“I need two to fully wake up. Remember dorm days?”
“Ugh.” I used to literally splash her with water so she’d wake up and not be late for class.
“Uh-huh. Exactly.”
“Looks good.” I motion at the board.
“Not good enough, but forget about that.” She takes my hand and leads me to the sofa opposite my desk, then tells Alexa to stop playing the music. “How did it go yesterday?”
“I told you.”
“A text in the middle of the night that says, ‘I think we’re good, talk to you tomorrow’ explains rubbish. I need details.”
“Lay…”
“All of them,” she speaks like a stern mother and I sigh, then tell her the gist of what went down yesterday and the dreadful meeting with Jonathan. I’d previously told her that the mere thought of that particular encounter scared the shit out of me.
“Bollocks,” she breathes out after I’m finished.
“Bollocks indeed.”
“So your nephew really called you Mum?”
“Seriously, Lay?”
“What? I think that’s cute.”
“Aiden is anything but cute. He’s the mini version of his father.”
“So what’s the problem here?”
“Jonathan threatened me. If I go through with this with Ethan, he’ll come after me.”
“Not if you have Ethan’s protection.”
My brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
She takes a generous gulp of her iced coffee and crosses one leg over the sofa, fully facing me. “Okay, listen up. So Jonathan is like this big bad wolf, right? Guess who can kill a wolf?”
“A hunter?”
“Yeah, but we don’t have that. What’s the next best thing?”
“I’m not even sure where you’re going with this. Is this another one of your crazy ideas?”
“Focus, mate. What else but a hunter can kill a wolf?”
“Spare me the suspense.”
“Another wolf.”
“Another wolf?”
“The only way to bring Jonathan down is to use Ethan.”
“Really?”
“Why do you think Jonathan is so against the idea of you going to Ethan? He knows that if you have Steel Corporation’s support, he won’t be able to touch you. In a way, we’ll be under Ethan’s protection, and he’s known to take great care of small businesses and even their lawsuits.”