Behaving Badly in Vegas (Vegas Love #3)

40. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Hunter

Carina slept on the bed between Charli and me when we got home from the hospital. Her fever broke and this morning she was much more content. I wanted to stay home from work, but Charli convinced me she had it under control and there was nothing I could do that she wouldn’t already be doing.

Because of our late night, I didn’t get in to work until eleven. Leonard gave me a dirty look even though I’d sent him a courtesy email I certainly didn’t owe him. I went right to my dad’s office and plopped into the chair opposite his desk. “Sorry I’m late.”

“No apologies necessary. I remember those days, staying up all night with a sick child. I could run a billion dollar empire, but I couldn’t help my own kid. Rose was always so calm, and I felt helpless.”

“Exactly,” I said with a huff.

“I don’t know how I would have done it without Rose.”

“Same. Charli was a lifesaver. She knew exactly what questions to ask while I scowled at the doctor. ”

He chuckled. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Then he leaned forward, arms resting on the desk. “I don’t know if I’ve told you lately… I’m really proud of you. You’re a good dad and Carina is lucky to have you. I know coming back to Mystique was hard for you, but I’m glad you’re here.”

“Weirdly, I’m glad to be back too. I never thought I’d step foot in Mystique again, but it’s kind of been like coming home despite the shitty office and horrible boss. Can’t we fire Leonard?”

My father tapped his fingers together. “Trust me, with the stunt he pulled the other day, I was close. Then I started thinking about your theory of why Mystique is losing money. It makes sense and the timing aligns. If you’re right, he’s not walking out of here unscathed. We need solid proof though. Find anything yet?”

I shook my head in frustration. There was nothing I wanted more than to see Leonard go down in flames. “His recordkeeping is solid. Whatever he’s doing, he’s hiding it well, but it’s there. I can feel it. There’s something I’m missing.”

“I have faith in you. If you find he’s stealing money from us, the CFO job is yours.”

It was what I’d been working for, but to hear my father say it out loud gave me the extra incentive I needed.

Leonard didn’t know it yet, but his ass was getting kicked to the curb, preferably in handcuffs.

That night, Charli and I were back at it. Despite my skepticism, she was really good with numbers, and we were able to get through the documents twice as fast.

“I think I found something.”

If only… My heart beat double time at the prospect of finally finding evidence of wrongdoing. “What did you find? ”

“It’s not a lot, relatively speaking, but there’s an almost ten thousand dollar discrepancy in the silent auction earnings from the fundraiser. At first, I thought it was a simple adding error, but it’s not. It looks like”—she compared the two sets of papers—“that some numbers were transposed.”

“Show me.” I pushed away from my desk and leaned over her shoulder.

She pointed to the lines she’d highlighted. “Here, here, and here. There’s five of them, and in every case, the numbers were reversed to show a lower amount.” She looked up at me and chewed on her bottom lip. “I mean, it could be an honest mistake.”

I took the papers from her hands and inspected each line. “Son of a bitch! Once would be a careless mistake. Five times is purposeful.”

“What does this mean?”

“It means I was right. Leonard is stealing money. There has to be more. I’m sure of it.” I grabbed Charli by the cheeks and kissed her. “Excellent work, dollface.”

She beamed. “What’s my reward?”

“Anything you want.”

Over the rest of the week, Charli and I found hundreds of errors that involved transposed numbers, dating back to the month after Leonard started at Mystique. At first, the errors only equated to a few dollars here and there, but over time, the differences became greater. I figured in the beginning, he was testing the waters to see what he could get away with, and when no one questioned it, he got greedy. In total, we’d found over a million dollars in mistakes . Since he’d fired almost my entire staff, no one kept him in check.

There was only one question left to answer. Where was the money?