Her words echo Cole’s, when he listened to my call with I a few weeks ago. Karli has known me forever and never asked me the reasons behind it. Cole saw our dynamic immediately. He encouraged me to stand up to her. To speak my mind.


    I miss him. It’s hard to admit, but it’s there, every day. I miss his voice and his opinions, his teasing smile, the glint in his eyes when he sees me. I even miss his obnoxious way of thinking he’s always right.


    While I always said I hated him, I don’t anymore. I don’t hate him at all, not even when he’s set to tear down this ce.


    And somehow, that’s what hurts the most.


    I swirl the whiskey around in my ss. It’s my second of the evening, and it’s only a Wednesday. “You’re losing it,” I say. There’s no one around to listen.


    On myputer in front of me, my emails seem to swim in and out of focus, and it’s not because I’m drunk. I just can’t seem to bring myself to care about them.


    Demolition of the bookstore starts in less than fifteen hours.


    Have Karli and Skye finished emptying the store? Have they taken down the memorabilia, the nts, the framed pictures? Have they stowed away all the inventory? I want to know. I want to call Skye and ask, to hear her voice on the phone. To see if she’d taken the old ratty armchair home to her already too cluttered apartment.


    But I doubt she’d pick up. In the story of her and me, of Between the Pages and Porter Development, I’m the bad guy. The ones in the movies always seems to enjoy their evilness, somehow. I can’t rte to that.


    I could still stop it.


    Sure, the ns are drawn up. The investors are happy. My building team is excited to get started, and just today, someone congratted me on the new build.


    But there’s still time, if I decided to change the ns.


    My team would think I’m insane. There’d be internal disagreements. Questions regarding my leadership, and perhaps even my sanity. It feels like a small price to pay. What do I have to lose?


    Skye.


    She might hate me for stopping the demolition for her just as much as she hates me for going ahead. Pride is an emotion both of us share. From the very beginning, she made it clear that our rtionship wasn’t quid pro quo. That she didn’t want to earn anything, not that way.


    If I stopped the demolition for her… While I’d never ask for anything in return, it would put her in an awkward position. If there’s one thing I don’t want her to feel, it’s shame, especially not over anything we’ve done together.


    I nce at the framed picture of my family on my desk. My dad is in it, a couple of years before he passed. He’s tall and suit-d, a hand on my shoulder as I graduate college. My sister is beaming beside me, braces on her teeth.


    For years my dad had loved to listen to my business dealings. Wanted me to run through them so he could listen and givements. What would he say about this one? He was always the one who instilled in me the importance of making sound financial decisions, of trusting experts. Doing things by the book.


    There’s never only one option, he often said. Find the third way. That’s where sess lies.


    Maybe his advice isn’t applicable here, but I have to try. Find the third way.


    Skye had mentioned that their numbers were still up; they might be profitable in a few months’ time. Incorporating their store would help appease the project’s protestors, not that they were many.


    Could I make the decision for the business itself, and not for Skye?


    I search through the sharedpany drive on myptop until I find the project. And there, in a little folder titled “Between the Pages Financial Records,” is the ounting report they submitted to mypany.


    I click it open. I’m immediately assailed by colorful graphics. On closer inspection, one is duplicated, the numbers just inverted. Why would their ountant do that? To make it look fancier?


    I scroll through the numbers, searching for sales and inventories. Assets and debt. Instead, I fall down a financial rabbit hole.


    Their numbers are confusingly disyed. It’s a beautiful document, sure, if you aimed for style over substance. But the meat is sorelycking. I parse through the pretty phrasing and the artfully created tables to scour the numbers. And that’s when I find it.


    The error.


    At first, it’s small enough that my eyes dart over it, but on the second pass it stands out like a sore thumb. It’s a deliberate error, too. Their ountant has incorrectly ssified a whole section of sales. Ie is described as expenses.N?velDrama.Org: owner of this content.


    It’s embezzlement 101.


    The blood begins to pound in my temples. How did my ountants not catch this? Bryan said he would run the store’s numbers past our in-house financial department.


    Ice sets in my stomach when I realize the reason. Of course, Cole. If Porter Development’s ountants are worth their name, they saw it, and they didn’t call it out. Why would they? We have no incentive to. Because the truth, hidden beneath this fraudulent document, is clear.


    Between the Pages was profitable.


    And someone submitted a forged document to ourpany in the hope that we’d let it slide.


    Skye had seeded. She managed to turn it around, damn it, and their ountant and my own damnpany are trying to cheat her out of it.


    My hand is nearly trembling with cold fury when I reach for the phone. Bryan is my first call.


    “Sir?”


    “The bookstore’s numbers are falsified. Did you know?”


    A delicate pause. “Sir…”


    “Answer the question.”


    “The financial team made me aware, on the down-low, that their ounting report seemed… amateurish. Riddled with errors. I decided not to press the issue.” He lets the words hang for a few moments. “Why would we, sir?”


    “Because we made a business deal with them. Because I gave my word.” My voice hardens. “We halt tomorrow’s demolition. Nothing proceeds until our ountants have double-checked the whole thing.”


    Shocked silence. And then, just as I’d expected, his outraged voice. “Things are already in motion. Pausing it now will cost you money. Sir.”


    “So be it. I’m calling Sam next to let him know the exact same thing.”


    “Well. All right, I’ll make the arrangements, too.”


    “I expect you to.” My hand tightens around my cell phone. “I don’t appreciate you deciding what information I will or will not have ess to regarding my own business deals, Bryan.”


    “Understood.”


    I hang up, my anger no less sated. Bryan might have been a snake, but he’s a snake I hired and promoted. I should have asked to see the numbers myself and not simply trusted.


    Sam takes longer to answer, and when I nce at the time, I realize why. It’ste-far toote for his boss’s boss to be calling.


    “Sorry to bother you at this time, Sam, but it’s regarding demolition tomorrow. We’re going to have to halt it.”


    He takes it in stride, uplicated andpetent. “Okay. Will do. Anything I need to know about?”