Page 42 of Behind These Four Walls
He was amused. “You think McDonald’s is beneath me?”
“Mr. Corrigan, you’re one of the richest men in the US alone,” Isla said. “You have five-star chefs at your beck and call. You’re not going through the drive-through ordering a number one with a chocolate milkshake.”
“I prefer the Hi-C Orange, young lady.”
Isla gave him side-eye because he kept playing with her. “You don’t even know what a number one is.”
“Who doesn’t like a Big Mac, Isla?”
And here she’d thought Victor was only eating Wagyu steak and freshly caught New England lobster.
He settled comfortably in his chair and looked at her expectantly after glancing at his watch. She was unsure of what he was waiting for her to do.
“Seriously, Mr. Corrigan, I honestly didn’t expect you to know anything about McDonald’s, let alone have a favorite meal there.”
He almost looked insulted. “My father may have started our business, but he taught me hard work.”
“You worked at one of his textile mills from the bottom up to prove you’d be able to run it when he stepped down. You grew your empire from the trucking and textile companies your father started into a global conglomerate with your first wife, Gayle Corrigan, rest in peace”—Victor raised an eyebrow—“and now you have interests in nearly every facet of business, technology, and industry. People say you take over failing businesses and restructure them, either selling them off at a huge financial profit or folding them under one of the Corrigan Group’s many branches. You have several foundations, the largest being B&C, the one managed by your wife.”
“You’ve done some homework.” He gestured because Dixon had entered the office.
“She did.” Dixon piped up, taking the cue. He laid a few folders on Victor’s broad desk and took a seat in the vacant chair next to her. “A knack for adequate research is a good attribute for a journalist to have, I think.”
Victor agreed. “That and keeping an open mind. Not believing everything you think you know about someone. Letting them show you who they really are.” His words were pointed; Isla wasn’t sure if the message was a warning about something she’d done or advice on how to proceed with him.
She said, “You probably know everything there is to know about me.” Everything Rey had made sure was available, minus their investigative side hustle work. “I’m sure Dixon even gave you my credit score and student loan amounts.”
Victor didn’t deny it. He didn’t agree either. He just gave a wry expression that said they were laying their cards out. It was better to come at him straightforwardly, no chaser. That was the interaction he valued over flattery and putting up pretenses.
He said, “I did build on what my father started. I was always underestimated until they couldn’t afford to underestimate me anymore. You know being Black in business—in any field, to be honest—means always having to be better than the basic of white people or anyone else. It’s a privilege we don’t have, mediocrity—which is unfair. We have to work harder. Be spectacular. Be innovative all the time. We have to constantly wow everyone to make them take us seriously. It’s exhausting, don’t you think? White people don’t have that baggage. This makes us have to be more callous and vicious than we’d prefer because they’ll never make it easy for us. And then when we do all of that, are callous and vicious because they made us that way, they call us angry, aggressive, say they don’t feel safe around us. I’m how I am, my work ethic is how it is, because I never again want to feel like I have to dance a jig to be accepted. I’m the one who accepts, or rejects.”
His words hung heavily, ringing true. Their connectedness caused her to temporarily forget her reason for being there—that she wasthere not to understand Victor but to uncover what they had done to Eden. “Can I quote you on that?” she asked when she remembered her purpose.
He smirked. “Has the interview begun?”
She blessed him with a winning smile. “The moment I pulled up with my bags.”
Myles entered with the leatherbound portfolio that Isla had decided was a part of his uniform, along with the dark suit slacks, matching vest, and crisp button-down shirt. “Dad, we really need to discuss the LA issue—” He broke off, noticing Isla and Dixon hanging in the background. The comfortable atmosphere between his father and this new addition took a moment for him to rationalize.
Isla waved him in as if the office were hers, not Victor’s. She offered a disarming smile, even threw in a little flirtatious look to make it seem like he’d momentarily distracted her. Myles cleared his throat, looking unsure of what he was walking into. She wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but he sat down next to Dixon anyway. She swallowed her small win. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, she intrigued Myles Corrigan. She could practically see the block of ice melting. Victor noticed her fluster at his son, and Myles’s feigned uninterest, with keen eyes, not missing a beat.
Isla had committed the narrative Nat had taught her to memory and was ready to sell it to the man who’d mastered the art of a deal. The hard part was already done. She was in. Now, she just needed to stay in.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Isla slipped out the USB drive that Rey had instructed her to insert into their computer system to let his backdoor phishing program in, the Trojan horse that would piggyback off whatever file or email Victor opened and should permit the highest levels of access to the Corrigan Group system. “May I? I’d like to show you previous work I’ve done so you can see I’m for real. I don’t have hard copies on hand.”
She offered to have them run her drive through a check for viruses or anything else, but Victor waved it off, uninterested. “If there’s something, our security systems will find it right away.”
She hoped that wasn’t the case and that Rey’s expertise exceeded that of all the techs Victor paid. She inserted the drive and let Rey’s program do the rest unseen as she pulled up her past work, some real, some embellished.
“Of course yours will be more in depth. ThinkThe AtlanticorThe New York Times,Forbes. Stories that combine human interest, business, and a theme. In your case a man who would rather show his accomplishments than talk about them, as many in your position often do.”
Dixon glanced at the screen and the past articles she, Rey, and Nat had worked together to assemble in an electronic portfolio for her. “These are mainly school articles, no major publication outlets.”
“Not yet,” she said. “That’s why I’m here, hoping to shoot my shot with Mr. Corrigan. Imagine, a nobody who gets an exclusive interview with the most elusive billionaire around.”
Myles said, “A nobody, hmm?”