Page 33 of His Verdict
Jasper doesn't break stride. He gives the receptionist a curt nod. “Thank you, Katherine.” He keeps walking toward a set of imposing double doors at the end of the long hallway, his hand still resting lightly on my back.
I am frozen in place. My mind is racing, trying to connect dots that refuse to align. Wolfe. Donovan. Wolfe Global. Donovan & Creed. It is a jumble of names and entities that makes no sense. He signed the checks as J.W. He was arrested as Jasper Wolfe.
He notices I've stopped. He turns, one eyebrow raised in a silent question.
I find my voice, my words a confused whisper. “Why did she call you that?” I ask, my gaze darting from him to the name on the wall and back again. “Mr. Donovan?”
He looks at me, and his expression is completely, utterly placid. There is no deception in his eyes, no flicker of a lie. Just a simple, devastating statement of fact.
“Because that’s my name,” he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
He turns and pulls one of the heavy conference room doors open, holding it for me, a perfect gentleman.
Chapter 15
My world tilts on its axis.Because that’s my name.
The words are so simple, so utterly absurd and yet delivered with such profound certainty, that my mind refuses to process them. Jasper Wolfe. The name on the arrest report. The name in the news articles. The name I screamed in the throes of an orgasm.
A lie.
All of it. A carefully constructed identity he wears like a suit, and now, apparently, has discarded.
He holds the door open, his expression unchanged, waiting for me to enter the room where my former enemies sit. My feet feel like lead, but my body moves, a puppet on strings he doesn't even have to bother pulling anymore. I step over the threshold into the main conference room, and the world I know ceases to exist.
The room is a symphony of quiet, expensive power. A long, polished mahogany table dominates the space, surrounded by a dozen high-backed leather chairs. The ever-present wall of glass offers a panoramic view of the city, a backdrop that renders everything inside small and insignificant.
But it’s the men at the table who hold my attention. There are five of them, all in their fifties and sixties, all wearing immaculate, dark suits that probably cost as much as my old car. Their faces are a gallery of grim, barely concealed terror.These are the titans of Meridian Technologies. Arthur Vance, the CEO whose smug face I’ve seen in press photos. The CFO, the COO—the entire executive board. These are men who move markets with a single phone call, men who are accustomed to commanding respect, to wielding power.
In this room, they look like lambs awaiting the slaughter. Their faces are pale, their postures rigid, and a sheen of sweat is visible on more than one brow. They are not looking at me. Their eyes are fixed on the man who just entered behind me.
He lets the heavy door swing shut behind us, the soft, finalclickechoing in the tense silence. He doesn't take a seat. He doesn't invite me to. He simply moves to the head of the table, placing his hands on the back of the empty chair there, his presence instantly dominating the room. I am left standing awkwardly near the door, an accessory, a witness. I feel my own skin prickle with the thick, palpable fear that saturates the air.
“Gentlemen,” he begins, his voice a low, calm rumble that holds no warmth at all. It is the voice of a judge about to pronounce a sentence. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. I trust your journey was… untroubled.”
The subtext is clear.I could have made it troubled if I wanted to.
Arthur Vance, a man with a mane of silver hair and a face used to projecting authority, seems to find a sliver of his courage. He clears his throat. “Donovan,” he says, the name tasting like poison in his mouth. “We had an agreement.”
“Yes, we did, Arthur,” Jasper replies, his voice dangerously smooth. “An agreement that you have flagrantly, and I might add, stupidly, violated. I paid you a substantialamount of money for a controlling interest in your company’s sensitive data division. A quiet, off-the-books acquisition. You took the money. And then, you failed to deliver the access keys.”
“The board had a change of heart,” another man, the CFO, mumbles, his eyes fixed on the polished surface of the table.
“A change of heart,” Donovan repeats, the words dripping with derision. He lets go of the chair and begins to pace, a slow, predatory circle around the head of the table. “You are on exceptionally thin ice. All of you. You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that our transaction was a negotiation. It was not. It was a directive. I gave you an opportunity to walk away from your crumbling company with your pockets full and your dignity intact. A benevolent offer, considering I could have simply crushed you.”
He stops pacing and leans forward, placing his palms flat on the table, his knuckles white. The men flinch. “I want what I paid for. Now. No more delays. No more excuses. You will transfer the full administrative credentials to my server by the end of the day. If you do not, there will be… a price to pay.”
The silence that follows is so profound I can hear the frantic, thready beat of my own heart. This is beyond any corporate negotiation I have ever witnessed. This is a shakedown. This is the language of the mob, dressed up in a thousand-dollar suit.
Arthur Vance, to my horror, pushes his chair back and stands. He is a fool. A brave, stupid, dead fool.
“This is outrageous,” Vance says, his voice trembling but defiant. “We are not some back-alley operation, Donovan. Weare a publicly traded company with a fiduciary duty to our shareholders. Market conditions changed. The value of the data increased. We are within our rights to reconsider the terms. We are allowed to change our minds.”
Jasper doesn’t move. He just watches Vance, his expression placid, almost bored. He lets the man ramble, lets him build his flimsy legal argument, his recitation of corporate responsibilities and contractual loopholes. He lets him dig his own grave with a silver spoon.
I watch, frozen, a part of my lawyer’s brain agreeing with Vance’s logic, while every primal instinct screams at the man to shut up and sit down.
When Vance finally runs out of steam, his chest heaving, Jasper straightens up. He looks at the CEO with an expression of profound pity, the way a scientist might look at a laboratory animal that has just failed a simple test.