16. Declan
SIXTEEN
DECLAN
I stood at the head of the table, adjusting my cuffs. Julian was to my right, flipping through his copy of the contract. David and two of his associates sat at the far end, their own copies open, yellow tabs bristling from every other page.
"Caine's Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA)?" I asked.
Graham checked his phone. "Twenty minutes. His car just left Midtown."
"Good." I smoothed the front of my jacket. "Julian, the earn-out language on page thirty-one. Are we clean?"
"Clean as a whistle. Performance accelerator kicks in at a million subscribers in eighteen months, earn-out triggers early, payout capped at the agreed ceiling." He closed the folder. "This is buttoned up, Dec."
The door suddenly burst open. Nolan walked in. His jaw was set. His eyes went to me and stayed there.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. "Cancel the meeting."
Julian looked up. Graham's phone paused mid-motion. David's associates stopped writing.
"What?" I said.
Nolan closed the door behind him. He was carrying a folder. He crossed the room and set it on the table in front of me.
"Open it."
I opened it — three pages, financial statements, revenue breakdowns. These were numbers I recognized, the same numbers Caine presented in his office and the ones Graham reviewed.
Except these didn't check out. Nolan had marked them with a red pen.
A column of streaming revenue that didn't match the platform's publicly reported subscriber data.
An advertising line item inflated by nearly 40%.
A print revenue figure that held steady for three quarters because someone moved the same money between accounts to simulate consistency.
"Where did you get this?" I asked.
"I pulled the raw filings last night. Not the documents Caine presented — the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, the platform's actual performance data, the advertising network's public rate cards." He folded his arms. "What Caine gave us was curated. What I'm showing you is real."
I looked at the numbers. The inconsistencies were glaring.
The streaming platform didn't have four hundred thousand paying subscribers.
It had a hundred and sixty thousand. The podcast network's advertising revenue was inflated by repackaging the same sponsorships across multiple shows and counting them separately.
"This company is bleeding," I said.
"It's worse than bleeding," Nolan said. "It's hollow. The shell is intact, but there's nothing behind it."
Julian pulled the folder toward him and read it. His face changed. "How did we miss this?"
That was the question. I always did my due diligence. Three partners reviewed every acquisition. The documentation went through legal. There was no way this should have gotten to the contract stage without someone catching it.
Unless someone made sure it didn't get caught.
I looked at Nolan. He looked back. The same thought, arriving at the same time.
Only four people handled Caine's documents — Julian, Nolan, me, and Graham.
I looked at Graham. He was standing by the window, phone in hand, his posture unchanged — spine straight, hands steady, the picture of professional composure. He met my eyes. His expression gave nothing away.
Graham was loyal. He'd been at my side through every deal, every crisis, every late night and early morning. He anticipated problems before they arrived.
But the documentation passed through his hands first. He reviewed it in thirty minutes and said it was clean.
I picked up my phone and dialed Caine.
"Declan! I'm ten minutes out. Are we — "
"Caine, I need to postpone. Something's come up. An internal matter I need to address before we proceed."
"Postpone? We shook hands, Declan. The terms are agreed. My lawyers are in the car."
"I understand, and I respect the handshake. But I wouldn't be doing my job if I signed a contract with an open question hanging over it. Give me a few days."
"This isn't how I do business."
"It's how I do mine. I'll call you by the end of the week."
I hung up before he could push further and set the phone on the table.
"Julian, I need you to pull every piece of documentation Caine provided since the first meeting. Every financial statement, every projection, every subscriber report. Compare them line by line against the public filings."
Julian nodded. He was already on his feet.
"Nolan, the related-party transactions. Trace them. I want to know where the money actually goes."
Nolan picked up his folder. "I'll have it by morning."
I turned to the lawyers. "David, hold the contract. Nothing goes out. Nothing gets signed. I'll brief you when we know more."
The associates gathered their copies. David nodded and left with his team. The conference room emptied. Graham moved toward the door.
"Graham."
He stopped and turned.
"Stay available."
His eyes held mine for a beat. "Of course." He adjusted his glasses and left.
The day ground on. Julian and I sat in my office with the raw data spread across the desk — Caine's curated version on the left, the real numbers on the right.
The gap between them was staggering. The media company Caine presented was worth two billion.
The media company that actually existed was worth a fraction of that.
"The podcast network," Julian said, leaning over a spreadsheet. "He's double-counting. The same sponsor — this energy drink company — appears as a separate line item on six different shows. It's one deal repackaged to look like six."
"And the streaming platform?"
"A hundred and sixty-two thousand subscribers. Not four hundred thousand. He's counting free trial users who never converted." Julian sat back and rubbed his face. "Dec, this is fraud. Not an oversight. Not aggressive accounting. This is cooked."
