18. Chase

What a fucking week. It was finally headed toward the weekend, and while I never truly relaxed, I was looking forward to a day where I didn’t have to make a single business decision. Pain throbbed in my temples. I rubbed at the ache while making my way through the empty coffee lounge. The moment of peace and quiet before the employees showed up and the building turned into a beehive of activity was my favorite of the day. I took a breath of the fresh coffee brewed by the barista and let the silence sink into my soul. I’d need that fortitude in the upcoming weeks, especially knowing I’d have to see Sabrina again soon. The quiet scrape of a cup forced my eyes open.

The solemn barista nodded toward the large cup sitting in front of me and turned away to resume her duties without a word. The woman deserved a raise with all the bullshit she put up with. Grabbing the cup, I tossed some bills in the tip jar and made my way to the private elevators, all while drafting a note to myself to call HR.

Even the opening and closing of the elevator doors seemed muted this morning, like nothing wanted to penetrate the quiet bubble. I sank into my chair and sipped the rich dark roast with a contented sigh. Movement flickered in the security cameras to my right. People filed into the building in a steady stream, signaling the beginning of the workday. I set my coffee aside and jiggled the mouse to wake up my computer. My inbox needed attention as I’d been neglecting it this week in favor of seeking out our thief, but it couldn’t wait any longer.

A new email sitting at the top of my inbox with a priority star drew my attention. The sender’s name: GradyInt made my blood chill for no reason other than they’d mimicked my company. It was the subject line that curled my fingers around the mouse and tore a growl from my throat. Seeing our names in the subject bar could only mean one thing. Someone had beef with us. The root cause likely lay in the email itself, unless the whole thing was a setup, a virus. It would take a damned good hacker to get a virus through our firewalls and protection apps. We had created the best in the world. I checked the CC line and found the email had been copied to the entire staff.

“Fuck you.” I clicked the email open and sat back in shock as an image of me and Sabrina popped onto the screen. It was of the day I’d interviewed her, the moment just before she slid into my car and we headed to my house. She stared up at me in the photo, her face flushed, while I looked at her with an expression so full of lust I almost didn’t recognize myself. Hands fisted so tight they shook, I read through the entire email, then read it again. Fury boiled in my veins. The email itself was a snide insinuation that I gave Sabrina the job because we were in a relationship. Not true. But the picture was damning. It was none of their fucking business. Sabrina had all the qualifications I’d been looking for in a candidate for executive assistant.

“While other, more qualified, candidates from within the company were passed over, this woman was offered the job after a twenty-minute interview that ended with Chase Grady and the woman leaving the building together.” I read the line aloud, just to hear the bitterness of the words in my own cold tone. “Blind jealousy. That’s all this is.” I spun to a second monitor and started up a hacking program Russell had created years ago. We had better ones available now, but our security team monitored those, and I wanted this search hidden in case it came from one of our security guys. “Trust no one.” I reminded myself of the motto I’d held onto for years after first creating Grady International. It had taken years for me to let go of the reins and trust my employees. They were proving now why I never should have grown the company to this size. No control. I couldn’t even find a thief stealing right from under my nose. I jabbed the buttons for Russell and Garrett’s offices while the program started up.

My office door opened and closed minutes later, Russell and Garrett stalking in wearing matching frowns.

“You saw the email.” It wasn’t a question, but they both nodded. “I’m running your old hacker program on the email. We’ll find who sent it.” And then I’d have their ass. “First someone steals from me, and now this.” I held onto my temper. Barely. “I’m getting fucking tired of this.”

“It’s probably the same person.” Garrett leaned over my shoulder, his eyes tracking down the code running across the screen.

Russell nodded his agreement. “They’re good enough to slip through my program. That takes skill. The same kind of skill we’re seeing in the thefts.”

“I want all the employee records.” I palmed the desk and stood. “All of them. From the first person we hired to the last. In this office. And the three of us are going to get them.”

“They’re all online,” Garrett pointed out. “You can access the files right from your computer.”

“I used to keep paper files.” Back in my early days before I brought in Russell and Garrett as CEOs. If they thought I was a control freak now, they had no idea how bad I’d been back then. “I stored them all in a closet. Come on.” I used my phone to unlock the desk drawer and removed a set of keys. “I want to print out all the electronic files.” I couldn’t explain why I needed them on paper in front of me. I just did. It was part of my process, to see the names, feel the paper.

“Laura scans in anything that was filled out on paper.” Russell followed me from my office to a narrow closet at the end of the hall.

The door groaned with disuse but stayed open when I kicked down the stopper.

