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by Nana Malone
Chapter Seventeen
“Are you going to stand there lurking in the corner all afternoon, or are you going to come in and tell me what's bothering you?”
Alec rolled back on his heels but no made no attempt to go into Adele’s office. How the hell was he supposed to tell her what he'd found?
He told himself he didn't fear rejection once she found out her real son wasn't perfect. Wasn’t afraid she'd blame him. Right. Stop being a pansy ass. Spit it out and get it over with. “We need to talk.”
She slid the glasses off the end of her nose, placing them on the files in front of her. She gave him a sharp, narrowed-eyed look that told him she was as shrewd as always. “Spit it out, Alec. I don't have all day.”
That was her way. No nonsense. “I reviewed those files you wanted me to look through.” Stepping out of the shadows, he picked a seat directly in front of her. It was Band-Aid ripping time. “I found some inconsistencies with the accounts.”
Her face was a mask. No tight drawing in of the eyebrows. No thinned lips. She might as well be wearing a kabuki mask.
“Over the past three years, someone has been laundering money through the hotels. A little here, a little there. Over several different accounts, primarily the club accounts.” He let that part hang. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her it was accounts Max should have been watching.
“How much?”
“Sum total, just over two million.” He waited for the anger or even tears. He'd only seen Adele cry once and even then it had been in anger, over him. It was when he'd shown up on her door step asking to be taken in. She’d railed and screamed at his father, but not because he'd been unfaithful. More because his father didn't want to take him in. She'd cried then. If she’d ever cried after, he'd never seen it.
But not now. She leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled under her chin.
“I'm glad you confirmed it.”
He frowned. “You knew?”
“I had my suspicions. Really, Alec, you think there's much that goes on around here that I don’t know about?” She arranged the files on her desk. “Every hotel with a club or lounge started seeing more and more losses. I started shutting them down. Except for Synthesis. I didn’t know the extent of the damage. Doesn't help when it's lots of cash changing hands.”
He shook his head. “It's been killing me trying to figure out how to tell you.”
She clasped her hands in front of her.
“You shouldn't have worried. You’re not the thief. You didn’t take a family business and defile it with drug money.”
He shook his head. “But Max did. He’s got more problems than you know about.”
Waggling a finger at him, she said, “I know all about his problems. No matter what I’ve done, he’s never turned out how I expected. He’s spoiled and arrogant and self-indulgent.”
He couldn’t believe she was missing the bigger picture. “Mimi, it’s worse than that. The trouble waiting for him is far worse than what the board will do to him when I bring him home. The Sandoval brothers are bad news. The goon they sent will only come back. They think Max took something from them and they’ll do what it takes to retrieve it.” He ran his hands through his hair. “You can cover those accounts all you want. But you can’t save him from himself.”
Her eyes were hard and shrewd. “You don’t think I know that? Lord knows I’ve tried with him, but he’s not interested in changing. He has your father’s temperament.” She shook her head. “I don’t know where I failed him.”
Alec ground his teeth. “You would have been better off completely cutting him off and sending his ass to military school. But that’s beside the point now. Now you have to deal with the mess he made. And it’s bigger than you having to cover some accounts or make the numbers add up. If the Sandovals don’t get what they’re looking for, they’ll kill him. Even if he gives it back, they’ll still probably kill him. His only chance is to go to the Feds.”
She frowned. “I don’t think—”
He shook his head. “He’s been running drugs out of the larger clubs. So far, I can’t find evidence of anything out of Synthesis, but the clubs in La Jolla and Oceanside have been making more of a profit than they should be, while the hotel clubs that are part of Westhorpe are losing money in droves. He did more than run off. He left you holding the bag. The Sandovals have the Westhorpe in their crosshairs and they won’t just go away.”
Adele didn’t even blink, just stared at him long and hard before pushing back her chair. As she stalked to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Gaslamp district, he worried that this would all be too much. Had he gone too far?
“What are you going to do, Mother?”
The look she gave him was quick. He rarely called her mother. It stunned her into silence for a moment. She blinked rapidly, sniffing as she stood up straighter. “I'm going to do what I always do. Deal with him. You bring him home to me, and I’ll fix it.”
He blinked at her. “How? All due respect, but I don’t think you can control him.”
The look she gave him reminded him of the time she’d caught him at age thirteen gawking at the naked sunbathers on one of the rooftop spas. She’d grilled him on the finer points of respecting women until he’d been sure to never disrespect another woman in his life.
“I am still Co-founder and President of the Westhorpe Hotels. So take your due respect and shove it. You think I’m so loving I won’t send your idiotic brother to jail? You’re mistaken.” She inhaled and then let out a slow even breath as if she was counting the beats to calm herself. “He stole from me, you, the employees, and for what? To get into bed with the dregs of the earth? Jail’s too good for your brother. If I had my way, I’d send him to a Thai prison so deep and dark, he wouldn’t see daylight for some time. But I might have to settle for good-old fashioned San Quentin.”
Alec shivered. He’d never meant to get her this upset. “Adele, I didn’t mean—”
She interrupted him, dismissing his words with a wave of her hand. “Yes, you did. You think I still don’t have what it takes to run this place. And yes, I’ve been a fool, but no more. Let’s take care of our immediate problems. The Sandovals.”
“We can go one of two ways. Tip the police. Though, if we do that, it’ll be in the papers. If we plan to go public in the near future, there will be no way to keep any of this stuff private. Our other option is to just shut down those clubs. Pay off the Sandovals if we can. Make it go away for now.” He shrugged. “Both options still mean we have to deal with Max. If you try and cover his ass, it will come back to bite yours.”
“What’s your recommendation?”
“Close the clubs. Leave Synthesis open to see how it performs. In regards to the Sandovals, I’m still deciding. Caleb is thinking of a way out of that one. As for the public filing, even if none of this goes to the press, you’re not ready. Your house is not in order. I say, give it another year while you clean house. You’ll need to run it by the board, of course, but it’s the safest bet. You can go public next year when your financials are clean.”
Adele leaned against the glass framing. “I still need a voice and a VP of Operations. I simply cannot be everywhere all the time. I wish I could change your mind about coming back, but I know better. I’ve learned my lesson with Max.”
He let out a small breath and said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
Her voice, usually so foreboding, was gentle. “For what? At least I have one son I can count on.”
“You’re sure you still want me to bring him back?”
She gave a toss of her head as if she could shake off the melancholy. “Yes. He has to answer for what he’s done.” The breath she let out was weary. “I’m sorry, Alec. I didn’t want to burden you with all of this. You made yourself clear when you arrived and I was listening. I promise once he’s home, I won’t tie you here and try and guilt you into staying. This isn’t where you belong.”
“Adele,” he start
ed.
She laughed. “Back to that, are we? I’m not trying to guilt you. It's the truth. I learned long ago that for you to be happy, you had to do your own thing. I respect it. “