Chapter 4 - The Silence Before the Storm
For three full seconds, the only sound in the Presidential Suite was the low, distant hum of city traffic floating up from Grant Street and the soft hiss of the HVAC system.
Andre’s eyes darted from my face to the leather briefcase on the table, then back to my eyes. The color drained from his high-color complexion, leaving him looking pasty under the warm amber lamps.
“Reid,” he said, his voice dropping the arrogant swagger he had worn in the ballroom like a cheap coat. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Enjoying the view, Andre,” I said mildly, leaning my head back against the leather. “You were right about one thing—the view from the eighth floor is significantly better than the one downstairs.”
From the bedroom doorway, the rustle of silk preceded Sienna stepping out. She had kicked off her heels and was unzipping the side of her emerald dress, her face flushed and smiling as she tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“Andre, seriously, where did you put the—?”
She froze.
The dress slipped half an inch down her shoulder before she caught it with one trembling hand. Her gaze locked onto me sitting by the window, then drifted to the open briefcase and the thick stacks of financial documents resting on the mahogany table. All the color that had made her look radiant in the ballroom vanished in an instant, leaving her skin the color of skim milk.
“Reid,” she whispered, her voice cracking on the second syllable. “How… how did you get in here?”
“The door was open, Sienna,” I said, standing up slowly. I didn't move fast. I didn't raise my voice. I smoothed the front of my charcoal jacket with both hands, straightening my cuffs with deliberate slowness. “In fact, your friend Andre here was kind enough to extend a personal invitation down in the ballroom. It would have been rude not to RSVP.”
Andre found his footing first—or at least the aggressive, cornered version of it. He set the champagne flutes down on the bar so hard the liquid sloshed over the rims, his chest puffing out as he stepped between me and Sienna like a guard dog protecting a wounded asset.
“Get out,” Andre said, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register he used when he was trying to intimidate junior analysts into silence. “You’re trespassing. I’ll have hotel security up here in thirty seconds, and by morning, you won't even be able to get a job cleaning park benches in this city. Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Oh, I know exactly who you are, Andre,” I said, taking two slow steps toward the coffee table. I picked up the top manila folder and tapped it lightly against my palm. “Regional Managing Director of Abbott & Zimmerman Enterprises. Former Vice President of acquisitions at Sterling-Vance. And, more importantly, the man who systematically embezzled four hundred and eighty thousand dollars from the corporate expansion fund by routing invoices through three shell companies registered in the British Virgin Islands.”
Andre’s face went from pale to a dangerous, mottled purple.
“You’re out of your mind,” he spat, though his eyes flicked nervously toward the digital recorder blinking on the table. “That’s corporate defamation. I’ll sue you into the Stone Age—both of you. Sienna, tell your husband to take his garbage and get out before I ruin him.”
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Sienna didn't speak. She was staring at the manila folder in my hand with a look of absolute horror, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. She knew the handwriting on those invoices. She had signed three of them herself when Andre was out of the country last month, thinking the digital signature would blend into the routine audit trail.
She didn't look like a newly minted Senior Vice President anymore. She looked like a drowning animal realizing the water was full of glass.
