Page 3 of Collin, Episodes 13-15 (The Residency Boys #5)

Veronica tapped the ends of her pointer fingers together. “Revenge is delicious.”

Collin raised both eyebrows. “What did you do? No, wait, do I need Mr. Sathers in here, and would he advise me not to ask?”

Eyes twinkling, Katharine covered her mouth with her hands and looked toward Veronica.

Veronica sat up straight and put her nose in the air. “Why, sir, whatever could you mean? We would never get up to anything untoward.”

Collin shook his head. “Yes—yes, you would.”

Veronica’s composure shattered again. “Maybe, but this is totally legal, I swear! So, the guy I hooked up with and who filmed me, remember him? All we did was anonymously email links to his mom about the court case. Public records. Screenshots that he posted.”

Collin raised both eyebrows. “And…”

“His sister went public on social media disowning him. His mom reached out and verified it was true and then also disowned him. And he works for his dad, who fired him.”

Collin slowly walked across the room and sank into his seat. “Wow. Okay then. Consequences.”

Veronica tittered through her fingers. “And to think I was going to resign and hide.”

“Never,” Katharine drew in a deep breath. “Neither of us needed to do that. Now, what’s this about a hospital?”

By evening, the media attention had gotten intense, but Collin was able to put his head down and ignore most of it. They took a back way to the car when they left and a service entrance to reach The Residency.

As soon as they entered The Residency, Mr. Reevesworth put his phone on silent. “Anyone who has to reach us can,” he said. “Stand down, boys.”

Damian let out a huge sigh and leaned against the door. “That went better than expected.”

Collin dropped to his knees and started taking off Mr. Reevesworth’s shoes. Mr. Reevesworth looked down, brows rising for a moment, but then he nodded and let Collin serve him.

“Today was mostly about letting the pieces fall,” he said, stepping into the living room.

Collin hurried to take off his own shoes, hat, and coat. He trailed Damian after their dom.

“Tomorrow they’ll start thinking,” Damian muttered.

Mr. Reevesworth nodded. “Not that they’ll have much time.”

“What happens tomorrow?” Collin caught up with them as they all entered the hallway to their rooms.

Mr. Reevesworth paused at the junction where Damian turned off toward his bedroom.

“Tomorrow is when round two hits. A few more of their employees will quit, they’ll start to realize which stocks I am buying, and their business partners will start getting notices.

Certain entities will have to choose between doing business with us,or doing business with people like Bernstein, who go after private people’s lives. ”

“It’s still hard to think this is all legal.”

“Very legal,. Damian chuckled. “Lots of small, innocent things, just done at a massive scale. Who knew that Barker’s favorite coffee shop is closed for repairs tomorrow?”

Collin shook his head. “How petty did Paulsen get?”

“It’s not petty.” Mr. Reevesworth smiled at Damian. “It’s called being a good trial attorney. Don’t give the other side time to get grounded.”

“But how did you get a specific coffee shop to close?”

“Oh,” Damian said, “someone might have notified them that if they didn’t get that oven vent repaired before the health inspectors arrived, they’d lose a lot more than one day’s worth of business.

But if they were willing to close for repairs this morning, they had someone willing to do the work on short notice. ”

Collin shook his head. “Please tell me you didn’t do that personally.”

Damian’s grin was gleeful. “Absolutely not. But someone from the mayor’s office might have. Honestly, the repair is real. A disgruntled employee just happened to complain to the PI assigned to Barker last week. We got lucky on that one.”

Collin groaned. “This is why I just want to research things and build things. I will leave the cloak-and-dagger up to you two.” He threw up his arms and headed to the bathroom to wash his hands.

Tuesday morning, Collin went to his team room right after Chinese lessons.

If he was needed in the office on phones, he’d be called in, but nothing big was expected until that afternoon.

The media had enough other stories like the divorce filing and the possible board resignation in Bernstein’s company to feast on.

Especially now that Barker’s wife had taken herself, their nanny, and their two children to Italy, her home country.

Since Barker’s affair had been with said nanny, that was the talk of the airways.

Collin tuned it out and settled down to review the roadblocks Veronica had highlighted on the passenger rail project.

“What’s this?” He pointed to the first red spot on the map, starting at the southern end.

