Chapter 34: ON A SECRET MISSION
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Alex’s Pov:
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The workday was a blur of stressful mundane. I hardly had much to do but I did notice that Jensen looked exhausted and stressed when he came to talk to me this morning and then immediately left when he got a call from his lawyer.
I’ve seen this pattern repeat itself for a few days now and I finally thought that….it was enough!
I had decided to set my foot down and intervene. Call me nosy if you will, I don’t really think that’ll offend me at all. Jensen is my boss but other than that he’s very important to me (even though I refuse to admit it), and seeing him distressed for the past few days has been upsetting, to say the least.
All because of that human form of headache, Brian Carson.
I had a plan and I didn’t know if it’ll work… But of course, I’m gonna have to try.
Kate had been telling me how worried Jensen is and how she’s concerned about his health since he’s skipping meals for work.
Josh even tried helping him by pulling a few strings but this was a bigger problem than that and I’ve realised there’s only one thing left to do.
When I got home late at night, I tossed my keys into the bowl and pulled out my hair tie that was stuck in a high up-do.
I walked into the bathroom after I got rid of my sneakers, freshened up and changed into loose clothes.
After heating up my dinner and eating a bowl of pasta I had run out of things to do that would stall the one thing I was trying to postpone.
I looked down at my phone that said it was 9:30, I reluctantly picked it up, clicked on the contact list and sighed before I hit ‘call’.
Preparing myself for an unsavoury conversation I waited as the phone rang thrice before a familiar voice answered.
“Hello there, and what a surprise?” A sweet voice answered the one that I knew was anything but.
“I need your help…” I said it pained me to say those four words. And almost instantly felt the smirk that she had on her face.
“About time….” Was all she said before she urged me to continue and I told her my plan while she listened with a few sarcastic comments in between.
By the end of it, she agreed to help me out, which I knew she would and also she didn’t stop herself from rubbing it in.
After I hung up, I flopped down on my bed, tired and exhausted from the conversation and the day’s events.
With an act of newfound courage, I set my alarm to six in the morning and tucked myself in my bed.
Everything will be fine.
Soon.
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I hid behind a tree as I looked at the entrance and planned how to best get inside undetected.
It was time to put my plan into action.
A violent tap on my shoulder pulled me out of my thoughts about infiltrating the building and I glared at Morgan who was the source of pain inflicted on my shoulder, my lawyer and also my partner in crime…. At least for this mission.
Morgan is an old friend. We barely stayed in touch after she went to law school and I went into business. We had a bet going on that we would require each other’s work sometime in future.
Last night when I called her, I definitely lost. And now I owe her a hundred dollars. I held out a hundred dollar bill and she took it from me wordlessly.
“Stop acting like you’re about to sneak in!” She scolded as I glared.
“It’s hard not to when that’s exactly what I’m doing.” I fired back.
“Well, it looks like you’re about to sneak in and then bomb the building down, can’t you be a little subtle?” She suggested.
I decided to listen to her. “Subtle…? I could do subtle.”
“Could have fooled me.” Morgan muttered under her breath and then said: “Act like you just came to work super early.”
“Super early? Me?” I almost crackled like a maniac.
“Let’s move, we’re wasting precious time.” She grumbled and I decided to go along for once.
As I reached the main doors the security guard smiled at me as he opened the door for me. “Hello, Ms Brook.”
“Hey Gary, I never thought I’d see you in the morning.” He has the night shift and I’ve only seen him a few times at night when I stay late for work.
He chuckled, “My shift is about to change in an hour.” He then looked at Morgan and I knew he was about to ask for her ID so I intervened.
“She’s with me.” I smiled, he nodded and allowed us inside.
“You didn’t have to bring so much attention to us, this is supposed to be a secret,” Morgan said as we took the elevator to my floor.
“Geez really, I didn’t know you are supposed to throw away your manners during secret missions.” I rolled my eyes.
“Well, remember it the next time.” She said flatly.
I was about to say ‘I wouldn’t need to do something like this ever again’ but decided not to, in case it wasn’t true.
I stepped off the elevator, followed by Morgan, the place was eerie silent and our footsteps echoed on the glazed tiles. The building was deserted with dimly lit hallways. 7 am indeed, I glanced at my watch.
An unimaginable weight, the 30grams external drive resting in my pocket carried was daunting, to say the least. It was crucial to the operation and I feared I’d lose it.
All my senses called out to me, urging me to rethink my decision and actions but I was determined. I did not wake up at six in the morning for nothing, I was already in too deep.
Morgan understood how tense I was and she softly told me to “relax.”