Garrett picked up the first box and hefted it to his chest. “I’ll start printing everything off.” He met me eye to eye, his gaze full of fury. “We’ll find the bastard.” He meant it.

“No one talks about Sabrina.” Russell clapped me on the shoulder, and I felt his anger in that hard slap. The man had more patience than a saint, but once someone pushed him over the edge, all bets were off. And he was teetering, ready to fall. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”

Fucking hell I loved these guys. I grabbed two boxes and followed Garrett back to my office. We emptied the closet of five boxes total before I closed and locked the door again. We spread out around the office, each of us taking a box.

“Look for anything that even hints at a disgruntled employee. Any complaints that were made. Any employees who were fired and now a relative works here. Anything.” A sense of desperation took root and drove out every other thought. It was time to end this shitshow once and for all.

Sabrina walked into the office two hours later. She stopped one step past the threshold. “What the hell’s going on here?”

I looked up from the file I’d been reading and followed her gaze around the room. Russell sat on the floor, his suit jacket thrown over the back of the black couch and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Garrett had papers stacked all around his chair he’d rolled in from his office. He rocked back and forth, a pencil stuck between his teeth. “We’re researching.”

“Researching what?” Her eyes narrowed and she picked up a paper from the edge of my desk. “Who’s Samantha Garcia?”

“A former employee we fired.” I’d started a list and Samantha’s was right at the top. “Her son works here now.”

“Should I know what that means?” She sat on the edge of the chair across from me and lifted her eyebrows. “What’s going on?”

I clicked a few keys, then turned my laptop around to show her. Better that I told her than she found out another way. “This went out to the entire company this morning. We’re tracking down who sent it.”

Sabrina paled as she read, then her cheeks flushed. “Bastard. I want to know who did this.”

“So do we.” Russell flicked the papers in his hands. “That’s why we’re doing this. Someone has a beef with the company, and with you personally. We’re not going to stop until we find them.”

Visible relief smoothed Sabrina’s features. She resumed her seat and held out her hands. “How can I help? Do you want me to quit?”

“Hell no.” I barely resisted the urge to surge to my feet as Russell and Garrett echoed my sentiment. “We’re not letting them push you out of here. You earned this job.” I pointed toward the ground. “Not a single one of them deserves to be up here.”

A flush crawled up her neck and spread across her cheeks. “Good. Because I just started renting a new place and I can’t afford to lose this job.” She darted a look at Russell, who held her gaze as something passed between them.

“You’re not going to lose your job.” I made myself smile to ease the growing tension. “I can guarantee that.”

“Yeah,” Garrett chimed in with a rich laugh. “Chase does all the firing personally, so really, your job is safe.”

“Okay.” Sabrina smoothed her dress over her knees. She wore a rich brown dress with a wide red belt today. The pop of color drew attention to her narrow waist.

I focused on the task of finding whoever dared come after her instead of how much I wanted to pull her into my arms and offer comfort. Our weekend retreat had gotten cut short, ending long before any of us were truly ready.

This was the first time I’d seen her in almost a week, and the visceral gut punch of her presence left me breathless. A look at Russell and Garrett proved I wasn’t the only one struggling. Russell shifted on the floor and eased himself up onto the couch where he leaned into the cushions and spread a folder across his lap. He stared at the papers, then at Sabrina with a look of such deep longing that it made my own heart ache.

We were all royally fucked over this woman.

“So, what can I do? Do you want me to draft a response to the email?” She stood and paced. “Anything we say is going to be speculated over. Some will believe us if we refute the claim, others will say you’re trying to save face. There’s really no straightforward way to prove our innocence.”

“Especially since we all are, in fact, fucking.” Garrett’s coarse response jolted through me. “It’s not why you got the job, but it’s pretty fucking obvious that we want you.” He motioned around the room. “Anyone who saw us right now wouldn’t have the slightest doubt.”

“He’s right.” Russell snapped the folder shut. “We need to do better when we’re in the office. Hell, this is the first time we’ve seen Sabrina all week and we’re panting after her like a bunch of horny dogs.”

“So get your shit together,” Sabrina snapped. “You’re all successful businessmen. You know how to keep your cock in your pants. Do better. I know I’m hot as fuck and we have amazing sex that I think about at least a hundred times a day, but our priority is fixing this. Not making it worse.” She jammed her finger into my desk. “I’m not going to be labeled like this. I’ve lived with enough labels in my life. I won’t take this one too.”

That shut us the fuck up. She was right. This was about more than her reputation with the company, it was the reputation that could follow her for the rest of her life.

“Should we address the email publicly within the business?” I aimed the question at Russell. He was the most level-headed and I trusted him to give me an answer based on more than our heightened emotions.