Hot Asset (21 Wall Street #1)(7)

“We’d say the same thing to anyone in this situation,” Samantha says, standing and leaning across the table to shake my hand.

I nod, shake her hand, as well as Sam’s.

“I’ll stop by your office later,” Joe says, clearly intending to stay behind to talk with the Sams.

“Sure.”

“Ian.” I turn back again to Sam, female version. “We’ve given Ms. McKenzie full access to the west conference room on your floor for the course of her investigation. It’ll work in your favor to make her like you.”

I don’t bother to respond to that. It’s not until I get back to my office, door closed, that the anger sets in.

Not at either of the Sams. And not at Joe.

No, my anger has a very specific focus. A blonde, bespectacled, SEC kind of focus, and the lying asshole who set her after me in the first place.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to ward off the panic. I can’t fight this when I don’t know who I’m fighting or why. I haven’t worked this hard, haven’t gotten this far, only to have it crumble around me because some blonde ballbuster has a liar whispering in her ear.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I have every intention of ignoring whomever it is, but then I see the name, and it’s the one person I’ve never been able to ignore.

I take a deep breath to calm my storming emotions, then answer. “Dave. Hey.”

“Hiya, boy.”

I smile. Nearly two decades have passed since Dave Coving took me in when I was fourteen, but I’ve only ever been “boy” to him.

“What’s up?” I ask, lowering to my chair and spinning to look at the rainy morning. Of course it’s raining. All we need is an ominous clap of thunder, and I’d be inside one of those damn Netflix dramas.

“TV broke.”

I rub my forehead. “Did something hit it?”

He coughs, the sound devolving into a nasty smoker’s hack that has me wincing. “A bottle,” he says when the cough settles.

I roll my eyes upward. Shocking. “Phillies lost, huh?”

“They’re in a slump,” he grumbles. “Lost my temper at a bad call.”

I stifle the sigh. Let’s just say this isn’t the first time Dave’s lost a battle against his temper, and a bottle of beer and the TV paid the price.

And I pay for the TV. All of them.

It’s the least I can do. The man put a roof over my head for four years, a place to come home to during Christmas break from college, and he never lost his temper with me, which is more than I can say about the six foster homes that came before him.

“I’ll get you a new one,” I say, already reaching for a pen to make a note of it.

“Thanks,” he says gruffly. “I don’t need big and fancy. A little cheap one’s fine.”

“Sure.” We both know he’ll have the biggest flat-screen that can fit into his mobile home delivered tomorrow.

“So, what’s new with you?” he asks.

I hesitate. To Dave’s credit, he usually only calls when he needs something, but he doesn’t hang up the second he gets it. He stays on the phone long enough to check in. And what the hell, I let myself pretend he actually cares.

Usually I give him the highlight reel, sticking to my latest job coup or describing my box seats at Citi Field. Today, though, I hear myself giving him the real deal.

“The SEC’s on my ass.”

“The Ess-EE-What?”

“SEC. It’s an acronym for . . . let’s just say they’re Wall Street’s watchdog.”

“What’dya do?”

“Wish I knew,” I say, rubbing a hand over my neck. “Supposedly I got an inside tip on a tech company a while back, but it’s news to me.”

Dave grunts. “So, nothing to worry about.”

“There is if whoever’s making shit up about this ‘inside tip’ is a better liar than I am truth teller.”

“Bullshit,” Dave says on another round of hacking. “Since when do you just grab your ankles when shit gets rough?”

I wince. “That’s nice, Dave. Very introspective.”

“Intro-what?”

“Never mind.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Look,” Dave says with a hefty sigh. “I ain’t your family. I got no right to lecture you, but you’re the most stubborn son of a bitch I know. You always got everything you ever wanted—haven’t you?”

Almost. Almost everything.

I don’t say it, though. I’m not sure there’ll ever be a good time to tell Dave how much I used to long for him to adopt me.

I smile a little at the memory. I was a stupid kid, thinking if I just talked a good game and never gave up, I’d be worth the adoption hassle.

Nope.

It’s cool, though—we’ve got a good thing going on.

“Hello?” Dave asks grumpily.

“Yeah, still here.”

“So you gonna fight this SPT or what?”

I smile. “SEC. And yeah, I suspect she’d like nothing more than a good fight.”

“She?” Dave laughs, a cackling, dry sound. “Hell, boy, why didn’t you say so? There’s not a woman alive you couldn’t get to do exactly what you wanted and have her thinkin’ it was her idea. Doubt this one’s any different.”