Two more hours before Jensen arrived, I had plenty of time to relax. I looked at my office as I was about to walk past it. The couch inside looked really comfortable.
“Are you seriously thinking of napping at a time like this?” Morgan asked.
I quickly whipped my eyes to meet hers, “no of course not!”
She scoffed, knowing I was lying. Ignoring my comfortable office room, I walked towards Jensen’s.
My heart thumped wildly in my chest as I entered the pin. I realised I had zero back-ups if he had changed his code.
The door unlocked with a beep. Morgan looked at me wide-eyed, “You knew his pin.”
I shrugged, “well, he trusts me.” as we both walked in, the automatic lights flickered on.
“Sure, love is blind indeed…” Morgan mumbled and I pretended I didn’t hear her at all.
We looked around at the shelves, the desk with piles of paperwork and the drawers that definitely held sensitive documents. “So, where do we start?”
Morgan rounded the desk and stared down at the built-in safe that was part of his desk. “That looks pretty important,” she said, eyeing the lock system on it, it was most definitely connected to his computer system too.
I walked to stand next to her and looked at the same thing. Oh, shoot!
“You don’t have the code for this one I’m guessing.” Morgan said and I shook my head ‘no’. “Figured, how the heck did you not consider this?”
“Maybe because I never thought of stealing before,” I said flatly, as I bent down to knock on the metal.
“Seems sturdy, now I see why thieves resort to vandalism, it’s not like they didn’t try to be respectful,” Morgan said.
I stared at the locker keypad dejectedly, also considered calling Jensen and asking the password subtly, but then again this was Jensen, he would see straight through my ploy. May even demand to be a part of his own surprise plan.
“Maybe we should look elsewhere before we resort to brute force, maybe the documents related to Carson are not really sitting in this safe.” I thought out loud. This issue was personal to him but it wasn’t exactly confidential or of very high monetary value.
With newfound hope, we turned to the shelf behind Jensen’s desk and shuffled through numerous labelled files. We both started from opposite corners to work our way towards the middle.
Ten anxious minutes later, Morgan said: “Here it is.” Punching the air I rushed towards her as we both looked through the information in the file she found. Everything was in there, all the legal rights as well as minor details.
“Come on quick, we need to make a copy.” I rushed towards the printer but stopped when Morgan told me to wait.
“There are multiple copies of the contracts and documents in here already.” She raised an eyebrow, “we should just take one and get out of here before someone sees us.”
“Well….that’s oddly convenient,” I said, as she detached the relevant pages from the file and gave it to me. I glanced at the documents and realised those were some copies I had made myself when I had messed with his printer. That was not a very successful prank.
Also, there was a page with a shoe print on it along with red wine stains–what the? The shoe print was strangely familiar I frowned down at it and suddenly it clicked…..The first time I met him in the restaurant, he was picking up papers from the floor and I accidentally walked all over them. This was my shoe print!
I smiled. Good ol’ days.
“If you’re done creepily smiling at the papers… can we go now?” Morgan snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Oh, right yeah…let’s get out of here.” After making sure nothing was out of place in his office we walked out of the building stealthily.
Now if everything else goes as smoothly, this will be over in a day.
Or so I hope.
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It took us around forty minutes to drive to Carson’s office.
Did brick-brain Brian really drive all the way just to scream his lungs out at Jensen?
You know what they say, angry and delusional people are indeed productive.
We stopped at a cafe close by and took our time arranging everything we had and going through a plan of action.
I handed Morgan the external drive I had and she connected it to her MacBook to go through its contents.
With a single click on the folder, the list of all the bank account details containing embezzlement. Fraudulently obtained documents and forged agreements made up another section and there was data regarding the wrongful discharge of toxins released into navigable waters by his factories.
“Oh boy, this guy can be put away for a long while,” Morgan said.
“We’d be stupid to think he won’t fight tooth and nail to prove himself ‘innocent’.” I frowned. But we had to try.
“I can’t believe you worked for this clown,” Morgan commented.
“Nor can I. It was such a waste of my precious time.” I shrugged.
My appointment with Carson was at 10 am and my excuse for not being present at my own office was a sick leave. I know… not very original.
I’m gonna take advantage of Jensen’s biased opinion for me just this once. I promise.
We still had some time before our visit, but before that, I needed some coffee and we got just that.
Time flew quickly and soon Morgan and I walked into the office building right on time. His secretary looked rather peeved to see it was me.
“Mr Carson will see you now.” She said and went back to her work.
Morgan and I walk towards his office. “I’m sure you can handle this,” Morgan said.
“You can leave it to me,” I said confidently.
“I sure will, unless you decide to sue him.” She smirked.
