her agree?
Everett and Micah were already on their feet. Even if nothing happened, Ocean wasn’t alone anymore. She didn’t need to face that asshole by herself.
My instincts rose, telling me that my Omega needed me, and she needed me now .
We didn’t stop.