Carlton ✔

25| The Hot Pursuit

And I was in the process of breaking him.

He scoffed, shaking his head. "Impressive. I see that you've grown up since we met last."

"Last time we met was never."

The smile disappeared from his face. "We did, a lot of times."

"But never as brothers. We only met on social events."

He was twirling his hat in his hands, a sign of some kind of nervousness, I supposed. Sighing, he took a seat opposite to me. "Here," he placed a bottle of Scotch on the coffee table between us, "It's some good Scottish whiskey. To what do I owe this meeting?"

Now we're talking about what really matters. Here we go! Deep breaths, Carlton, you can do this. "I need you to do something for me. I happen to have caught someone committing a big fraud and I plan to have him pay for the same."

"Really?" he scoffed, smiling as if it was amusing to him. He still thought I was a little kid, didn't he? Casually, he added sugar to his coffee, stirring it. "And who is this unfortunate individual?"

"Augustus Bancroft."

He stopped stirring the coffee.

"I want two entry passes to the conference and access to the projector room."

He knew what I was talking about, because he looked up at me, furrowing his eyebrows with disbelief. "Really? That's why we're meeting? So I would help you with this?"

I chuckled mockingly. "Oh, you thought I actually cared?"

I could see the fiery materializing on his face. I hoped he would understand not to treat me like a teenager anymore. "Augustus is my business partner's son. What would Albretch think?"

"Augustus has nothing to do with his father. I've heard their relationship is not that good."

"I cant." He said, "His father is my biggest business partner, Carlton. Sometimes you catch someone doing a fraud and you can't do anything about it. I know hundreds of frauds committed by people daily and I use them as blackmail. I never report them."

Fuck, I was losing him."You don't understand-"

"I do, believe me." His expression calmed down a little, as if he was trying to give me brother-talk. "Augustus does dumb shit all the time. That's all he is...dumb. He's not a threat."

Not a threat, my ass! His "dumb shit" was going after my girl's life!

I needed to backtrack the conversation a little bit, or I'd lose. I made a fake, disappointed expression. "Then you probably know about our father's frauds."

"Of course, I do. Not that I care about him anymore." His voice softened as I had anticipated. "I can't report Augustus. It will make me look bad. And the Hargraves and Bancrofts-"

"-have a good relationship, I know that. So you can't do it?"

"No."

I nodded slightly, taking him by surprise as I got up. "I thought so. Pleasure meeting you."

Caden panicked. "Carlton, wait! Did we meet only for this? I thought we would talk for a while, connect with each other."

"I told you. I dont care."

He got up too, earnestly. "Atleast tell me why or what you're doing this for?"

Buckling my suit, I began to walk towards the door, ignoring him and the Scotch he gifted me. "C'mon Phil."