Heir Reigns

✘ [ TWENTY TWO ] ✘

KAITO

It was almost 11, Holt had given my phone back and said there was nothing he could have grabbed from the number or the call. I'm glad I didn't have to be the one to tell my dad that. Atalia texted me right after telling me that she's not too keen on Wesley. I figured. He could easily pass as a statue if he wanted to, his people skills aren't something he worries too much about. I don't mind it considering he mainly deals with me.
I chain-smoked a pack and I smelled like it, too. If my dad wanted to talk to me anytime soon, he was going to rip me a new one. I grab cologne from my desk and head out to the balcony attached to my office and spray it, popping gum inside my mouth to mask my breath.
I walk back in and Yuuki walks into my office a second later.
"K, I thought you quit. Jesus, that's nauseating," He covers his mouth and nose.
I roll my eyes, "You're being dramatic."
"I'm not," he pretends to gag.
"What do you want?" I laugh.
    "Your old man sent me, he's still too mad to talk to you so I'm playing messenger. Like I don't have work to do," he sighs and sits down. "I'm glad he sent me though because there's lots to discuss. Starting with the threat, he said since you 'ruined' our chances of having a lead, he doesn't think this is a one-time occurrence. There's a motive so he wants all of us to be vigilant of random numbers, shady cars following us, anything that seems out of the ordinary for us. He wants us to be paranoid at all times and all of our normal tasks now have to be analyzed so we don't miss anything. Might be easier to have Wesley follow you around for a while."
    "What a drag," I ran my hand through my hair. "This is such shitty timing."
    "Right, like there's ever a right time to get threatened," He mocked.
    "I'm gonna clock you in the jaw," I threaten jokingly.
    "K, this is bad timing for all of us."
    "Why you? What else do you have going on?" I furrowed my eyebrows.
    "Well, I can't tell you the details yet, but trust that your sister and I will tell everyone soon enough," His face lit up.
    I furrow my brows at him but decide not to pry. I had enough on my plate and I didn't want to find out whether his news would add to it or not.
    "What's that?" I ask, directing our attention to the folder he was holding.
    "Yeah..." He seemed dismissive and squeamish at the mention of it already. "That's the second reason I'm here. Meeting on your dad's floor in ten minutes. Winona Hayden is here and so is Marynia Azarov. We have another problem."
    "Fuck sake," I say instinctively. "It's that bad that Hayden-Azarov are both here?"
    He gives me a grim look with a nod, "We're trying to deal with this quickly so the board doesn't find out. Hurry up and read this."
    He hands me the folder and pinches the space between his eyes, clearly in distress.
    "We're lucky Sienna caught it in time before it took a plunge for the worse," He sighs. "She was down there with Emerson, our stock market connection, for hours seeing the damage."
    "You know that's colluding, Ki," I let out a sharp breath.
    "Why do you think our lawyers are here?" He squints his eyes.
    I shake my head as I skim through the documents he handed me and I slam it shut, throwing the folder onto my desk followed by a frigid "Godammit" escaping me and a neurotic lap around my office.
    "This is Tobias's doing," I mutter.
    "If you had kept reading, you would've seen that his dividends are being floated," Yuuki explains, trying his best to calm me down. "We did analyses through all the viable suspects."
    "How else did someone get information on the acquisition with Econ Energy if it wasn't him?!" I almost spit, trying my best to keep my composure. "Fuck sake, Yuuki, who is generating IPOs to a merger that never happened, and on top of that why are those IPOs being shorted!? How are we supposed to keep the board out of this, when this could easily be one of their fucking faults?!"
    "Insider trading is too fucking complex to try to dilute with too many fucking people which is why we need to go talk to Hayden and Azarov now before it spreads and we won't be able to recover from it in private," Yuuki says, easing my mind a little bit. "If Tobias was behind this, he is getting a worse beating than we are and you know it. Shorting IPOs are less damaging than floating dividends."
    "That's bullshit, whoever is doing this is getting money in their fucking pocket while we're left unaware of it. Tobias is using this as leverage and I know it," I shake my head once more, running my hands through my hair. "I need another cigarette."
    "Why would Tobias use his own company as a scapegoat? Rationalize this K, if the mole is inside-house, we need to be logical about this and we need a strategy now. I'm gonna give you five minutes to get your head out of your ass before your dad comes down here and yells your eardrums off for multiple fucking reasons. Don't be late for that fucking meeting."
    Yuuki gets out of his seat, adjust his suit, slaps me on the arm and heads out of my office, leaving me second-guessing every conversation, every meeting, and every executive who has interacted with us in the past two weeks. It was rare that he had to ground me back to reality, this became one of those instances.
    Before I get the chance to take a second look at the documents, Wesley comes into the door.
    "Not now, Wesley. I'm in the middle of something," I sigh, retracing where I left off on the page.
    "Lay it on me, kid," Wesley grunts as he takes a seat, letting me know that he read the room. Saving whatever he was planning on saying for later. The gesture never goes unnoticed.
    "Holt didn't find anything from the call or the number," I catch him up to speed. "Dad is requesting we now have security detail 24/7, and we have an insider trading problem to a merger that didn't even fucking happen."
    "What do you need me to do?" He asks, ready for my order.
    "Go to Sins Architecture and inform Rhy of what's going on. Tell him to keep it under wraps and to give me copies of our books to make sure that mole hasn't reached us there, too."
    "You're that worried that it could be a data leak?" Wesley questions my hastiness.
    "Yes," I say, bluntly. "Insider trading is all data. I can't trust our mainframe or the fucking firewall right now and even a simple phone call could incriminate us unintentionally."
    He nodded and started to get up out of his chair as he headed for the door.
    "Also, kid lay off the cigarettes," he shakes his head disapprovingly. "Your old man has the nose of a hound. Once this gets resolved, he's coming after you."
    I let out a small laugh at his attempt at making light of the situation, which sounded more ambiguous when he said it rather than how Yuuki said it, but I knew what was coming.
    This was the start of a war.