Sam: Whatever happened to not giving a shit?
Cillian: Business is business.
Sam: Finally, you got your head screwed right. Consider it done.
The next day, I emptied all of Andrew Arrowsmith’s British Virgin Islands accounts. The money Sam told me he’d stolen from his father-in-law. The sum came up to a little less than eight million dollars.
Andrew showed up at my office door less than an hour after I moved all the money to numerous charities across the globe, making anonymous donations.
“So this is how you chose to play this?” He stormed into my domain, running his fingers over his hair, nearly ripping it from his skull.
I swung my chair around, ripping my gaze from a monthly report concerning my new drillings.
“Play what?” I asked innocently.
“You know exactly what went missing.”
He advanced toward my desk, crashing his palm over it, expecting a reaction.
He got one, all right. I yawned, wondering what caused my restless stupor last night.
It was probably the linguini. I should never have eaten carbs for dinner.
The alternative to what had caused my restlessness was too ridiculous to consider.
“Where is it?” he fumed.
“Where’s what?”
“The thing you stole from me.”
Of course, uttering the words aloud was admitting misconduct.
I rubbed at my chin. “Still doesn’t ring any bells. Care to be specific?”
“Cut the bullcrap, Fitzpatrick. Where’s my money?” He tried to grab the collar of my dress shirt, leaning over my desk, but I was quicker. Pushing back in my seat, I made him dive headfirst onto my desk, his eyes landing on the mouthwatering numbers that came back from the monthly report.
I stood, buttoning my suit.
“What’s money in the grand scheme of things, Andy my friend? You have the Arctic to save.”
“You won’t be so smug when I knock on the FBI’s door and tell them how much money you stole from me.” He scurried to his feet, straightening his tie.
“Please let me know when you do that, so I can pay a visit to the IRS and inform them you’ve been keeping undeclared millions in offshore accounts. A sure way to kill your nonprofit career faster than a fish out of water.”
He stiffened, knowing damn well I had a point. Andrew would have to take the financial hit. No one was supposed to know he stashed millions where no one could see or touch them.
He narrowed his eyes at me.
“You think I care?” he hissed. “You think that’d stop me from sending Tinder and Tree to Evon? To give them all the things your family stole from me? You can never touch my personal wealth. My wife is a millionaire.”
“No, her parents are,” I pointed out, striding along the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the human dots going about their day on the street. “Real estate, right? Her daddy is a property tycoon type? Bet there’s a whole can of worms to explore there, too,” I tutted. “Never met a New York real estate mogul who liked to pay his taxes.”
At this point, my arm was shoved so deep inside Joelle Arrowsmith’s family fortune, on the lookout for any transgressions, I could tell Andrew things about his in-laws I doubted they knew about one another.
Andrew realized the noose around his neck was tightening.
“Remember one thing, Fitzpatrick. Your wife visits our house frequently. She talks.”
I could only imagine what things Persephone said about me. She wasn’t a fan unless we were in bed. I had no idea why she tried to burst through my walls so persistently only to ruin my defense against Andrew.
So she can have power over you.
Arrowsmith had used that tactic before. Why wouldn’t she?
“Watch your back, Cillian.” He pointed at me. “I broke you before. I intend to do it again.”
I smiled. “Give it your best shot, Andy. I sure as hell am going to do the same.”
The rest of the week was an elaborate torture.
Sam sent two of his investigators with the combined IQ of a cucumber to track Persephone. He promised they’d do their best to remain unnoticed.
The days following our fight, I received hourly text messages about my wife’s whereabouts. Her predictable routine was the only thing keeping my pulse from exploding.
She was either at work, at yoga class, tutoring the Arrowsmith kids, or with her friends and sister.
One place she was notably missing from was my bed. Even though I couldn’t fault her for not crawling in my lap at night to offer me her sweetness, I hated that she wouldn’t let me in her room, either.
The evening after our fight, I arrived at our moronic dinner as if nothing happened and was even charitable enough to offer a piece of information about my day. I told her I had fired three people that morning—didn’t she say she wanted me to share things with her?—but after I got out of the shower and knocked on her door, she didn’t open it.