“What do you tell your lesser known investors?”
Marks cocks his head. “Come again?”
“If I don’t invest and someone else does, how do you guarantee an IPO explosion? If all you need is my name attached to the deal, shouldn’t you be paying me?”
He coughs, showing his first sign of uncertainty.
“I wonder what the feds would think if I asked them to check into this bank that’s underwriting this deal. There won’t be any problems, will there?”
Marks’ demeanor changes instantly. “Why’d you call me if you didn’t want to invest?”
“Because I don’t like your deal. Your cryptocurrency is the real deal, I’ll give you that, but your IPO is a fraud. I’m going to give you five days to shut it down. If you don’t pull back all your existing offers, I’ll sic the feds on you. I don’t think the books will stand up to any scrutiny.”
“Fuck off, Weathers,” Marks explodes. “Just because you don’t like this deal doesn’t mean you have to screw it up for everyone else. If you don’t like the deal, just say pass.” He leans over and tries to rip the prospectus off my desk. I pull it away and tuck it into my drawer.
“Pass. You can go.”
Marks glowers at me but he’s smart enough to know when he’s lost. He spins around and stomps out. I knew I would have no chance of convincing Teddy to give up on this so I did the next best thing. I found the original scamster–Marks. If he doesn’t fold up his tent and go away, I’ll pull it down.
Chapter 14
Abigail
“Don’t tell Con about this appointment.” I look over to Layla, who is driving me to the doctor. I’ve felt off. I really don’t think I can be pregnant, but something is going on with me. I don’t want to get Con’s hopes up.
I’ve done that so many times, each pregnancy test reading negative. I’d finally thrown the tests out altogether. I knew if I had them at home that I would obsess about it and keep on taking them. The disappointment is too much to bear so frequently.
“I would never tell anyone about taking you to the doctor, Abby.” She often calls me by my nickname when she wants me to know she’s talking to me as a friend and not my security.
“I want to tell him but I don’t want to worry him.” What if something is wrong with me? I’ve been overly tired lately. Layla doesn’t say anything but I know she wants to. It’s Con’s right to worry over me. God, I’d be so hurt if he kept this from me. I think I might be doing the wrong thing. Lately, I think I’m doing most things wrong when it comes to my personal life.
I reach into my purse to find my phone to call him. It rings at the same time. My brother’s name comes up on the screen. Crap. I’ve been meaning to reach out to him. There is no way I can help him right now. I’d actually toyed with the idea of pawning something that Con had given me in order to get the money to give to my brother.
I’ve heard that if you bring something to one of those pawn shops they will give you the money upfront and hold on to your item. They give you a time frame to pay the money back in order to get your item. But they usually don’t give you close to what the item is actually worth. So they make out if you can’t pay what they frontloaded. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“Hey.” I answer the phone.
“He ruined everything,” my brother slurs into the phone. I close my eyes. He’s drunk. “Your husband can’t keep his nose out of my business so he ruined my deal.”
I shake my head no. How would Con know anything about what Teddy was up to? That’s a stupid thing to think. Yet, deep down inside I know what he’s saying is probably true. Of course Con knew what Teddy was doing. He doesn’t care for Teddy and wants him to stay away from me. I could see him keeping tabs on him. Which also means that the possibility that he knows I’ve been talking to Teddy again is very high. He hasn’t said anything, but neither have I.
“What did he do?”
“They dropped me. They won’t let me invest now. He made sure that I wouldn’t be successful.”
Why would Con do that? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Con would know that it would ultimately hurt me if I found out he did something to hinder my brother. It’s not something that I could ever see him doing. Why would Con care what Teddy wanted to invest in? None of this makes any sense.