"Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"
••
Christian Ivonov, CEO of Ivonov enterprises, had always been the best at fucking things up. Whether it be relationships, or company connections, nothing was too far out of his reach to ruin.
Alex...
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I glanced back at Brad. He had the same stoic expression he usually had when we had to talk about this.
Behind that stone cold front, Brad harbored a literal sea of emotions. He wasn't the best at expressing or confronting all those emotions. He never liked to discuss his past... not with me, or even mother. That's how I knew that this was difficult for him.
Unfortunately, the main issue still remained: whoever accessed our files, had accessed this one.
This was quite possibly the worse case scenario I had done so well at trying to dismiss.
Alex and Joan were completely speechless at this point. A series of different emotions passed through each of their faces before they landed on one: sadness.
"So what now?" Brad asked quietly. He was starting to get fidgety. The topic was always a difficult one, and I'm sure he would excuse himself soon to go get some fresh air. We never spoke much about it, but he'd taken up smoking cigarettes. He was always so self conscious about whether or not he seemed anxious to others. Cigarettes, in his words, helped him keep his cool.
Little did he know he know looked like a goddamn robot all the time.
I massaged the cramping that had started in my neck. I really needed to get some sleep soon. The second our plane touched had down, Brad beelined me to the office. I hadn't even has the chance to change or taken a shower yet, but as soon as I saw what Brad was concerned about, I understood the urgency.
"Now we tell mother." I replied simply.
This was a difficult yet inescapable fate. We had no choice.
"...Shit." Brad sighed. I felt that sigh so heavily.
Our mother was going to go on full blown lockdown mode once we told her, but I really couldn't think of a better option at this point.
This would be a very emotionally heavy conversation that we were going to have to have with her. Something Brad and I didn't want to have to deal with at the moment. The only unfortunate thing was that Brad and I knew close to nothing about the past. If anyone could clean this mess up, it would be mum.
"Brad I-" Alex started to say something, but caught himself.
He looked conflicted with his words, like he was trying to choose them correctly.
"Don't worry about it. The past is the past. No point in dwelling on something you can't change. We'll figure all this out, I'm sure of it... Maybe we should call it a night? Start fresh tomorrow morning?" Brad asked. We all gave him a nod.
"That sounds good." Joan replied. Both her and Brad had gotten up first. "Derek was my ride tonight, so I'm just going to call an Uber real quick."
"Don't be ridiculous. Brad would be more than happy to take you home tonight." I wiggled my eyebrows at Brad, and he just rolled his eyes at me.
