The Sigma Asset 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022

46: Luke

I scampered from the shade of willow tree to willow tree, sweating creases into Will's funeral shirt under the baking sun leading up to City Hall, hoping that the lawyers in the D.A.'s Office were equally as irritable and sweaty as me.

Eomma had squealed with pride when she'd seen me in a shirt in our morning videocall, as if starched cotton gave me superpowers. She'd continued her deification of Will for most of the call, adding gentlemanly style to the list of Will's attributes.

My excuses as to why Nuna and Eomma hadn't met Will were running thin. He was asleep. He'd gone next door. He'd gone for a walk on the beach. He'd flee the house the exact moment he heard rapid-fire Korean coming from the living room.

It wasn't his fault. There was no hope of mending things between us. I'd have to accept that Will had returned to being an acquaintance, a landlord, a visa guarantor. I hadn't even had a chance to tell him about the ransom, or about Eomma staying in the commune, and it looked like I wasn't gonna tell him about Lars Eriksen either. Perhaps we'd be friends again once I'd been in Korea for a while, when time, and nine thousand kilometers, could heal everything between us.

Charlotte's P.A. collected me from Security and walked me through air-conditioned antechambers, waiting rooms, more Security, open plan offices, and finally the central core of the District Attorney's Office.

Charlotte was sat reading notes to an assistant lawyer at one of three long desks, apparently set out for groups of attorneys to work together. It didn't seem like a haven of privacy, another lawyer marching in and rifling through a stack of boxes while Charlotte and her colleagues talked. Eventually the hive of activity calmed, and Charlotte and I were left alone.

"I wish you hadn't come, Zeph. We could have done this by phone. It's unsafe for you to be exposed here in the city."

"Relax. Nobody's gonna see me. I was going crazy at home anyways. I needed a walk."

Charlotte turned from her computer screen to look at me for long moments, as if she smelled her baby bro's pain all over me. Had Will told her what I'd done to him? "Well, there was no need to dress up," she said, tugging at my shirtsleeve.

"You kidding? I don't want your lawyer buddies to think that Sabrina's piano teacher is some sketchy Korean dude in sweatpants."

That pulled a giggle out of Charlotte, hopefully distracting her from the fact that I was the zephyr that had shipwrecked her brother's heart the night before.

"Your friend, Selena Perez, was very helpful about what she overheard Lars Eriksen say. She recalled it to the best of her ability, and is a very credible witness if needed."

"Witness for what?"

"The Walker Project was apparently the way that Lars Eriksen was planning to get FlowYoga out of debt. FlowYoga was registered in the States as a subsidiary company of Breeze L.L.C., and we discovered that FlowYoga is around four million dollars in debt."

"Holy sh-. I mean, wow. So Jules was gonna take on four million dollars of debt for Lars?"

"If the two companies had merged, then FlowYoga's debts and loans would have been taken on by West Coast Yoga."

I couldn't believe it. Jules must have had money to burn. Or she must have loved Lars that much. It explained why Jules was so secretive about buying FlowYoga; she'd planned to take on Lars's debt and knew that her parents and friends would have a huge fucking problem with that.

"My team also examined the past seven years of FlowYoga's tax records. They show that Eriksen or his company directors were trying to inflate FlowYoga's worth for loans against its value, and reduce its value for USA income tax purposes."