Page 56 of Convict's Game

“As the heir, your job was to continue what they started?”

“It was. But I failed at the first hurdle. When I finished my degree, my grandfather put me to work at the lowest rungs of the company. I moved between different sites and departments, learning what they do and getting to grips with all the moving parts. I loved it.”

A darkness swarmed my heart.

“My final placement was to be back in the headquarters with him, but I put it off. Then he died. It just… I mean, I couldn’t…”

My words stalled again, and tears pricked my eyes from exactly how badly I’d fucked up.

“My failure cost my grandfather his life.”

Chapter 21

Convict

Mila burst into tears. Not heaving sobs, but the heartbreak of long-held pain with her features crumpling, even as she fought it. I couldn’t bear it. Just like when she’d been on the camera in the game, her tears did something strange to me. I didn’t know physical pain, but I had the suspicion this was what the emotional variety felt like.

Reaching for her, I tugged her to my chest.

Mila scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “If I’d only gone sooner, maybe he wouldn’t have worked so hard. Not if he’d had someone to split the responsibility with. But I wanted to see every place we owned, so I begged him for more time in the field. While I was out enjoying the work, he was getting increasingly stressed until his heart couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Or he would have died anyway because his time was up and it was nothing to do with you. Can I ask some questions?”

She sniffed and sat up. “Yes. That might help. My thoughts are so scattered.”

I kept her hand in mine, brushing my thumb over her knuckles. So far, I’d heard a lot about how two rich people had brainwashed a teenager into working for them and not a lot about why that girl then threw herself into harm’s way.

“Where does Rhys Jacobs fit into this?”

“Right. Other than knowing about him from school, he’s an associate of my grandparents who I saw at my grandfather’s funeral. He was in my grandmother’s ear, whispering to her. Then he was at the next board meeting which was held two weeks ago to discuss the future of the company.” That stricken look tightened her features again. “Marchant Haulage has been suspended. There are legal complications over the company’s operations, so the board announced it had to cease trading until those were resolved.”

Things were starting to make sense in my head. I tapped her hand. “If the company isn’t making money, those people don’t get a payout.”

“Exactly. That’s their monthly income they’ve relied on for years, and it’s just gone. They can’t pay their bills. It’s devastating. As of right now, they are cut off.”

“Which you’re trying to fix.”

“I am. It’s complicated, but by the next board meeting in a few weeks’ time, all those with voting rights get to make the decision over whether the company folds or continues.”

“How many people is that?”

“Four. My grandmother, her second son who is my Uncle Wallace, me, and Kane. Kane, who I’m not supposed to know about, thinks like me and would vote the same way. But let me play you this.”

Mila leaned to the coffee table and picked up a phone, settling back at my side. Notifications filled her screen, but she dismissed them all to play a voicemail of a whiny male voice.

“Mila, this is Wallace. Mother wants out. We all need to vote with her. Do the right thing for the family and let’s put the old girl to bed. Marchant Haulage is done.”

She tossed the phone to the cushions. “Not in my wildest dreams would I believe that my grandmother would throw awayeverything she and my grandfather worked for. Sure, she wasn’t the lead in every discussion, but she was always there in the background, guiding his decisions. She can’t want the company to fall. I refuse to believe it.”

“Have you spoken to her?” Her words in the cell in the basement returned to me. She’d raged at Jacobs and asked what he’d done.

Mila shook her head. “I’ve seen her once in the past month, and that was at the funeral where the single thing she said to me was what Wallace reiterated. That she’s done with the business. She won’t take my calls and she won’t see me. When I go to her house, she isn’t there. It’s like she’s disappeared off the face of the planet. Likewise, Wallace won’t answer my messages. The only reason I know his intent is that voicemail.”

I didn’t like the sound of Wallace. “What’s he to do with the business?”

“Nothing at all. I’ll show you what he’s about.”

She grabbed the phone again and searched for a social media account, flicked through photos, then held it so I could see. Wallace, a forty-something man, in Speedos on a yacht. Wallace with his arms around much younger men and women in some beach location. Wallace at a party on a rooftop against the New York City skyline.