I stared at the numbers. The question that kept circling: How did this get past us? I wasn't ready to go there. I needed the full picture first.
Julian stayed late. I could see his office light through the glass wall, his sleeves rolled, his sandy hair pushed in every direction. Nolan left at seven without a word.
I looked at the clock on my desk. It was 9:14 p.m. The Vanguard floor was empty except for Julian's light and the cleaning crew.
I had somewhere to be. I had my girls waiting at home. I didn't correct the thought. I picked up my jacket and left.
The elevator opened onto the penthouse. The lights were low. Mrs. Parrish was in the hallway, pulling on her coat.
"Mr. Hale." She buttoned the top button. "They're in the nursery."
"Thank you, Mrs. Parrish."
She nodded, picked up her bag, and left.
I walked down the hallway. My jacket over my arm, my tie loosened, the weight of the day still on my shoulders. I passed the kitchen counter. Three romance novels were stacked beside Thea's laptop.
The nursery door was open. I stopped in the doorway.
Thea was in the rocking chair. Lena was in her arms, drowsy but not asleep. Thea was singing — low and tuneless. The lamp cast a warm circle of light around them. The room smelled like baby powder and the lavender on Thea's skin.
I crossed the room, leaned down, and pressed my lips to Lena's forehead. I straightened, looked at Thea, and kissed her.
She pulled back. One eyebrow lifted. "What was that for?"
"Come on. I need this." I sat on the arm of the rocking chair, close enough that my hip pressed against her shoulder. "I've had quite a day."
She shifted Lena in her arms. The baby's eyes were closing. "What happened?"
I loosened my tie the rest of the way, pulled it over my head, and dropped it on the changing table. "We found problems with an acquisition that was supposed to happen today."
"What kind of problems?"
I rubbed the back of my neck. "Inflated revenue. We would have lost billions."
Thea was still rocking Lena. "So the deal is off?"
"The deal is paused. We're pulling the real data now."
“And the man?"
I sighed. "Nothing happens for now. What I can't figure out is how it got past us."
Thea was quiet. Lena's breathing was slowing. The rocking chair creaked softly. "Do you trust the people around you?" Thea asked.
I shook my head. I was sure of Nolan and Julian, but there was one person I wasn't so sure of anymore. "I don’t know."
“Hmm…” she said simply. Thea stood carefully. She walked to the crib, lowered Lena in, adjusted the blanket, and checked the monitor.
She turned around. I was behind her, closer than she expected. I'd moved while she was at the crib, and when she turned, my chest was there. Her hands came up against it, and she looked up at me.
"I've been meaning to tell you something," she said.
My hands found her waist.
"I'm going to have to go back soon. To my house." Her body leaned into mine, contradicting every word. "The nonprofit needs me there full-time, and I can't keep — "
I kissed her neck, below her ear, the spot I discovered the other night. It always made her sentence dissolve and drew a sound from her throat she didn't know she was making. She exhaled. Her eyes closed.
"Declan, seriously. I need to — "
"Let's not talk about that now." My arms tightened around her waist. My mouth moved along the line of her neck, and she tilted her head to give me room.
My hand slowly traveled down over her hip, along the outside of her thigh, then inward. She gasped, and her hand gripped my forearm, her fingers pressing into the muscle hard enough to leave marks.
"Not here," she whispered. "Lena's…"
I pulled her toward the hallway. She came. We moved past the nursery, past the night nurse's room. Her back found the wall of the corridor. My hand was still where it was. She arched into me, and her mouth found mine.
The kiss was hard, urgent, tasting like the entire day compressed into a single point of contact. She turned in my arms, took my hand, and pulled me down the hallway to my bedroom. The door closed behind us.
I walked to the dresser, took off my watch, and set it on the wood. I turned to her.
She was standing by the bed. Her hair was loose. I walked to her. I reached behind her and found the zipper at the base of her neck. I drew it down slowly, my fingers tracing the path of her spine through the fabric. The dress opened. I slid it off her shoulders. It fell.
I kissed her collarbone. Her hands came up to my chest. She unbuttoned my shirt — one button, then the next, then the next — and pushed it off my shoulders. Her palms were warm and flat against my skin. I closed my eyes because the tenderness of it was something I didn't have defenses for.
I laid her down. She pulled me with her. I took my time. With my mouth. With my hands. The sound she made when I found the right place, her back arched, her fingers dug into my shoulders when I slowed down instead of speeding up.
She let me. She let me take my time, let me look at her, and let me be gentle in a way I didn't know I was capable of.
After.
My bed. Her head on my chest. My hand in her hair, the curls winding around my fingers. She was drawing slow circles on my skin with her fingertip.
"I still have to go home eventually."
I didn't answer.