The Damaged (The Insiders Trilogy 2)

“Bad time?”

Lifting my head, seeing Peter in my door, I said good-bye to the newest business partner I’d found out about that morning and hung up the phone. “Come in.”

Peter glanced around, holding two coffees in hand. “I heard you were using the Naveah office. This your ‘daytime’ office?”

I motioned to his extra coffee. “That for me?”

“It is. Black. Plain. Boring.” Peter pretended to wince as he handed it over, then he took a seat on the other side of my desk. He finished scanning the room. “Your dad used to use your other office, back when he and I were the majority holders at Phoenix Tech, before everything got big.”

And “got big” was an understatement. They grew that company to be one of the leading companies in cyber security. My father went on to lead the business end while Peter took over the computer end. It’d been a match made in heaven. And he was right. I’d taken to using my dad’s old office at Phoenix Tech headquarters a week ago.

Taking my coffee, I sipped it and waited.

Peter came. Peter never came without a reason.

He sighed, looked at me, and there it was. The reason. He reached behind him and pulled out a file he’d stuck in the back of his pants. It was an odd habit, but he did it often over the years.

I noted, “Briefcases can be used as weapons, too.”

He shrugged. “You know I hate those things.”

Not unless there was a computer in it. His photographic memory wasn’t the only thing he’d given his daughter. Both needed their computers on hand or they felt naked. They got twitchy, anxious, and the second you gave them a laptop, both settled down. It was uncanny.

“What am I going to see when I read this over?” I skimmed through the papers. “This is an order of protection.”

He nodded, sipping his coffee. “Against your grandfather, on behalf of my family. My entire family. That’s the summary of all the orders.”

Okay.

I tossed the papers on my desk and sat back, studying him more squarely.

His eyes twitched, enlarging before he clamped down. “What?”

He was guarded now. Good.

“What are you doing?”

“What?”

“What are you doing?”

“With what? I’m helping. I know you have a lot on your hands.”

“Have you checked in with Matt?”

He frowned, his eyebrows dipping again. “Did something happen?”

“He was on a bender recently.” I’d reported this to him, or had my team report to Peter’s team. I knew he would be notified, and I was now seeing that he didn’t listen or read his team’s reports.

“He was?” He jerked forward in his seat. “Did something happen? Is he okay?”

“He was on a bender.”

“You just said. Did you stop him?”

“Why would I?”

This was what I’d been worried about. I was at a crossroads, and I had to choose.

Bailey. Her face on the sidewalk as my grandfather pulled up. That image flashed in my mind.

I chose.

“You’re fucking up.”

Peter flinched, his head snapping back.

I kept on. “You are my superior with age, with years, with expertise in your field, but you are completely fucking up when it comes to your family.”

Peter closed down. A nerve was ticking out.

I’d pissed him off. I was about to piss him off more.

I leaned forward in my seat, knowing my eyes were dead as I delivered the rest to him. I should care, but fucking hell, I couldn’t.

“You are not grasping that things have changed. I am no longer in charge of watching your family. Matt is fucking up. He went on a bender. He hasn’t done that in weeks. If I were to guess, I’d think it has something to do with Quinn.” Peter stiffened at her name. I ignored it. “I know you are sleeping with Bailey’s mother again, and Bailey knows this.”

His mouth slackened. “She does?”

“I don’t think Bailey’s talked to her mother about it. I don’t know if Bailey even has an opinion on it. She was almost kidnapped, four weeks ago. She refused counseling two weeks after. She started school a week later, and since starting school she’s been targeted by my grandfather twice and has been targeted by one of her classmates for the sole reason that her father is Peter Francis.”

“What?” He jerked forward. His hands dug into the chair.

“I get reports from the security teams. I get reports from all of your accountants. All of them. I get reports from your assistants. I get reports from your publicity team. I get fucking reports from everyone, and in the middle of all of that, I am finding out about another company my mother was running in secret, once every second day. I am also spearheading a war against my grandfather, and this is a battle that you don’t seem to give one shit about.” I rested my arms on the desk. “You should give a shit about it. He comes in and wins, I’m dead.”