Dev glances at me, then away. “I’m not ready to discuss that.”
Finn falls back in his chair, shaking his head. “Whatever, dude. You do whatever the fuck you want with all of it.” He stabs a finger into the table. “Except the panopticon stuff. Doc gets that.”
Dev says nothing.
“He’s right,” Logan says. “And Callie’s entitled to the Tidbytes archives.”
“January and Grace will want to look at the spyware stuff,” Mark says.
Elliot isn’t here to say what Minerva deserves, but maybe she already stole everything she wanted from Corvus and has it sitting on her infamous hard drive.
Dev looks at me. This time he doesn’t look away. His gaze is precise, almost deft. “Do you have any demands? Since we’re making a list.”
Finn erupts out of his chair. “Oh fuck you. Fuck you. I don’t know what’s going on with you, what’s in that head of yours, but we came up together. You remember that, that stuffy, shitty garage? It was all of us working on that program, not just Mr. Math Genius. And when we started this firm, it was all of us building it. Again, not just Mr. Math Genius. But only you get to get inside Corvus when it’s finally down?”
He storms out without waiting for an answer.
Logan sighs and tosses his pen on the table. The heavy fountain pen clatters like a gong. “Well, that went awesome. Just peachy.”
Mark rubs his forehead. When he speaks, it’s soft and to Dev. “I don’t know what it is with you and this takeover. If it’s something personal, fine. But we’ve all got personal scores to settle with Corvus, and we haven’t kept them secret from each other.” His hand falls and he pins Dev with a stare. “Just something to consider before you drive everybody away.”
He and Logan walk out together. Leaving me, Dev, and a shocked Yancy.
“Not a word,” I say to her. She shuts her mouth. “If even a whisper of this leaves this room, I will know. And you will be fired with extreme prejudice.”
Her face goes bone white. But she nods.
I probably shouldn’t have scared her so much, but this… this was bad. No one needs to know how bad. Or that the Bastards might be close to breaking up.
My heart trembles at the thought. They were always so united, together in everything. Yes, they disagreed and argued and were rough-and-tumble with each other, but this is something different.
This feels broken.
Dev steeples his fingers, his expression thoughtful. I want to yell at him, shake him, somehow impress on him how awful that was. How upset he should be by it.
“You didn’t ask for anything,” he says.
I open my mouth, shut it again. “What would I ever want from Corvus?”
He glances at Yancy.
I shake my head. “You can tell her to leave. It doesn’t have to be mediated through me now. I’m a partner.”
His expression goes blank. “Of course. I’m sorry.”
Yancy’s already grabbing her stuff and heading for the door. “I’ll just… just…” She’s gone before she can think up even a halfway-decent excuse.
Dev is very still, very expressionless. Inscrutable.
I want to fix this. To bring them all back together and force them to hug, to apologize, to bring Dev back into the fold. But… but I’m beginning to think Dev’s not capable of that.
And it’s not my job anymore.
“I don’t want anything from Corvus,” I say to his earlier question. I gather up my stuff, intending to go after Yancy, explain things. Gently. I point to the door that the other Bastards went through, away from Dev. “But they do.”
He doesn’t say another word as I leave.
Chapter 5
I blow out a long breath and pat down my skirt before I knock on Dev’s office door. This is just a meeting between partners. Happens all the time here at Bastard Capital.
It’s been a week since my first meeting as a partner, and I’m starting to find my way in this new role. Yancy has the office-manager stuff handled—I’ve got no worries there—and my focus has been entirely on finding companies to fund. The founders I’ve talked to are all very excited to meet with me.
I’m starting to feel completely like a partner now. So this meeting ought to be no big deal. Except this is Dev. He’s not just another partner here, no matter how hard I pretend. And he wanted to meet with me alone. On a private matter.
I can’t imagine what it is. He’s not going to bring up our relationship or lack of it—he’s not the type. When I told him no, he heard me and he respects that.
I might have been obsessing over what could have been in the still of the night as I tried to fall asleep, but that’s my problem. Dev’s given no sign that he’s taken my rejection personally. Or anything else personally.
So what might be the personal thing Dev wants to meet with me about?
I lift my fist and knock. Firm, quick.
“Come in.” Even through the door, his deep voice tickles my sensitive places.
I set my shoulders and walk in.
His office isn’t as impersonal as Elliot’s was. That’s because he had me decorate it. I chose grays and blues that look as if they were once deep but have been faded by time and the sun. The sofa is simple but still comfortable, the coffee table made of polished driftwood, his desk done in darkest cherry. The art is abstract, black-and-white photos of desert landscapes. Not dunes, but the rocky, scrubby deserts of Southern California, with Joshua trees and saguaro cacti breaking up the endless dryness.
I chose stark yet organic lines for his office. If I were doing it over again today, I’d choose something even bleaker. No driftwood, no landscapes. Just pure abstraction.
He takes one of the chairs by the sofa, gesturing for me to join him. “Thank you for coming.”
I arrange my skirt as I sit down. It’s a thirties style with a tight bodice and a skirt that skims my hips and thighs. No crinoline or full skirts to wrestle with, but the skirt still needs some styling when I sit.
