The CEO (20 page)

Kieran hadn’t had many friends, but a few managed to come to his funeral. As I watched the funeral director lower him into the ground, everyone threw white roses on top of his casket to say their final goodbyes.

It was a rainy and chilly fall afternoon. An abrupt wind blew through the service quite a few times, but we all stayed until his casket was completely covered with dirt.

A harsh reality set in as I walked away from the burial ground:
one day that could be me…

“Sheila, are you all right? You haven’t touched your food at all,” Shannon said.

“I’ll be fine,” I replied.

“Okay, no need to be snippy,” she retorted.

“Dad, I know it’s our family tradition to have a meal together but I’m just not ready for this right now. May I be excused?”

“Sure, I understand. Call me later.”

“Are you serious, Dad? I swear she gets off the hook for everything!” Shannon huffed, rolling her eyes as I left the table.

I felt like something was wrong. I shouldn’t have had to bury my little brother that day. He should have still been alive, on the streets doing god knows what. I felt deep down that someone had had something to do with this. Why else would he call me so much that night? Why would he show up on my stairs battered and bruised, barely clinging to life?
I swear if someone did this to him purposely there will be hell to pay.

I drove back to the office to try and get my mind off it all. It was almost time to shut down for the evening but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get Kieran off my mind for a little while.

“Sheila, what are you doing here?” John asked with a suspicious look on his face.

“I just needed to get back here and take care of some things.”

“Oh, I see. Well I’ve, uh, gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I could tell John was hiding something, so I walked over to him, moved him out of the way, and there she was, sitting directly in the front of the conference room. “What the fuck is
she
doing here?”

“Oh, don’t look so upset, Sheila. I heard about your brother and came to give my condolences. Then this cute gentleman here introduced himself to me and I decided to hang around for a while. There’s no harm in that now is there?”

“There is a lot of fucking harm. If Roger isn’t here,
you
shouldn’t be here. Now get the hell out of my building!” Ashley Vaughn looked at me with a smug smirk on her face. Flipping her long blonde locks back over her shoulder, she stared at me with her blue eyes, trying to intimidate me.

“And what if I don’t want to?”

“Then I’ll beat your— ”

“Whoa, Sheila, calm down. I’ll escort Ms. Vaughn out and you can go back to your office. I think there has been enough drama for one evening!” John yelled.

“Whatever, I better never see you in here again!”

“Holy shit, that’s Ashley? She’s hot,” Ryan whispered behind me. If looks could kill, Ryan would have certainly fallen to his death that instant.

Ashley brushed up against me as she exited the room with John. “Something doesn’t seem right about that meeting. I’ve been here for months and have never seen her come here before, so why would she suddenly show up now all of a sudden?” Ryan questioned.

“I have no idea. She claimed to be here to give me her
condolences
for Kieran’s death, but I don’t buy that shit for one second. She’s up to something, she always is…”

“So enough about her, what exactly are you doing back here?”

“I don’t know.”

“It must be hard to be around them right now, isn’t it? I totally understand. When my uncle Steve died back in Montana, things got real weird among my other family members.”

I pushed past Ryan and went directly into my office, locking the door behind me. I pulled the cord to close the blinds, so no one could look in or out. I sat down in my chair behind the desk and spun it around to stare out the window.

I’ll figure this out soon little brother. Your death with not be in vain, I can promise you that.

I woke up to my phone buzzing violently on my nightstand. I picked it up and the office phone number was flashing on my screen. “Hello?”

“Sheila! You’ve got to get here quickly, we have a huge problem.”

“Okay, John. I’ll be there soon.”

I looked at the time and it was nine a.m. I never over slept when I had work the next day.
Guess my body had other plans today.

I rushed into the office to find John waiting by my desk. “What’s going on John?”

“We were hacked.”

“What do you mean?”

“The blueprints and everything I had have been tampered with.” He showed me his laptop and the screen he had with the Nat-Co graphics was all wonky looking and had black marks crossed over it. I still had no idea what I was looking at, but by his expression I could tell it wasn’t good.

“Okay, well can it be fixed?”

“Hopefully. I just hope another oil company isn’t responsible for this.”

What John said didn’t make any sense at all. No one knew we were developing an app, so how could another company be responsible for this? I did have enemies, but even they wouldn’t be dumb enough to try and tamper with my business, not like that.

“Okay, well go back to your office and handle it, I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Thank you. I know you don’t really understand this coding jargon but I wanted to let you know how serious this could potentially be if your company info fell into the wrong hands.”

“I appreciate that, John.”

John grabbed his things and headed back to his office and Frank walked right in. “Seriously? What now?”

“I just wanted to confirm your appointment with the electric company.”

“Yes, I’m still going. It’s this afternoon right?”

“At three p.m. Would you like me to accompany you?”

“I guess I don’t have a choice now do I?”

“Thank you for coming today Ms. Quinn. You don’t have to say another word, we’ve already decided to proceed with the merger. I just wanted to see you and tell you face to face. Frank was great—excellent even—at explaining all the benefits to us. He even told us about a few possible hiccups, but I’m sure we’ll be able to get through anything. Both of our companies represent strong work ethics and together we can bring in a lot of money.”

“Thank you Mr. Kraztski. I appreciate you telling me in person. I’ll have Frank contact you once we have all of the contracts drawn up. Have a good night,” I replied.

Frank smiled at me with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. “I knew I had them eating out of the palm of my hand, but I wanted you to see how good I was.”

“You did a great job, but don’t let that get to your head. We’ll see how
good
you really are once the contracts are signed and you’re in charge of this whole operation.”

Jacob, the contractor, called the next morning to reassure me that the construction job would be completed ahead of schedule in four short weeks.

I already had my team in place. Rosa was ready to decorate and host the huge release party for me.

I wanted to rebrand it and let Shannon be in charge of it. I wanted it to serve the same purpose as before, but with a twist. The events that used to be held there were more formal and I knew my sister would give it a more modern and upbeat touch. After everything that had gone on recently with our dad being in the hospital and our brother dying, she needed something to occupy her time.

“Sheila, you wanted to see me? You
never
call me—
ever
,” she spat at me.

“I know, but I wanted you to know something.”

“And what is that?”

“Remember that old Bernstein building?”

“That old event planning place across the street? I saw someone took it over and rebuilt it. What about it?”

“It’s yours.” With a disheveled look on her face, I watched as the tears welled up in her green eyes.

“Wait…why would you do that? What’s the catch?”

“The only ‘catch’ is that you run that building and you’d better take care of it. Don’t let it go to shit. I have enough on my plate, designing and parties is your thing. It’ll be the new number one spot to have a function. Watch.”

She ran her fingers over her cheeks wiping her tears away. I didn’t get along with Shannon, but I figured we could try to since we were the only siblings left. “Thank you,” she said as she grabbed her things and left.

“Is…everything okay?” Ryan questioned.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, your sister was just in here and she actually left with a smile on her face. Oh and there was no yelling or a need to call the cops to split y’all apart.”

“I know. She’s all I have now and I wanted to try and change the hostility between us.”

“Wow, that’s a noble thing to do.”

“Shut it Smith, I don’t have to be nice to you though.”

“L-let me grab you a fresh cup of coffee,” he said, rushing out of my doorway.

That’s what I thought.

It was foggy, damp, and cool out, but I decided to take an early lunch and visit my newest property. I grabbed my umbrella, raincoat, and rain boots from my closet before heading out the door. I told Ryan to forward anything important or urgent to my phone and I’d check it as soon as I could.

A few blocks later, I reached the exterior of the two-story brick building. It looked strong, like nothing could penetrate or destroy it.