Katharine scooted her chair over and took a look. “That’s the Gaelic bar. The owner also owns the building, and so far, she’s been resistant to any changes. Right now, the choices are to build around her or to get the city to agree to some sort of eminent domain.”

“What would be the ideal?”

Katharine grimaced. “We want her to be part of the new promenade inside the station. German-style shopping and dining options. Well, think of it like an airport, but the gates are right by the entrances to the trains, so you don’t have to be using the airport to shop or meet up at the cafés or, in this case, a bar.

Like a mall. Here, let me show you. There’s some really good videos of the Hamburg train station in Germany that shows what I’m talking about.

Her bar would be perfect for it especially since people could take the train home after drinking.

Our architects will put in a beer garden for her on the roof and everything. It’ll have a wonderful view.”

“What’s her resistance then? Money? Can she afford it?”

“We’re offering a joint ownership deal so businesses can buy into the mall and own their own spaces, like a condo. No rent, just dues. Her building value and land would be her initial buy-in price. That’s what we’re offering.”

“What about the time she doesn’t have a building to operate out of?”

“Tentative deal with the city would allow temporary street housing of affected businesses for two years in and around the building. Our initial research says her business should do very well with the foot traffic generated by construction.”

“But she still doesn’t want to agree?”

Katharine shrugged. “I’m not sure anyone has been able to even get her to talk. She came to the exploratory meeting, and she received the general offer but turned down all one-on-one meetings.”

“Who’s assigned to this?”

Katharine shook her head. “No one right now. We did our initial pass and engagement on the southern. end and the main team is working on the northern end right now. This is on the ‘come back to’ list. There’s quite a few of them.

” She gestured to the map, pointing out five more red points on the same block.

“Honestly, getting hyper local buy-in is proving difficult even though we’ve been officially able to get the city on board.

With both ends of the rail line in agreement on the government level, there’ll be a lot more pressure on the businesses to get on board or face pressure from the city government to comply. ”

Collin winced. “That’s not a great way to build goodwill on the ground though.”

Katharine shook her head. “Which is why Eliza has us reviewing this now.”

“Eliza,” Collin called out.

Their team lead pulled off her headphones. “Yes?”

“Do you mind if I try to take point with this group here in Indianapolis?”

Eliza peered at the map. “Sure. Don’t make any promises you haven’t passed by me or Mr. Reevesworth.”

“No, I just want to see if I can figure out what their issue is.”

“I don’t think another round of email will help.” Katharine tapped her nails against the edge of the map.

Collin shook his head. “I used to work in a bar. I’m not going to email them. I’m going to visit.”

“Oh! Road trip.” Veronica clapped her hands together.

At three o’clock, Collin’s phone pinged to remind him he had an hour to get to his new therapist’s office six blocks away.

He packed up, checked in with his master, gave Damian a fist bump since the man was in an intense phone conversation about a court case, and collected his security detail.

In the elevator, he texted Ash to let the tech mage know he was out for the day.

He had to check his email to remember his new therapist’s name, but his security already knew where they were going: Broderic O’Brian.

The reception area of the practice was small, quiet, and absolutely stuffed with art and textiles. There were three seats, a door with a rustic restroom sign that would have suited a ren faire, and two office doors situated with nameplates. The one to the far left read O’Brian.

Collin glanced at his security guy. Holden was with him today. The big guy glanced at the two seats and back at the door. Neither looked like they were suitable for getting out of quickly. Holden shrugged and leaned against the wall.

“Sorry.” Collin grimaced.

Holden chuckled. “Don’t be. Waiting in a cute office beats standing outside in the pouring rain for two days waiting for someone who may or may not come.”

Collin pulled a face. “I’m guessing I shouldn’t ask.”

Holden’s eyes crinkled up with laughter. “Afghanistan.”

Collin gave him a long look. “You’re lying.”

Holden raised both eyebrows. “Can’t prove it.”

Collin chuckled. “I don’t have to. Keep your secrets.”

“I’m told you have secrets too.”

Collin’s shoulders tightened. “Yeah, I do.”

“Anything you want to tell me about?”

Collin bit the inside of his cheek. “If you ever see a sunflower with two drooping leaves on either side of the stalk drawn on anything, it doesn’t have anything to do with Mr. Reevesworth, but…” Collin shrugged. “Yeah, I’m probably fucked.”

“It was on the items you put in the safety-deposit box.”

“Yep.”