“That’s always a possibility.” I turned the handle and entered his decent-sized office room.
“Why are you here?” He said rudely and I already knew how this meeting was gonna pan out. He stood there behind his desk in his fitted suit, with a glare targeted at me with an intention to intimidate.
That was not going to work on me, his glare wasn’t as effective as Jensen’s and I believe I’ve been desensitized.
“Hello Mister Carson, it’s lovely to see your taste hasn’t much improved,” I said looking around at the same old hideous office decor.
“This is my friend Morgan.” I introduced as I gestured at her, I knew better than disclosing the fact that she was also my lawyer. That would put him in a defensive position.
“What the fuck do you want? Did Jensen send you here?” He sneered.
“Haven’t changed one bit it seems, but let me tell you I’m not here on behalf of Mr Black.” I pulled a chair to sit, Morgan stopped behind me, she preferred to stand. “so I encourage you to take everything I say very personally.”
“He didn’t send you?” He suddenly looked very confused. He didn’t sit down either while I relaxed in the chair, feeling totally at ease.
“Don’t look so horrified Brian, I’m not here for a chitchat if that’s what you’re wondering, because let’s be honest we both know you’re not much of a conversationalist.” I pressed my lips together, who knew pissing him off would be so much fun?
If anything, he just looked more confused. “Don’t waste my time Alexandra, why are you here?”
Ah, the business tone… this guy is such a grumpy old man.
“Actually, I was just wondering where’s that legal notice you talked about? Did it get lost in the mail? Are you sure you sued us right?” I asked innocently.
Carson cleared his throat, maybe realising that we knew his threats were as empty as his brain. “So this is about Jensen after all.”
“Maybe a little bit.” I shrugged, “so about those Davis chain of clinics you’re threatening him with….” I paused a little bit and then said, “sell them to me.”
Carson laughed as if I just told him the punchline to a joke. His loud, arrogant and I-don’t-doubt misogynistic laugh didn’t throw me off, I expected that of course.
“So since Jensen couldn’t get it done himself, he sent you here to sweet talk me into selling it to him huh?” He chuckled, shaking his head, “that’s quite unlike him, I must say, using a woman to do his bidding.”
His words, their implications and his amusement all irked me to a great extent but I forced myself to not get worked up and slap him in the face like I wanted to do.
“What part of our previous exchange felt like ‘sweet talk‘ to you?” I Scoffed. “You and I both know you don’t intend to tear apart those clinics and sell them off because then you’ll lose the only leverage you have over Jensen.”
“Don’t pretend like-” He started to deny but I cut him off.
“If you have time to make up baseless theories, I’d like you to look at this before you decide to make a stupid decision.” I placed everything I had on the table and pushed the MacBook towards him.
It was all or nothing.
He frowned, looking a bit conflicted but in the end decided to see what card I had.
Carson’s eye’s skimmed through the information before him and his face grew paler with each scroll. There was a lot of scrolling.
“Guess what will happen if all this information goes public? The media will have a field day, and all your investors and clients, even though most of them are toxic parasites like yourself wouldn’t be pleased to find out you’ve been embezzling money from them.”
He looked so taken aback that for a second I thought maybe I should explain what he was seeing, but the very next moment he grew furious and glared at me with so much hate, I had to stop myself from recoiling.
“What’s this supposed to mean?!” He breathed heavily, his hard cold eyes bore into mine like he wanted me dead. So cliche.
“I thought it was obvious Brian…I’m threatening you.” I rolled my eyes, beyond exasperated. How can he make me say it? It was going exactly how I planned but he just had to go and ruin it. What a Jerk.
“Now, before you flip the table or make some grand plans about murdering me in cold blood, do consider a few things…..” I leaned forward looking at him with a small smirk, “you can’t be stupid enough to think that this is the only copy I have or that I’m the only one who knows about this.” I said calmly.
“You’re blackmailing me.” He continued to glare at me, to be honest, I was expecting some colourful insults to fly out of his mouth by now, but no such thing happened.
“Not very nice when it happens to you, is it?” I raised an eyebrow, “To be honest I would like to call it a trade.” I corrected him, “sell me the Davis chain of clinics and this folder will never get to the media… fair and square.” I wasn’t asking him to just hand them over (though I did consider that, but it would look too suspicious on paper) I was buying it legally.
I guess ‘legal’ wasn’t something Carson was familiar with, he took his time contemplating, knowing he didn’t really have a choice here.
“You give me everything you have on me… every last detail,” He said reluctantly, sounding very unhappy about being at a disadvantage. He had started to sweat and look worried, he sure deserves the taste of his own medicine.
I smiled at his words. “Deal.”
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