Chapter 43 Chapter Forty-two
ARA
Now came the hardest part of the plan: stealing the signed copy. Munroe and Sylvester would definitely notice if I tried to lift my dress in order to shove the envelope up and into the waistband of my thong.
It sounded disgusting, but I couldn't think of a better way to steal the envelope. Who knew stealing could be so hard?
One chance was all I had, and I was certain it would likely take months before Thayne brought me to headquarters again.
The thought alone pushed me to pick up the men's magazine itself, and I pretended to be engrossed in it. I doubted the escorts knew what was tucked in between the pages, so I kept up the act until I was convinced it was time to act.
I lifted the hem of my dress quickly, then pretended to drop the magazine.
Slowly, I slipped out the envelope, shoved into the waistband of my underwear and straightened myself up.
“Miss Irvington? Are you alright?” Sylvester's voice from behind me startled the shit out of me, and I turned my neck so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.
"I'm fine. It's just my feet. They're killing me.” I managed to say, my heart thumping wildly in my chest.
All it would take was one look down at my flat stomach and they'd see the corners of the envelope straining against the fabric of my dress.
“Would you like to sit down? We are truly very sorry for -"
The door parted open in that strange fashion I'd seen earlier and Thayne waltzed into the office. He looked at Sylvester whose hand was on my elbow, then looked at me with the magazine in my hands.
“Step away from her." Thayne growled.
Sylvester took three steps back.
“What are you doing with this, Ara?" Thayne asked, snatching the magazine from my hand.
I swallowed, my throat instantly going dry.
I gave a nervous laugh. “What else do people do with magazines, Thayne? I was reading it.”
He was already flipping through the pages, his eyes narrowed in concentration.
His office had four air conditioners mounted strategically in the four corners of his office. But beads of sweat were forming under my nose, on my forehead, in my armpits, trickling down my spine.
Thayne's eyes narrowed even further to angry slits, and his nose flared. If smoke started coming out from his nostrils and he transformed into a dragon right now, I wouldn't be surprised.
I waited for his outburst, but it never came. Instead, he asked in a calm voice. “Who came into this office?" He threw the question at Sylvester who scratched the back of his head.
“No one, boss. It's been just us three." Sylvester answered, his eyes sliding from Thayne's face, then to the magazine, and then my face.
Oh God. I tried not to inhale or exhale too loudly so the envelope wouldn't crinkle and let out a sound.
The sharp edges of the envelope were digging into the lower part of my stomach, and I tried not to wince as I took a step backward when Thayne stepped into my space, looming over me.
He looked really pissed. Would he understand if I told him why I'd stolen the signed copy of the deal?
“Did you find anything in between the pages of the magazine?" He asked, his eyes scanning my face from forehead to jaw.
I shook my head innocently. “I was just reading. Was I supposed to find something in between the pages?"
Thayne sighed. “You weren't even supposed to touch it at all." Then to Munroe, he said, “I want footage from the last past twelve hours. Correspond with the security department and forward the footage to my watch screen." He gestured to the flat screen hanging on the wall in the far end of the office.
My knees buckled, and I gripped Thayne's desk to balance myself. I should have thought about the possibility of a CCTV.
They would watch that footage and see me shoving the envelope inside my dress. In the waistband of my thong for fuck sake!
Barely two minutes later, the watch-screen flickered to life and I gasped.
I gripped the table so hard that my knuckles threatened to burst open. The whole room was spinning, and my fingers shook.
On the watch-screen, Thayne's office came into view, and the recording was put on fast-forward until the door parted open like a curtain.
I wasn't sure what it was I was expecting, but it wasn't a plump woman in her cleaning uniform, mop and bucket in hand.
Her hair was blonde, and her eyes were deep and small. It was hard to even make out her eyeballs.
She turned, waited for the door to shut behind her before venturing further into the office.
She headed straight for Thayne's desk like an assassin on a mission and began searching the files on top of it.
She pulled drawers open, emptied out jacket files, opened up cartons underneath the table.
I watched with my mouth wide agape, not understanding what was playing out in the watch-screen.
Then she slammed her hands down on the desk. She banged her fists on it twice and dug her fingers in her air.
She didn't find what she was searching for.
The question was, what was she searching for? It couldn't be cash. Nobody left cash lying around in their office like Santa Claus.
This lady was searching for something serious. Something really important enough for her to rip out strands of her hair over.
None of us uttered as much as a sound as we watched her dig into the large pocket in front of her uniform for her phone.
Her lips were moving, but her face carried a fearful expression, as though she were afraid of the person on the other end of the line.
Then it clicked. Madison! Of course. She'd told me in the old gallery house that she had a little bird in headquarters who tweeted back to her occasionally.
Little bird. Someone whose position in Slade Corps was trivial enough to be overlooked, especially in situations like this.
The cleaner had walked into Thayne's office searching for the signed copy of the deal. It had to be it if Madison had sent her.
But it really didn't make sense.
Madison had asked me to search for it. To convince him to bring me here to headquarters and find it.
Had she thought I would come up with a defiant plan to outsmart her?
Had she suspected I had something different in mind and wanted to jump me before I could reach the original signed copy of the deal?
On the watch-screen, the cleaner was arranging the desk, fixing everything back in its place. But I noticed something interesting, she placed something last stop the paperwork on the table.
The men's magazine. It hadn't been on top before she started searching.
She'd forgotten the original arrangement and placed it on top of the paperwork.
Slowly, facts began to arrange themselves in my head, the suspicions that I'd been having since I stepped out of that old gallery house.
Madison was trying to outsmart Thayne's father. Slade Senior must have gotten rid of the original copy of the signed deal, thinking Thayne didn't have a spare.
He was convinced that Thayne would be unable to provide another original, while Madison was suspicious that Thayne infact possessed one.
She didn't want Thayne's father grabbing a hold of the document. But why?