Chapter 5: What Bianca Wanted
The corridor behind the lobby ran the length of the building.
It was narrow and lit with the kind of overhead light that made everything look slightly wrong.
Grant was already pacing by the time Bianca caught up to him.
"You said the notary was handled," she said.
"She was supposed to be."
"She had the wire transfer, Grant.
She had the messages."
"I know what she had." He stopped pacing.
"It doesn't matter.
Sloane still needs those permits.
She can't touch Phase Two without them and she knows it.
Whatever happens tonight, she still has to come back to the table."
Bianca looked at him for a long moment.
"I want to know something."
"Not now—"
"When did you start planning this?" Her voice was steady.
Not angry.
Something more careful than angry.
"Because I've been thinking about the timeline.
You approached me eight months ago.
You told me Sloane was already planning to cut you out.
You said the hotel was half yours by right and she was hiding that from the investors." She paused.
"But the original agreement Ruth just showed everyone was filed fourteen months ago.
Before you came to me."
Grant said nothing.
"So either you were lying to me about the timeline," Bianca said, "or you started falsifying documents before you even brought me into this." She let that sit.
"Which is it?"
"Bianca—"
"Which is it?"
He looked at her.
Then he looked away.
"It's more complicated than that."
"That's not an answer."
"The hotel was always supposed to be ours," he said.
"Mine and Sloane's.
She changed the structure after the permits were filed.
She moved assets into her personal holding company without telling me.
I was protecting myself."
"By forging her signature."
"By correcting an imbalance she created."
Bianca was quiet for a moment.
When she spoke again, her voice had changed.
The steadiness was still there but something underneath it had shifted.
"I gave up a partnership at my firm for this," she said.
"I told them I was pursuing an independent venture.
I put my name next to yours in front of those investors." She looked at the corridor wall.
"If what Ruth showed them tonight holds up, my name is attached to a fraud."
"Your name isn't on any of the documents—"
"It's on the amended agreement you showed the investors.
The one with the altered date." She turned back to him.
"Page three.
Bianca Reeves, Co-Director of Operations." She let the silence work.
"I didn't sign that as a co-director of a fraud, Grant.
I signed it because you told me it was legitimate."
He started to speak.
She held up one hand.
"I'm going to speak to Sloane's lawyers tonight," she said.
"On my own.
Without you."
Grant's voice hardened immediately.
"That would be a serious mistake."
"Probably," Bianca said.
"But staying in that room next to you while Ruth Calloway holds up your wire transfer confirmation would have been a worse one."
She turned toward the far end of the corridor where a second exit led to the hotel's side entrance.
"Bianca." His voice dropped.
"If you go in there and say anything that implicates me further, I will make sure everyone knows you came to me.
That you approached me.
That this was your idea from the beginning.
I have emails."
She stopped walking.
She didn't turn around.
"So do I," she said.
The side door opened and closed.
Grant stood alone in the corridor under the flat overhead light.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
May you like
He looked at the screen.
It was his bank.
