Bound To Protect. Anya Summers
Graham commented with a snort.
“Oh, and you think Phoebe will be all right with you scening with another sub, do you?” Killian asked, with exasperation clouding his features.
Graham winced. “No. Sorry. I can’t help you there. Phoebe would skin me alive.”
“Who do you think it is on the board that has it out for you?” Quinten asked. Removing his notebook from his front pocket, he opened it and retrieved a pen to take notes.
“Dan Vandersmoot. And yeah, he’s as big of a prick as the name suggests. But I don’t think we can or should shut down the club. We need it to appear as if I am unconcerned about the charges lobbied against me. Shutting things down would signal that I am running scared, to whoever has been spying on me. I won’t give them the fucking satisfaction. Nor will I allow anyone to steal the company my family built out from under me,” Michael swore with vehemence.
“Do you think it’s him?” Quinten asked.
Michael sighed. “Honestly, it could be any of those on the board. All I do know is that one of them is gunning for me, and not above infiltrating my private life to take me down.”
“Hudson, I like the idea you presented: for you, Luc, and Killian to start working on the subs, as many nights as possible. Take them to your private room on three, get them into subspace if necessary, and question them. Does it walk a gray area? Yes, but it’s not just Michael who could be hung out to dry in this scenario. We could all be exposed. And perhaps I can help on that angle,” Dante said.
“But you guys top subs together?” Killian said with a confused look.
Michael shook his head. “Not for the next thirty days at the club, we don’t. That’s what has come under fire: that I engage in threesomes with Dante, and practice what they consider sexually deviant behavior.”
“Yeah, he’s got to drum up a fake fiancée by the end of the week too.” Dante rolled his eyes.
“What the hell is he talking about, Michael?” Ramsey asked.
Michael glanced at the ceiling for strength. He couldn’t believe the gaffe he’d made when pressured. Then he looked back at his friends. “At the meeting today, they had me cornered, wanting answers to the charges that were lobbed against me—which basically were that I was actively engaged in perverted sexual acts with multiple partners. Meaning, whoever leaked the info saw a scene or two with Dante and me topping a sub in the club. And, in my defense, when they confronted me, I insinuated that I have been dating someone under the radar and recently became engaged, and planned to announce that engagement by the end of this week.”
Admitting his mistake drew a couple of laughs. And he supposed it was rather comical, only he didn’t have it in him to laugh at the situation, not when he could see his family’s company slipping away. He’d already made calls to his mom and sister, to give them a heads up on the situation and to warn them to be on their guard. Rachel would claw anyone’s eyes out if they tried to take Conmar off her hands.
“Could it be a submissive you guys brought up here for a private session?” Killian asked, rubbing his chin.
“No. It’s doubtful. We’ve not had a sub up here whom the two of us fucked in six months. We’ve kept our scenes strictly to the club,” Dante replied with a shake of his head.
“Well, that helps. I’ll comb through the video footage of the club for the last month, see if there was anyone watching your scenes, and note who you were with. It could be a sub you both scened with who was told to get close to you,” Quinten added thoughtfully as he took notes.
“Shit, I never thought of that.” Michael grimaced.
“We should look over the logs of who’s been in attendance in the last month or two as well,” Graham offered. “The facial recognition scanner we installed in the elevator a few months ago should be useful to that end.”
“And it might be helpful, now that they know you will be on your guard, to study who doesn’t show up at the club in the coming weeks,” Ramsey added.
“Who the hell are you going to get to play your fiancée now that the sub pool is in question?” Luc asked.
“Hell if I know,” Michael said with a scowl. Wasn’t that just the rub? Anyone they went with would need to be fully vetted, sworn to secrecy with a non-disclosure, and required to live here, with access to all of his files.
“I don’t think we should narrow it down to only the subs. I think we need to look at some of the other Doms too. See if any have run into financial trouble and then got a large payday.” Hudson spoke thoughtfully.
“He’s right. At this point, every member of the club not in this room is a suspect,” Quinten added.
“My wife is not a suspect,” Graham replied with a firm glint in his eyes, daring any man there to argue the point.
“Neither is mine,” Ram stated.
Quinten held up his hands in a defensive manner. “Nor is Becca. So it’s agreed by all here that Sadie, Phoebe, and Becca are in the clear?”
“We’re all on the same page there,” Dante conceded with a slight nod.
“Good. We should create a detailed plan. Michael, I will need to thoroughly vet whomever you select for the role of fiancée. It really does not make me happy that we’ll have an unknown individual brought in at a time like this,” Quinten stated.
Michael rubbed a frustrated hand over his face. “I know, but I never thought in a million years that my lifestyle would be called into question. That someone would go after the company my family built by attacking me in this fashion. I built Club Underworld—we built it—so that we had a place to go away from prying eyes.”
“That’s why we’re here tonight. You put out the bat signal, and we came,” Luc said.
They spent the next two hours debating, organizing, and delegating before they had a rock-solid plan to ferret out the spy and save Michael from being ousted from his company.
Dante was the only left after everyone else went on home.
“What the fuck was I thinking, tossing out a non-existent fake fiancée?” Michael asked him.
Dante sat on one of the couch arms, leaned on his elbows, and said, “Listen to me, Michael. You were blindsided. You did the best you could with the situation—better than I would have done, that’s for damn sure. I would have fired every one of them.”
“Boards of major public companies don’t work that way.” Michael sighed, more tired than he could ever remember being.
“Be that as it may, we will figure this out. We’ll find the spy and take a strip out of them. They will be sued and barred from entry.”
“True, but the damage might have already been done. I can’t lose my father’s company.” Michael’s mom and sister were firmly behind him on this, trusting his judgement to see it through to its conclusion and preserve the company. He knew Ram’s side of the family would be, as well. But it rubbed him raw that he never saw it coming.
“You won’t, you’re still the majority shareholder. Both your mom and sister have large controlling shares as well. If it comes down to it, the three of you might be forced to oust the current board. With your majority shares, it could legally be done,” Dante offered.
“There’s a thought. But they could still wrest control away before I did something that drastic, make it so that I don’t have any say in the direction of the company. Whoever did this, I worry that they won’t stop with just the board dismissing me, or removing me as CEO. There’s a huge possibility our lifestyle will go public. And I’ve put all of you at risk of exposure.”
“We’ll deal. We all knew the risks.”
“True, but I’m the one who put us in danger,” Michael said, reaching for the