I stare at him and lean back. “How many?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “Ten, twenty. I hid them from you. It was a big fucking mistake to send you to that meeting.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Carmine and Dee aren’t a joke.” He looks at me with real fear in his eyes. “I don’t know them that well. They were a referral from someone else. But they’re up and coming in this city, and they’re dangerous. You can’t fuck with them, Jacob. We need to make right.”
“You mean, I need to.”
“What’s the fucking difference? Take the money out of the company if you have to, I don’t care. Just make it right so we can move on.”
I stare at my friend for a long moment. I don’t know how we got here, but here we are. I’m tempted to blame Valerie’s bosses, but of course they’re not the problem here.
We would’ve had this fight sooner or later. I’m only glad it’s now instead of in ten years and in a situation that I couldn’t control. At least now, I have some way to steer how this all turns out.
“You need to leave the company.”
He laughs. “No.”
“Yes, Darin. Because Valerie works for the SEC and they’re investigating you.”
He stops cold and stares at me with wide-eyed shock. “What the fuck?”
“She admitted it to me weeks ago and I’ve been helping her. I hoped you were innocent, but… you’re clearly not. You fucked up, Darin. You risked me, you risked my family, and I can’t have that.”
He laughs again, this time bitter and angry. “It’s all about your family name, isn’t it?”
I stand and slam my hands on the desk. “It’s about our friendship too, you lying little fuck. You should’ve told me. I could’ve helped, or at last talked you out of it. Instead, you lied to me, you did this shit behind my back, and now you’ll pay.”
He watches me for a moment. I slowly sit back down into my chair and stare back, my body tense with rage. I feel betrayed, like he’s throwing away our entire friendship just for a little more money. If he was so worried about his financial future, he could’ve talked to me. I would’ve helped him.
But now, he’s finished.
I don’t do betrayal. I don’t go back.
“So you just want me to step down?” he asks. “That’s it?”
“You step down and I take care of Carmine. You step down and I don’t let the SEC find out all the shady fucking shit you’ve been up to and throw you in goddamn prison. You step down and you get a second chance, but if I ever hear from you, see you anywhere near me, you’re fucking finished.”
He doesn’t move. He just looks at me and there’s a strange expression on his face. “You know, we really were friends,” he says. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“I know we were. And that makes this worse. But you made your choice. Now go draft your resignation letter and get the fuck out of my life.”
He bows his head. He looks defeated, broken, slumped. I hate him and hate myself but I don’t turn back.
He leave my office and leaves the door wide open.
I sit back in my chair, so angry I can barely speak. I want to break something, destroy something. That’s when I get a call from Valerie.
“Jacob?”
“Val.” I let out a breath. “I’m glad you called.”
“Jacob, listen, I went home on my lunch to get my phone, I left it at my apartment this morning, but things are messed up, I mean, someone broke in and my apartment’s a wreck, everything’s thrown all over, I finally found my phone underneath my bed with all my jewelry, even though it’s all fake and cheap, and there’s broken glass and—”
“Slow down,” I manage to say. “Hold on, slow down.” I stand up, body tense. “What’s going on?”
“Come to my apartment,” she chokes out. “Please.”
“Stay there. I’m coming.”
I hang up, text my driver, and run downstairs. The car picks me up a minute later and we’re driving fast to her place. I text her, just to reassure her that I’m close, my heart racing the whole time.
I find her sitting out front on her stoop. She stands when I climb out of the car and runs to me. She throws herself into my arms and I hold her tight. “What happened?”
She shakes her head. I can feel her crying against my chest. I hold her tight and when she finally calms down, she leads me over to the apartment and inside.
Her front door is broken. The lock is smashed and the knob is turned sideways, like someone kicked it repeatedly. I step inside and stare at the wreck that was once her apartment.
“I know it wasn’t nice,” she says. “But it was mine. And now it’s…”