Just one more fucking time.
That’s all he needed, Devyn told himself as he struggled not to fucking lose it, but God, he was so fucking close to-
“So, I have an idea,” the only thing that was stopping him from losing his fucking mind said as she grabbed the chair that he’d thrown across the room and pushed it back to his desk.
“What’s that?” Devyn asked, rubbing the back of his neck as he watched her hop onto his desk with a satisfied sigh and her iPad.
“A way to fix this,” Andi said, making him chuckle without humor because there was no fucking way to fix this. He’d been fucked over for this project and he had no idea why, but he knew one thing.
He was going to find out.
“And how are you going to do that?” Devyn asked, only to bite back a sigh when she gestured for him to have a seat.
“Okay, so no one knows that we know that there’s money missing, right?” Andi said, shifting to get more comfortable on his desk.
“Right,” Devyn said, leaning back in his chair as he tried to figure out how he was going to fix a mess this fucking big in four months. Hillshire Hotels’ CEO wasn’t talking and their fucking lawyers were already giving them the fucking runaround, making it impossible to find out what the fuck happened.
“Whoever has been doing this is really good,” she started to explain, only to wince when he drawled, “Just what I wanted to hear.”
“Sorry,” Andi murmured with an apologetic wince.
“Keep going,” Devyn said, sighing heavily as he rubbed his hands down his face, wondering when this nightmare was going to end. He’d been so fucking close…
“Well, from what I can tell, they’ve managed to move money that had been allocated for this deal around, blending the external transfers together to cover what they were doing. I missed it at first, but once I knew what to look for, it became easier to spot,” Andi explained with a helpless shrug.
“Where’s the money going?” Devyn asked, praying like hell that whoever did this was stupid enough to transfer the money into their own accounts, but he knew that it wasn’t going to be that fucking easy.
“That’s where it gets interesting,” Andi murmured as she shifted so that she could reach over and bring up Carta Hotels’ homepage on his computer. “They transferred the money back to the hotels,” she said, making him frown until she added, “They’re funneling the money through the hotels and then removing the money on the first and fifteenth of every month, making it look like the money is going back to corporate except for this month, which is weird because the money should have been taken out the day after the papers were supposed to be signed.”
“Fucking hell. We need to find out which hotels are being used and make sure that they stop the money from being transferred,” Devyn said, shoving his chair back and moving to stand up, needing to put his fucking fist through something only to sigh heavily when the small woman that was slowly destroying his will to live with every word that left her mouth climbed off the desk and onto his lap, giving him no choice but to wrap his arms around her and wait for the next blow.
“I already took care of that. So far, I’ve found sixteen hotels that were being used to filter money and I’ve alerted their accounting departments,” Andi explained as she swiped through her notes and before he could open his mouth to say anything, she added, “Don’t worry. I told them that it appears that we had a mix-up in the accounting department here and asked them if they could please hold it until further notice since it appears that the money has been transferred to old accounts.”
Nodding, Devyn said, “I need to-”
“Alert the accounting department here? I already did that and told them that you were doing an early audit in preparation for your meeting in May. I also sent Lucas’s team an audit for the Hillshire Hotels project, which is just a precaution at this point since it appears as though they’ve stopped for the time being, most likely because they know that you’re trying to find out what went wrong with the deal,” Andi finished with another swipe and a firm nod.
“Are you planning on getting off my lap anytime soon?”
“Are you planning on putting your fist through a wall anytime soon?” she countered, throwing him a questioning look.
Grinding his jaw, Devyn bit out, “Maybe.”
Nodding, Andi went back to what she was doing with a mumbled, “I’m good where I am.”
“How much is left in those accounts?” Devyn asked, slowly exhaling as he told himself that it wasn’t too late to fix this.
“A little over six million dollars,” Andi murmured as she continued scrolling through her notes.
“That’s something at least,” he said, absently caressing his thumb over her soft belly as he sat there, making a list of everyone who had the authority to authorize those transfers from the hotels and-
It was a short fucking list.
“Lucas?” she asked, not bothering to look up from her iPad and correctly reading his thoughts.
“Doesn’t have the authorization to do any of it. Everything over a million dollars had to be pre-approved by the board,” Devyn said, relieved that he didn’t have to worry about his best friend fucking him over.
“Who does?” she asked, throwing him a questioning look.
“Everyone on the board, Carta Hotels’ President, Vice President, and about ten other executives,” he said, slowly exhaling before adding, “and me.”
Nodding, she went back to work as she said, “We need to get our hands on the authorization forms.”
“You should be able to see the authorization noted in the transfer,” Devyn said, taking the iPad from her only to bite back a curse when she took it back from him and quickly swiped to a transfer record and-
“It’s missing,” he said, frowning as he reached over and swiped to the next record, noting the same thing.
Shaking her head, she said, “No, it’s been tampered with. I’m guessing that they did the same thing that they did with the Hillshire Hotels records and made two sets, altering this one, which means-”
“That we need to find the original records,” Devyn murmured absently as he thought it over. “What about the bank records? They should have everything that we need.”
“They should…” Andi hedged with a wince.