Trapped In The Wrong Arms

Mercer Logistics

He was in the warehouse at six.

That wasn't unusual. Cade had been opening up before anyone else arrived since the early days of Mercer Logistics....He came in early because the warehouse was quietest then, and quiet was when he thought best, and there was always something that needed thinking through.

This morning he told himself it was the Henderson contract.

It was not the Henderson contract.

He made coffee in the small kitchen off the main floor, stood at the window that overlooked the yard, and watched the first couriers arrive. Six of them this shift, pulling in on their bikes.

His people. His jackets. His name on the back of every one of them moving through this city.

He had built this from nothing and he knew it and usually that knowledge sat cleanly in his chest; solid, earned, enough.

This morning it sat a little differently.

He drank his coffee and didn't examine why.

Juno arrived at half seven with a slightly unpleasant expression on her face.

"Henderson called," she said, dropping her bag on the chair across from his desk. "He wants to move the collection date."

"To when."

"Thursday."

"We can do Thursday."

"I already told him that." She sat down, pulled up something on her tablet, and then looked at him over the screen.

"You left early last night."

"I had things to do."

"You went and sat in the dark."

He said nothing. Juno had worked alongside him long enough to have developed an inconvenient accuracy about his movements and his moods, and the most effective response was usually to give her nothing to work with and wait for her to move on.

She did not move on.

"The Hale Foundation gala was on television last night," she said.

"I'm aware."

"Carter had it on. I saw it too." She set the tablet down. "Cade."

"We have work to do, Juno."

"We do," she agreed. "I'm just noting that you look like a man who didn't sleep and I know why and I'm choosing not to make a thing of it." She picked the tablet back up. "The Morrison account needs a decision by end of day. And your eleven o'clock called to reschedule to noon."

"Fine."

That was how they operated. She pushed exactly as far as she'd decided to push and then she pulled back and they both got on with things and nothing was made into more than it was. He had always been grateful for that. This morning especially.

He pulled the Henderson file toward him and stared at it.

By nine the warehouse was fully alive. Everyone knew their jobs and got on with them. Cade moved through it the way he always did, stopping where he was needed, answering what needed answering, making the hundred small decisions that kept the whole thing moving. This was the part nobody saw in the profile pieces, when journalists came to write about the Hackney biker who'd built a logistics empire.

They weren't interested in the Tuesday morning reality of it. The invoices and the scheduling conflicts and the courier who'd clipped a wing mirror on the A3 and needed it handled quietly. The unglamorous machinery of something real.

Cade preferred the machinery. It required his full attention. Full attention meant no room for anything else.

It worked, mostly.

At half ten he was in his office reviewing the Hale Foundation sponsorship documents that Juno had placed on his desk sometime in the last hour, and he got through three pages before he registered what he was reading.

The Hale Foundation; their charitable portfolio, their upcoming summer gala and the list of expected attendees and sponsors.

He put the papers down.

Picked them up again.

On the back page, in the small print of the event documentation, was the name of the gala's co-chair.

Mrs Selene Hale.

He read it twice. Then he set the document face-down on his desk and looked at the wall for a moment.

Juno appeared in the doorway. She looked at the face-down document. She looked at him.

"You knew," he said.

"I knew the Foundation gala was on the sponsorship list," she said carefully. "I didn't think it was relevant."

"You didn't think it was relevant."

"I thought the business case was stronger than any reason you might have to avoid it." She held his gaze steadily. "I still think that."

He was quiet for a little while. He needed to control the anger building up within him. This wasn't Juno's fault. She's right, the business is more important than whatever reason he might want to avoid the gala for.

"When is it," he said.

"Six weeks." Juno paused. "The event requires the company principal for the sponsor photographs."

Another silence.

"Fine," Cade said.

He turned the document face-up and kept reading.

Juno went back to her desk and said nothing else. He read the rest of the document without taking in a single word.

Mrs. Selene Hale.

Six weeks.

He turned the page.

That would be the first time she'd probably see him in the last five years. That isn't the case for him, as he made sure to see her as often as he could. That was the only way he could survive.

She was the bane of his existence.