“Somehow, this doesn’t surprise me.”
Kelly ignored her digs. “So I ran a background check on him—”
“Strickland humiliated you and all you did was run a background check? Girl, you should throw a shoe at him, that’s what I always did when he pissed me off.”
“That’s so juvenile,” Kelly chastised. “If you want to get even with somebody, you have to find out all of his weaknesses before you take any action against him. Know thy enemy.”
Nicolla snorted. “I know him well enough. If I was given a choice, I prefer not to know him at all.”
Kelly stared at her, dead serious. “It wasn’t easy to dig his dirt, but it was well worth it. Do you know sixty per cent of Strickland’s investors are phantom corporations from Andes Island?”
“And I must worry because…”
“Andes is famous for banking anonymity, Nick. It’s a safe haven for money launderers to hide their assets.”
“I still don’t get your point.”
“Listen.” Kelly leaned on the table, her voice lowered into a whisper. “If Strickland’s investors are phantom corporations, companies that only exist on paper, I have a hunch Strickland uses True Blue Studio as a façade for an illegal operation. My guess is he’s involved in a money laundering operation.”
Nicolla stared back blankly. “Is that bad?”
“Hell, yeah, that’s bad!” Kelly slammed her fist on the table. “Seventy percent of True Blue earnings are made from your films. I tell you, your movies are great successes, but not successful enough to accumulate Strickland’s reported sales figures. Your boss is using you to cover up his illegal activity.”
“That’s old news.”
“Don’t you worry?”
“About what?”
“If Strickland gets busted, you’re going down with him.”
“Quite obvious, don’t you think?”
“You don’t understand. Somehow, Strickland had listed you as his partner on some of his ventures. The partner that made all the decisions. If he got indicted, you could be the one who takes the fall. You could go to jail.”
“But I didn’t know anything, let alone make any decisions.”
“He’s sly. He had this very complicated R-corporation structure set up that protects him from taking any liability should his scheme fall apart. He’d set a scapegoat, and that scapegoat is you, Nick.”
“No way. Son of a bitch.”
“Did you read your contract when you signed it?”
“Not really.”
Kelly glared.
“I needed the money, okay? When I first started out as an actress, he loaned me money so I could pay off my mom’s medical bills. When my mom died, my loan had quadrupled to the point I couldn’t keep up with the payments anymore. Then Harry offered me a deal—he’d forgive my loan if I signed a contract working for him for twenty-five years. I did. And when my movies became a success, and he turned into an overbearing jerk, I tried to have the contract terminated. But nobody can help me. The lawyers I’ve contacted said the contract is sealed shut.”
“I read your contract and everybody’s under Strickland’s payroll. It’s pretty tight-lidded. Whoever drafted it knew what they were doing. But in the legal world, if we want to dig deep enough, we can always find loopholes.”
“You’re just humouring me, right?”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “I can get you out of that contract if you want.”
“Now you’re just shitting me.”