Chapter 48

SILVANA

About an hour after lunch, a knock on the door pulled my concentration on the system to it.

"Come in," I said to whoever it was and the door opened to reveal Mr. Greg accompanied by a lady. "Who is she?" I asked.

"Good day, ma'am. I'm Benita, Mr. Xander's assistant," she introduced herself, bowing her head slightly.

I nodded and motioned for her to take a seat in the chair in front of my desk. She seemed to understand and settled into the chair, her eyes cast downward.

"Mr. Greg here told me you wanted to see me," she said, her voice soft.

"Your boss, actually," I corrected her, my eyes narrowing slightly.

She nodded, "Oh, yes. He couldn't come because he was busy."

My eyebrows crinkled into a frown. Busy? That's a new one.

Leaning back in my chair, I locked eyes with her, but she quickly looked away, her gaze faltering. I rolled my eyes inwardly. How can she be an assistant if she can't even maintain eye contact with me?

Mr. Greg cleared his throat, breaking the tension, and dropped a file in front of her. "You sent this to us, right?" he asked, his voice firm.

She opened the file, her eyes scanning the contents before nodding. "I did. It's a request for new funds."

My finger drummed against the desk, my eyes fixed on her. "That's what I want to hear. So, would you like to explain why you need more funds?"

She hesitated, her eyes darting to Mr. Greg before returning to me. "I evaluated it in the –"

A glare from me made her stop mid-sentence. "I'm sorry," she apologized, her voice barely above a whisper.

I remained silent, my eyes fixed on her as she continued. "Actually, the materials we intended to use happened to be of low quality and could cause damage in the future. So, we decided to change to a better product, but it's more costly."

The room fell silent, her words hanging in the air. Her explanation seemed plausible, but we still needed to be cautious, so I instructed her to reveal the brand name to Mr. Greg, and we agreed to investigate before releasing the funds. With that, our meeting came to a close, and I dismissed them.

_________

XANDER

My fingers tapped against my desk nervously as I expected the arrival of my assistant, Benita. I got called by Silvana, but I told her to go instead. Not that I was busy or anything, I didn't want to get questioned by her stupid suspicious self, and she would also trust Benita more if she gave her a reasonable explanation.

My eyes moved to my watch, and I heaved when I realized it had been more than an hour since Benita left. The time was passing by quickly and I was already getting pissed. I just hope Silvana won't refuse to request because I needed as much money as I could get in my slush fund.

A knock on the door snapped my head to that direction.

"Come in." I called out.

The door opened and Benita walked in.

"What took you so long!" I couldn't hold it in anymore.

"I'm sorry si – "

"Did she agree to our request?" I asked, ignoring her fanatics. A sigh from her made my brows furrow.

"She didn't actually agree to the request, but she asked me to reveal the brand name we intended to buy from."

"And what did you tell her?" I questioned sharply.

"I told her assistant about the two brands, but I lied that we were going to purchase from the costly brand."

A small smile appeared on my lips at her answer. "So what next?"

"She said she will get back to us after confirming it." Benita replied and my hand went to my forehead. I rubbed it softly as a little pain hit me.

Why the fuck is Silvana stretching things out. Not like she will find anything to hold against me.

"You can leave." I told Benita with a wave of my hand and she bowed slightly before walking out.

What exactly is Silvana playing at, huh? She can do anything but not ruin my plans. The chiming of my phone brought my attention to it. I reached for it on the desk, and my eyes dimmed when I saw it was a message from Mr Richardson, asking about my plans against Silvana. Why won't he just calm the hell down?

I rolled my eyes and dialed Reed's number. He picked after few rings. "What's up?"

"Can we meet up?" I asked.

"Yeah, at the hospital though." He replied and I frowned. "Hospital? Why? Are you sick?"

"No, it's Esham."

I sighed out. "Okay, send me the address and I will be there in a minute." I told him and hung up. The address came in after a minute and I immediately left the office.
________

"The hell." My mouth hung open as I stared at Esham on the bed, she had different patches on her body, especially her face.

"What happened to her?" I turned to Reed who pouring water into a glass. He handed it to Esham when he was done before settling on the couch, he gestured that I sit, which I did immediately.

"It's Silvana." He finally spoke up and my eyes widened. "How come?"

"They got into a fight at a restaurant yesterday, but she ended up like this." He pointed at Esham whose face was formed into a scowl.

I held myself from chuckling and faced him after getting an idea. "Since it's a restaurant, it should have the footage of the fight."

"Don't even talk about it. I already tried, but they insisted that they had no footage."

My eyes narrowed. That's suspicious. How come they have no footage, but even if they don't have, the diners present will have, right? I told him about it, but he said he had already tried meeting some of them, but they don't have a video. We both agreed that it was too suspicious and fell into silence as we tried to think of something, not until Esham suddenly spoke up.

"Someone must have gotten rid of everything," we both turned to her, "There is only one person that is capable of doing that - James."

Realization hit me, and my eyes widened. She was right. If we were to say Karen, her best friend, that would be impossible cause she has not much influence in that area: James was the only with such power to do something like that.

But, isn't he going to far? Now, he is clearing Silvana's dirt. That bastard.