When he slowly turned to face me, my breath caught. There was horrible recognition streaking through his eyes. Whatever we were watching, he understood it now, and that filled him with so much fear, it made my heart stop.
On screen, Marist sat on the end of the dining table and the men moved in to surround her, once again partially blocking her from view with their black tuxedoed bodies.
“What. Is. This?” I asked.
Vance stormed back to the table and slammed the laptop closed, then jammed his hands in his hair. “Oh, fuck. It’s . . .” His gaze darted around, searching for the answer like he’d somehow find it in the air. “It was an initiation.”
Like that explained it. I pulled my chin back. “An initiation for what?”
His mind was distracted, racing with thoughts. “For Royce to become a board member of HBHC.” His gaze snapped to mine, suddenly giving me his full attention. “It was a really fucked up family tradition. I don’t know the specifics because you only get those when you’re about to be seated, and no one ever talks about it.”
Ice moved in my veins. “But you knew about it, at least enough to recognize what was happening.”
It looked like he was coming unglued. “I got a vague explanation that a new board member’s wife would be subject to board approval, and there was some kind of ceremony for it.”
I tensed my hands into fists. “And what if the board member is a woman?”
He gave me a dubious look. “This tradition started more than a hundred years ago. Women weren’t allowed to be board members.” He straightened, running a hand down his tie like he could easily wipe something so unseemly away. “The initiation doesn’t exist anymore. Royce got rid of it as soon as my father lost his seat.”
I didn’t know how to feel about any of this. Vance wasn’t a part of whatever fucked up tradition the rest of his family had followed, but . . . he knew about it, and it was hard to separate him from the association of it. I almost wished the video had been a sex tape between him and his stepmother.
That seemed somehow less scandalous.
I could figure out how to handle this information later and forced myself to move forward. “You said Lambert had stuff with you and Alice.”
“He’d said she’d given him something, and my family wouldn’t want it getting out. I assumed it was the affair. I never suspected it was this.”
He dropped down beside me on the couch and scooped my hands up in his. The way he peered at me, it was like I was his only hope.
“This is so much worse.” His voice was heartbreaking. “If it gets out, it’d be catastrophic, and I’m not just talking about for my family. Most of the board members on that video are still seated today. If Lambert leaks this, it’ll nuke the entire board of HBHC, and without them, the company will be vulnerable to a takeover. If that happens, the bank my family built when America was still in its infancy will cease to exist.”
The Hale family legacy would be destroyed.
I drew in a deep breath, withdrawing my hands from his hold so I could tuck my hair behind my ears, and focused on how we could prevent that from happening. Deleting the video we had wouldn’t do anything, because the original was still locked inside the Lagerfield in Lambert’s bedroom.
I was thinking out loud. “How do we know the only copy of this video is on the drive we found?”
He looked sick to his stomach. “We don’t.”
Meaning even if I broke into Lambert’s safe a third time and erased the drive, we’d never be certain. I sat up straighter as the idea took shape in my head.
“Then we bargain for it.” I reached out to cup his cheek and gazed into his blue eyes which were full of chaos. “That video isn’t the only thing on here. There will be something we can trade; we just have to find it.” I brushed my thumb over his lips, wishing I could brush his worry away that easily. I mimicked his gentle tone from when he asked me to put my father’s watch back. “Okay?”
He blinked, and resolve filled his eyes. “Okay.”
Vance wore a black suit with a gray striped tie, and he looked every bit the cutthroat lawyer ready to go to war. I matched him by wearing a fitted black dress with a keyhole cutout at the neckline. It was the classiest, most professional dress I owned. I added to the look by twisting my hair up into a bun and donned a pair of earrings that were a simple dangling bar of silver.
I was almost as nervous walking into the Lambert’s house as I’d been last night, which was ridiculous. I didn’t have to sneak around or crack his safe. Today we had the upper hand.