53. Sesame
53
SESAME
MEANING: PURGE; REVEAL
MICAH
________
T he glass panels of Ocean’s greenhouse—the real one—sparkled in the sun where we were having it set up on the side of the house. Cameron already had contractors working on securing the property more than it already was.
Sure, we had security, but when we lived here alone, we weren’t as worried about ourselves. Now we had Ocean, and there was no way in hell we were going to let anything happen to her. We wanted her to be able to go anywhere on our property without fear. Which meant better fences, cameras, and guards, though we would do our best to make sure they were invisible.
My Omega’s happy brightness sang in my chest. She was out back with her friends, sharing what happened and having a good time while what little remained of her belongings were delivered. We’d been sure to hire people who would take the utmost care with her remaining plants, with her approval.
I couldn’t wait to see her in her own environment like this.
“Sir?” Marcella’s voice came from the house’s side door.
“Yes, Marcella?”
The number of times we’d asked her to call us by our given names was probably in the thousands, but she still called us sir. It was a joke now, and she laughed as I gave her a look. Still, her face was serious.
“Mrs. McCabe is here. I didn’t want to leave her standing outside, but she’s in the foyer.”
“Did she say why she’s here?”
“She wants to see… Mrs. Caldwell?” She smiled. “I’m not sure what she would like to be called.”
I hadn’t asked, but I looked forward to the inevitable blush on my wife’s cheeks when I did. Reminding her of who and what we were had a tendency to do that, since believing it was all new to her. “I’ll ask her and let you know. Or you can ask if you see her first. But I’ll take care of Laura, thank you.”
With one backward glance at the workers, I headed into the house. I was the best one to deal with this. Because, of the three of us, I would probably come out unscathed. Though if Laura decided she wanted to play with me, she wouldn’t like the consequences.
Ocean’s aunt stood looking around the foyer in a severe green suit, her hair pulled back into a style far too tight for her face. She often wore it like that, and it was none of my business. Though, in my designer’s opinion, the number of styling mistakes she made regularly was mind-boggling.
A pair of workers carried an older wooden trunk through the front door. Not many of Ocean’s possessions had been left, but there were a few things of her mother’s she’d asked us for. Laura’s face twisted as she watched the trunk pass, in disgust, not any sort of grief. “That needs to go back to the Caldwell Estate,” she said. “Right now.”
The men stopped, and I stepped into view. “No, it doesn’t. Carry on, please.”
Laura spun toward me. All the disgust she showed before was gone, but there was anger she couldn’t hide.
“Hello, Laura. We didn’t expect you.”
“I’m here to see my niece.”
“That won’t be happening, but if you need something, I’m happy to help you.”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction, and I noticed her fingers twitch, like she was itching to smack me across the face. The feeling was mutual, and I couldn’t remember ever wanting to hit a woman. “I need to ask her why the hell our house is being emptied and brought here. She’s taking things that don’t belong to her, and it’s unacceptable.”
Sliding my hands into my pockets, I approached, keeping an eye on the movers. The chest seemed to have been the last thing. “From my understanding, the few things which were retrieved today either belonged to Ocean or her mother. Is that incorrect?”
“She needs to ask before she takes things. Like that chest. Like all the jewelry. Like my sister’s fucking portrait .”
I tilted my head and watched her. Growing up the way I had, with so many people in my pack, I was good at watching people. It had been helpful over the years. Laura was good at hiding the truth about what she was feeling, masking it with anger and other negative emotions.
“Your husband was informed that we would be taking everything Ocean considered hers,” I told her. “After he physically assaulted her. If you have an issue with what was taken, bring it up with him.”
“Why go to all the trouble? She’ll just have to move it back when you finally kick her to the curb after your agreement is up.”
I allowed myself to smirk. Little did she know. I wasn’t going to tell her. No, I wanted to be there when Ocean delivered the news that we weren’t ever going to kick her to the curb. She was ours forever, and there wasn’t any changing it.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A reminder. “Like I said, you’ll have to speak to Frank if you have an issue. My wife is busy and has no interest in speaking to you.” I gestured to the door. “But I’ll let her know you stopped by.”
“I’m not leaving until I speak to her.”
“You will, or I’ll have you removed.”
Laura stared at me. “You can’t be serious.”
I smiled, trying to stifle my true, genuine laughter. “I am entirely serious. For some reason you seem to think you still have a claim on Ocean’s time and control over her life. You do not. Now get the hell out of our house, Laura.”
She stood there, and I silently begged her to try to fight back. I would happily watch our brand new full-time security escort her off the property. But she seemed to sense my eagerness and left. Good riddance, though I was sure it wouldn’t be the last time we saw her.
My phone buzzed again. I needed to get to Everett’s office. Aiden was set to call us with what he found. I hoped it would be enough for us to take care of things, or start to.
