Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Chelsea’s expression had gone distinctly sympathetic. “Tell me what would have happened if you’d been arrested shortly after your parents died. Before you had a chance to settle things.”
“Everything would have come to me. Because he didn’t, I divested myself of a lot of the responsibilities that came with inheriting,” Kim explained. “If he’d arrested me back then and he’d managed to dose me and convince me to marry him, legally he could have done a lot with those shares. Honestly, he still could. There’s no permanent legal document giving my cousins my shares. All I would have to do is show up and the vote would be mine.”
“So this might be a play to take over the company your family runs.” Tag nodded to Chelsea. “Can you have Phoebe put together an overview? I’d like to know all the financial dealings of the company.”
“It’ll take a while.” That company had multiple arms and they went into a whole lot of pies. “So Levi wants power, and he set himself up to be the head of Kim’s family.”
“It probably would have worked, too, if Tucker hadn’t lost the data,” Tag pointed out. “He could have had you swept away quietly. Ezra was working in Africa at the time.”
“I wouldn’t have even known she’d been arrested.” Levi had planned carefully, and he’d been incredibly patient. He wouldn’t have heard a thing until he’d gotten back to the States, and then likely he would have been told that Levi and Solo had gotten married. He wouldn’t have looked in on her. He wouldn’t have made sure she was okay. He would have quit and walked away and been a bitter fucking drunk the rest of his life. “But once the data was lost, he couldn’t fake it again. He’d placed his bet and if he’d come up with proof in another way, it wouldn’t have worked. I bet he really talked up this project, and its failure in the beginning is why he got moved to less than stellar ops.”
“It must have killed him knowing that shot was gone.” Kim sounded a bit hollow and he wished she hadn’t needed to hear these hard truths.
He wished they were still in bed and she was clinging to him the way she had this morning. They’d been in complete darkness, but he’d woken with the knowledge that she was right beside him. He’d rolled her over and kissed her awake. When her arms had come around him, the world had felt right for the first time in forever.
“And it must have thrilled him when he realized Tucker wasn’t dead. So that’s where we are right now. I’m moving cautiously on this one. Solo, I know you want your name cleared,” Tag began.
She shook her head. “Of course I do, but I understand it could take a while.”
Tag paused for a moment as though he wasn’t quite sure how to handle her. “If it’s at all meaningful, Connor Sparks reached out to me and asked to be kept up to date. I’ve put him in our loop.”
“The president could shut all this down.” It bugged him that he hadn’t already.
“No, he can’t.” Chelsea closed her laptop. “Not unless he wants to start congressional hearings on his overreach and put the guy he recently endorsed in the crosshairs, too.”
“Does the president know Levi’s planning on forcing the competition out? I put it in my report,” Kim said.
“Yes, I talked to him this morning and he’s looking into it. The situation is delicate,” Tag explained. “Apparently that was something Levi didn’t have to fake. I don’t want you to worry about it. The president can handle the political stuff. Our job is to prove Levi’s data wrong, and that begins with you documenting every job you did during that time. I need all the information you can give me. Damon will hunt down people who can support your alibi in Europe.”
Kim groaned. “I don’t suppose you can get into my place in DC and get my calendars? I don’t put my schedule on my phone because it can be hacked, but I do keep detailed journals. The old ones would be in DC.”
“I assure you, he’s already got them,” Chelsea replied. “From what I’ve been able to gather in the short time I’ve had, he’s already been inside your DC apartment, your Manhattan brownstone, and the London flat. He’ll take everything he can and either burn it or use it to his own gain. I’m sorry. I know how much it sucks. Charlotte and I spent years on the run, and every time we had to leave a place, I felt like I’d lost some piece of me.”
How much had Kim lost in the last two days? “I want to see the warrants.”
“You know he doesn’t really need them.” Kim sounded weary. “He’ll have legal documents to show my property managers, but he can also easily make something up. How long do we need to be here in Paris?”