I set my crossed hands on my knees. “What did you need?”
My heart is pounding, but there’s no way he can tell.
“I need… I need discretion.” He leans toward me, his gaze intent. “You’re the only one I can trust with this.”
Trust. I almost choke on the word. “Dev, all those things I said—”
“Please.” His tone is strained. “Don’t say no yet. I need you.”
Of all the things he could have said, that’s even worse than trust. I want him to be happy. I want his dreams to come true.
And I want to make it happen for him. But he has to come at least halfway to meet happiness. Which he doesn’t even seem close to doing.
I grip my knee, flick my gaze to the ceiling. “What is it?”
Hearing him out won’t cost me anything. And I can still say no.
I hear him shift, draw a deep breath. I won’t let myself look though. “What I’m going to say, no one else knows. And I’d appreciate it if it didn’t get around.”
I snap my gaze to him. “I thought you trusted me.”
He lifts his palms. “I do. It’s just very sensitive.”
I wet my lips. “Go on. You know I won’t say a word.”
“I never talk about my family.”
The entire world knows about that. Dev, the mysterious one, the founder who came out of nowhere. The one who wrote the core algorithm that made them all rich.
I know that about him. And that he went to Cal State Fullerton. And that he’s very sensitive to earworms.
A tiny, pitiful collection of facts. I don’t linger on what I know about his kissing ability or how I feel about him. That way lies madness.
“Do you want to talk about them?” Reconciling with family even when it hurts—I know all about that. I wouldn’t say I’m good at it, but I’m trying.
I can help him with it too.
A small, wry smile plays at his lips. “I would if I knew who they were. I grew up in the Sacramento Children’s Home.”
<
br /> A noise escapes me. Tiny, wounded. “You… Your parents left you? What happened?”
I’ve had my problems with my family—God knows that—but I’d never wish them away. They hurt me, badly, but they also loved me. It’s why I never really gave up on my dream of having a family of my own.
Dev probably never had that particular dream. And I’m beginning to understand why.
“I was left at a fire station when I was a newborn. As best as they could tell, my mother took me there when I was only a few hours old.”
He’s telling all this in a low monotone, as if it’s someone else’s life. Actually, I think he’d put more emotion into someone else’s story. I put my hand over my mouth, the better to hold in my grief. What an awful beginning. My heart is breaking for him.
I don’t know that it provides an excuse for why he is how he is, but it’s a damn good explanation. A wrenching one.
“My name is just Dev. Short for nothing. The station was on Devon Street, which they shortened to Dev. And my last name is a mash-up of the last names of the two firefighters who found me.”
“There…” I swallow down some tears. “Your mother didn’t leave a note? Or anything?”
He’s dry-eyed. “No. I had a blanket, and a dish towel repurposed as a diaper. That’s all.”
“Didn’t the police look for her?” I can’t imagine someone just leaving him and never looking back. Especially his own mother.
“They never found anything.” His expression is masklike. “I doubt they looked very hard.”
“You’ve never told anyone this?” I’m baffled by his lack of emotion. How can he tell this story—for the very first time—and just… not react? At all?
“No. It wasn’t important.”
I’d call it absolutely important. It explains so much about his mysterious past, his lack of a family, and his trust issues. No wonder he doesn’t see that the Bastards are his family. He’s never had one.
But he could see that if he’d only give a little and open up to them. They’d understand completely if he told them all this. What’s broken between them could be repaired.
“How did you end up in a group home?” I ask that through my spread fingers.
He shrugs. “There were some foster families. A lot. I don’t think I spent more than a few months in any one place, but I haven’t seen my records, so I can’t confirm.”
“Your records?” That makes him sound like an inmate.
“I was a ward of the state. I’ve got a paper trail from here to the moon. But I can’t see it.”
So even that small bit of his past is denied him. “Maybe Elliot could—”
“He can’t.”
I don’t bother to ask if he’s even talked to Elliot about the possibility.
Dev stares off at the atrium. “Anyway, there were some foster homes, but eventually I ended up in the group home. And stayed. It… I didn’t mind it.”
Like he got bumped on a flight or something and nothing more.
Inside, I’m shaking like a leaf. This is a terrible, awful story, and the fact that he’s so closed off from it, his own flipping story, makes it that much worse. But I hold myself still, my voice steady. “I’m very sorry that happened to you.” I catch myself right before my voice breaks. “And I’m glad that you trusted me enough to tell me. But… I don’t understand how I can help you.”
He shifts, suddenly fidgety. Upset. “There might be a chance that my parents’ identity is out there. In some government record.”
I sit up. “How? Where could it be?”
Again he shifts. “Fuchs came to me a few years ago. Right when we started Bastard Capital.”
Oh no. If Fuchs is entering the story, it can’t be good. He used to run Corvus before Dev bought it and forced him out. Fuchs has brought nothing but awfulness to everyone he touches.
“What did he want?”
“He knew I’d developed the core algorithm. He wanted me to come work for him at Corvus.”
Chills run over my skin. It sounds so simple, but nothing involving Fuchs ever is. “What did he offer you?”
