Filed to story: Watch Out, I’m The Lady Boss (Eleanor & Sebastian) Book PDF Free
“I can come back.”
“What is it?” I asked.
He stepped in, tablet in hand.
“You asked me to flag anything related to Mrs Laurent. Well…”
“Go on.”
“Franklin Vance is dead. He committed suicide in prison. 1
I stood.
“Brief me on the way. Dom, call the pilot. Prep the plane. File the flight plan. Let me know the moment it’s approved.”Dominic was already on his phone.
“Got it, boss. Destination?
“Paris.”You’re going to Paris?” Lea asked.
Inodded.
“Franklin Vance was Elean’s father. The news of his death will be a shock. I need to be there.”
“I’ll walk you down.” She matched my stride as I headed for the executive lift.
“What did he do to end up in prison?”
“Embezzlement, fraud, forgery, tax evasion, the works. When I asked him to make a will leaving everything to Elean, he tried to forge one to shift his assets abroad.”
“Huh. So you had him locked up?”
“He did that to himself. I just sped up the process.”
“Huh,” she said again.
“What?” I glanced at her. The lift was already descending “Does your wife know?”
“Of course. I told her.”
“So she knows you’re the reason her father went to prison.”
“There was no love lost between them, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Like my parents and yours. Got it.” Lea nodded.
“Still, I wonder…”
“What?”
“How she’ll react when she hears he’s dead. What was the cause again?”
Dominic, who was in the lift with us, said, “Suicide. My sources say he was being bullied in prison. Gangs and the usual. Franklin had a pampered life. He wasn’t it for the rougher side of prison and refused to pay bribes, so they made things hell for him”So, if he hadn’t gone to prison, he probably wouldn’t be killed hunsell, He wasn’t suicistal by nature, “Lea said He wasn’t, I agreed Frarddin was a selfish, greedy bastard The kind who’d I did wonder if suy efforts to block bus vesly parole bad thought aside out his own mother for a bit of extra cash. pes push him over the edge, but I shoved the So what if they had? I didn’t make him commit those s Lea looked at me again.
The lift doors opened into the garage. I stepped out.
“What?”
“Are you sure seeing your wife right now is a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“She might blame you for his death.”1
I stopped and turned back.
“How do you mean?”
“Like you said, he wouldn’t have topped himself if he hadn’t gone to prison. And he wouldn’t have gone to prison if you hadn’t pushed things along.”
“The court put him there,” I said.
“Semantics. We all know how the world works.” She glanced towards Dominic, who’d gone ahead to get the car.
“He was her father. It’d be strange if she didn’t feel even a little sad, and lash out. You’ll be standing there, tied to the whole mess, and that makes you an easy target.”I frowned.
“Elean hated her father. She’s cut ties with her family. She won’t see it that way.”
“Are you sure? Completely sure? Not everyone’s like us, Seb. We came from similar backgrounds, all of us. You, me, Kylian, Rusty, the rest of the gang. Shipped overseas when we were kids because one parent or the other couldn’t be bothered. We hate our parents.
You know what I did when I turned twenty-one. And I was genuinely happy when I heard you were packing your father and stepmother off to Africa. Personally, I thought that was too kind, especially by your old standards. But still, I bet you didn’t feel even a flicker of guilt.”
“Of course not.” If I never saw their faces again, that would suit me fine.
“But Eleanor’s not like us. You said so yourself. She’s more… normal. And normal people lash out. Even if she hated him, she’ll still feel something. And that something could end up aimed at you.”Dominic had pulled the car up in front of us. He waited for me to get in.
I stayed where I was.
“So you think me breaking the news to Elean is a bad idea.”
“Honestly? Yes. And I think you’d have reached the same conclusion if you weren’t blinded by…” Lea didn’t finish the sentence.
“Anyway, what do you think you’re going to do when you get there? It she doesn’t care about him anymore, then your being there won’t matter If she does care, and blames you, it’ll only make things worse. Either way, I don’t see the point.”
“Boss?” Dominic leaned his head out of the window. Pito just called Flight plan to Paris is approved. We can board in an hour.”
Hooked at Dominic behind the wheel, then back at Lea.
I had a decision to make Inspector Silva walked up to me and reached for the from of my blouse.
I snatched the button out of his hand.
“I can do it myself “The gadget’s sensitive,” he said.
“Needs careful handling.”