Everett’s face was frustrated when I walked into his office. “You’re glaring at that screen so hard it’s going to crack.”
“I wish it would,” he muttered.
“Why?”
He let out a long sigh and leaned back in the chair. “The trust is legal. It’s fucking absurd, and the grossest overreach of control I’ve ever seen in any kind of these, but it’s legal.”
I frowned. “That’s not fun, but what does it matter? She’ll get everything in a year because of her contract with Frank.”
“Will she?” He looked at me and tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “There’s a good chance we’re about to destroy McCabe fabrics, or restructure it so thoroughly Frank doesn’t know what hit him. Once his company is gone, he won’t want to sign anything over to Ocean. I know they have a contract, but I could see a good lawyer having a chance to overturn it.”
“Because their contract was entirely based on a deal that won’t exist anymore?”
“Exactly.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Okay, let’s say that happens. And Ocean has to wait five years before it pays out. She won’t need money.” We had more than enough money for lifetimes.
“There are accounts they can’t touch, thankfully,” Everett said. “Rather, there’s ones they’re not supposed to touch. At this point I put nothing past him. But that’s not the problem.”
“Let me guess,” Cameron said from behind me. He stood in the doorway. “The level of control they have over her finances is legally dictated by the trust, meaning it doesn’t matter if she’s married to us. They hold that control until the trust pays out?”
Everett’s jaw was tight, but he nodded.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I wish I was,” he said. “Now you know why I want to punch the monitor.”
Dropping into one of the chairs, I shook my head. “It doesn’t really make sense, does it.”
“How so?”
“You said it yourself. It’s not the normal structure for a trust. Of all the things Ocean has told us, she’s never said anything bad about her parents.” She hadn’t told us much, but the few times she’d mentioned her mother, the memories seemed happy. They stood out because they were some of the few memories she had that weren’t laced with pain.
“The thought did cross my mind.” Cam leaned on the back of the other chair. “Why the hell would they set it up this way? If there was some strange family tradition or a purpose to it, is there a way to find out? What about the will?”
Everett reached behind him, grabbed a folder, and handed it across to us. “I wondered that. The will is very brief. It leaves everything, in trust, to Ocean. But it defers to the details of the trust itself for the rules. There’s nothing in there that changes anything.”
“So, theoretically, if they’re ignoring the fact that they’re not supposed to touch certain accounts, what’s stopping Frank and Laura from rearranging all the finances and the estate itself underneath their company so that Ocean is left with nothing?”
“Until recently, not a damn thing. Until we bought the company. Which explains why Frank is desperate. Which is good for us, because he’s not thinking clearly and making mistakes.”
I leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You’re going to have to walk me through it.”
“Frank thought he had plenty of time to fuck Ocean over on the trust, so he hadn’t bothered yet. But the company was in trouble, and even Ocean’s money wouldn’t be enough to save it, and what he’d have to do would take too long. Especially if he wanted to keep it under the radar.
“Then we entered the picture. I’m assuming Joseph was the one to leak the Firefly deal to him, with his plan for alternate materials already in mind. But he didn’t tell him about that until after we offered the deal.”
Things started to come together in my brain. “So when we made Ocean a part of the deal, he saw an opportunity to do more than one thing? Sabotage us with Frank’s involvement, and use Ocean to spy on us, probably because Frank declared he had something on Ocean.”
Cam swore under his breath and Everett nodded once. “He made the deal with us to save McCabe Fabrics and used the trust to get Ocean on board. But realized after that he wouldn’t be able to rearrange her trust without us noticing, especially in a year. Which gave him even more motivation to say yes to Joseph’s proposal. He needed McCabe Fabrics to be more profitable, but he also needed more profit to offset what he believes he’s losing by giving Ocean what’s actually hers.”
I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand. “That’s a bit of a mind fuck.”
“Tell me about it,” Cam said.
On the desk, Everett’s phone lit up. He put it on speaker. “Aiden?”
“The one and only. You’re lucky I can make time in my busy schedule.” His tone was laced with both charm and sarcasm.
“Still the cheeky asshole, huh?” I asked.
“Well, first, it’s arsehole, but yes. And you’ll find your paper trail in your inboxes. More than enough to do what you need.”
I opened the email that appeared and started to scroll. There they were. Emails between Frank and Joseph’s personal account—one the Zenith IT department couldn’t access. It was everything we feared. Frank was all too happy to sabotage and lower the quality of his fabrics. Because he’d already been doing it for years in an attempt at solvency.
Everett swore. “We owe you one.”
“Actually you don’t for that, because you pay me handsomely. But for this? This you might owe me one for.”
Another email appeared, and I opened it. The documents were older, clearly scanned in, and grainy. But there was no doubt about what they said.
I looked up, and my packmates met my gaze. “Holy shit.”