I think I already know, but if Dev never spoke of his past before, how could that be?
“He knew everything about my childhood,” Dev says. Not shocked, not surprised. “He had my records, although he wouldn’t show me.”
My fists clench. What a horrible, horrible asshole. If Fuchs were here now, I’d risk my manicure and slap the crap out of him.
“He said that he had government records no one else had. Things that agencies had forgotten they even had.”
“Oh, Dev. He was lying.”
His gaze locks with mine. This time it’s a hammer. “But what if he wasn’t? He told me he’d found my parents’ identities. That I could have them if I went to work for Corvus.”
I gasp. I knew that was coming, but the breath is still knocked out of me. “He didn’t. He couldn’t. You know that.”
Dev shakes his head. “He had my records. And Corvus had all these government contracts. They got access to all kinds of records. They could have found my parents.”
I twist my hands together to keep from reaching for him. “That doesn’t mean he found those particular records even if they exist. You told him no, so you must understand that.”
His eyes—bright, feverish—tells me that he doesn’t. “I wasn’t going to work for him. But if I could access Corvus’s records another way…”
I fall back into the sofa. The enormity of it is baffling. “You… you bought Corvus just to get those particular records? Which they might not even have?”
It must have cost him billions to get the shares in Corvus he needed. And who knows what favors he promised to the board members for their votes against Fuchs. And while I’m not sad Corvus is being dismantled, there are a lot of people who are going to lose their jobs there.
“My parents are in the archives somewhere,” he says. “And I’m going to find them.”
“All right.” I take a breath, then another. “All right. Say that it’s in the archive. And you find it. And then you find your parents. And then what?”
He blinks at me like there is no then what.
I understand wanting to know his parents. I want him to know his parents, to find some closure or knowledge or something, but family isn’t magical. It can’t heal everything in you. Sometimes it only makes things worse.
“Well, then I’ll know,” he says. “Who they are, what they’re like.” The spark of hope in his voice is young, boyish.
I want this for him, so badly, but… but I’m also terrified for him. He can’t be open and honest with the people already in his life who love him. What’s going to happen when he meets the people who abandoned him when he was only hours old? Who never came back for him?
I can’t help but worry it’s going to be a disaster. But there’s no way I’d stop him even if I could.
“I hope the information is there,” I say. “But you don’t need my help with the archives. Tell Finn or Logan or even Mark.” I smile, thinking how this would help heal the rift between them all. If they heard this, they’d understand Dev better. “They’re the perfect people for this.”
“Oh no, I don’t need your help accessing the archives.” He frowns like that’s ridiculous. “That’s not what I asked you here for.”
“Then what?”
“I need your help to find Fuchs.”
Chapter 6
I made her cry.
She tried to hold it in, but when I was telling her about my childhood, I saw the tears. They nestled in the corners of her eyes, diamond drops of sadness.
I didn’t cry. My heart was wild, banging through my chest as I told her, but I held everything else back. There’s no point crying. It doesn’t change the story, and I can’t tell it if I’m weeping.
Besides, I’m a successful man now. My past has no bearing on who I am. I’ve transcended it, escaped my predetermined fate. No one can pity me.
I don’t
want their pity. I hate it.
Anjelica’s moved past the pity now that I’ve asked her to find Fuchs. She’s sailed right into anger.
“No. You’re crazy. He’s gone and let him stay gone.” She’s up off the couch, her chest rising and falling with her rapid breaths. The color in her cheeks is high and bright. She’s inexpressibly beautiful.
“I would ask Minerva for help,” I say, “but I can’t trust her. Fuchs knows exactly where the files are, how to unlock them. It has to be him.”
I’ve thought long and hard about it as I went through the archives. Hours and hours spent searching and thinking. This is the quickest, most certain way to find them.
“Emily,” Anjelica corrects absently. “Her real name is Emily.”
“Yes, well, I still can’t trust her.”
Anjelica’s mouth purses. She doesn’t much trust Minerva/Emily herself. “I still think anyone else would be better at this. Paul.” She shakes a finger at me. “He knows everyone. And he could find Fuchs so much faster.”
“Why don’t you want to help me?” I ask quietly. “Is it because of what’s between us?”
She told me no, and I won’t cross that line. I’ve never crossed that line. I dream of her, I shake inside with how much I want her, need to be near her… but I don’t show it. If she doesn’t believe that I can hold to that line, that’s probably why she’s protesting.
“I respect what you said before,” I say when she doesn’t answer. “The kiss… I misunderstood. I won’t again.”
At least not until I’ve found what I need in the Corvus archives. Once I’ve put together the puzzle of my past, I can try again with her. I’ll have to prove to her that I’m worthy of her, that she can take that chance with me, but I’ll do it.
If I don’t… Well, I just won’t let myself fail.
“That’s not why.” Her answer is as quiet as my question. “I just don’t think I can. The others… they should know this.”
“I can’t tell them why I really took over Corvus. We’re already close to splitting up the firm.”
If they cast me out, I’ll be completely alone. I’m used to it, but I don’t want that. I can fix the rift as it is now. If it widens, our friendship will be done for.
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