“I can manage pinning a button to a blouse, thanks.”If not for the strictly professional look on his face, and the fact I’d spent the last three days getting a sense of him, I might’ve thought he was trying to grope me. But the man had one setting: work.
“The mini camcorder captures everything within twenty metres of your field of vision,” he said, stepping back.
“Make sure the lens is facing outwards and at the right angle.”I looked down and adjusted the tiny white device. It blended in perfectly with the rest of the buttons on my blouse.
Silva checked something on his laptop, then put on a pair of earphones.
“The view’s good. Say something.”
“Something.”
“Loud and clear.” He pulled the earphones off.
I resisted the urge to keep looking down at the button.
“What if he doesn’t say anything useful tonight?”
“Then we try again tomorrow.”Seeing the doubt on my face, he added, “Don’t worry. He’s starting to crack. It won’t be long. He likes you. He’ll talk.”I stopped myself from rolling my eyes and flashing him the engagement ring on my finger. I knew what he meant, but still. Couldn’t he find a better way to phrase it?
“We need names,” he said.
“Who helped him move the funds, who cooked the books. He”
“I know, I know.” I cut him off.
“He’s not smart enough to pull this off alone. You’ve told me. Repeatedly.”
After our first meeting at the caf?, once he was sure I was on board, Silva had briefed me very thoroughly on Fabrizio. Possibly too thoroughly.
Whatever brainpower Fabrizio had in design clearly didn’t carry over to running a business.
As the founder of Valmont & Cie, he used to do everything himselt. At one point, he was CEO, CFO, COO, and every other C-title, as if he were running a corner shop, not a rapidly growing company.
As things took off, he overinvested in stock, priced poorly, overhired, and paid too generously. When the invoices started piling up, he turned to investors That ought him time, but the mismanagement continued, and soon he needed to make the numbers lo better before investors started asking questions.
From there, it wasn’t a huge leap to falsifying reports, forging documents, and committing loan fraud.
Even Silve admitted the crimes came more from incompetence than greed “But a crime’s still a crime,” he insisted Just because he didn’t mean to hurt anyone doesn’t mean his investors and suppliers aren’t taking the hit.”Worried I’ll go soft on him?” I scoffed.
“Don’t. He owes me five million.”Silva nodded.
“Shall we run through the script again?”If you must.” I sighed and sat down for another dry run.
“If anything goes wrong, give the signal. Our team will move in straightaway.”I nodded. I was actually a little excited. Who hadn’t dreamt of being an undercover cop after watching Infernal Affairs?
“Wait. He’s not dangerous, is he?”
“No. No registered firearms. No history of violence as far as we can tell.”
“Not even a pub fight?”
“Not even.”
“All right.” That lined up with my impression of Fabrizio Charming. Polite. More brainy than brawny An hour later, I stepped out of the hotel and caught a taxi to Le Meurice. From the location and the price of the menu, you’d never guess the man was technically bankrupt.
He greeted me with his usual charming smile. It was getting harder to ignore the dark circles under his eyes.
I ordered foie gras, sea bass with lemon confit, and a chocolate souffl?, along with a bottle of Ch?teau Margaux. I matched him drink for drink.
There’s a saying that people tell the truth when they’re drunk. I was hoping that held true for Fabrizio.
I’d taken a couple of RU-21 pills before leaving. Hopefully they’d help me stay sober enough to get what Silva needed.
Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the stress. Or maybe he genuinely saw me as a friend. Whatever the reason, the usual cool, collected Fabrizio finally dropped the act.
It’s not as easy as it looks,” he said, swirling his sixth glass of wine. His words were starting to shur. Everyone said the gold price would keep going up. Stockpiling it made sense. I needed it as raw material anyway, right? How was I supposed to know the price would crash a month later?”
I made sympathetic noises. knew exactly what crash he meant. Two years ago, when I was still at Nyx Collective, Savannah Lane had jost so much bair over it she’d started wearing a wig to work I’m facing the same issues with Elean a Joie,” I said I thought things were going well. Orders were coming in Then I looked at the burn rate I couldn’t believe how to the money was disappearing “Exactly”Falizio nodded hard “After I saw my first yea’s financials, I put up a job ad for a CEO the next day”I pulled a worried frown Finance is a nightmare Balong the books is worse. I’ve got investors coming in a couple of months, and I’m scared of what they’ll say when they see my quarterly numbers.”