Five Cases Of Scotch Ruined Him Chapter 2

I survived the next workday entirely on nervous adrenaline.

I sat rigidly at my desk, my eyes darting toward Bradley's office every few minutes. He never showed up. His lights remained off, the glass doors securely shut.

Just as the panic began to curdle in my throat, just as I was drafting a carefully worded text to demand my money, I bumped into him by the espresso machine in the breakroom.

Before I could even open my mouth, he went on the offensive.

"Hey, Paige, I'm glad I caught you," he said smoothly, pouring a double shot. "My schedule is completely insane today. I have to head to corporate HQ in twenty minutes, and I won't have time to deal with the bank. My transfer limit is still locked up." He offered me a reassuring, easy smile. "Don't stress. I'll come find you first thing tomorrow, and I'll wire you the funds directly. I promise."

He had brought it up first. He looked me in the eye and swore he'd handle it. It was just enough to quiet the screaming alarm bells in my head.

I forced myself to breathe, walked back to my desk, and threw myself into my drafts.

But Thursday came and went, and Bradley never approached my desk.

His office door was wide open. I saw him pacing, taking calls, laughing with the senior partners. Several times, we made direct eye contact through the glass. Every time, his gaze slid right past me, frictionless, as if I were part of the drywall.

By 5:00 PM, the nausea was unbearable. I walked up to his door and knocked twice.

"Brad, about that invoice—"

He rubbed his temples, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was carrying the weight of the free world on his shoulders. He let out a long, theatrical sigh and waved a hand at me.

"I've been in meetings for eight hours, Paige. I can barely see straight. We'll handle it tomorrow."

He looked so deeply inconvenienced by my existence that I just backed away.

Tomorrow is Friday, I told myself. I will not leave this building without that money.

I needed it. Desperately. Because Friday night, right after work, I had an appointment with the billing department at my mother's oncology ward to settle her monthly copays.

But when I arrived at the office on Friday morning, Bradley’s office was dark. His door was locked.

I asked around, trying to keep my voice casual, only to have Kevin casually mention that Bradley was out of town. Not a sudden emergency. A scheduled, multi-day trip he had known about all week.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A sterile, automated text from the hospital reminding me of my outstanding balance.

Something inside me snapped.

I retreated to the quiet hum of the fire stairwell and opened my messages. I typed out a firm, urgent demand for the transfer. I waited ten minutes. Sent another. Over the next hour, I sent ten messages.

Nothing. Total silence.

The read receipts were glaring. At one point, the little typing bubbles appeared, dancing on the screen for three agonizing minutes, only to vanish into nothingness.

My legendary patience evaporated. I hit the call button.

It rang through the full cycle. Voicemail.

Fine. I can do this all day. I hit redial. I was prepared to blow up his phone until the sheer annoyance forced him to answer.

But on the third try, there was no ringing. Just a sharp, single beep, followed immediately by the automated operator.

The number you have reached is unavailable...

I lowered the phone. The air in the stairwell suddenly felt freezing.

He had blocked me.

I sank down onto the concrete steps, hugging my knees to my chest. My mind raced, piecing together the breadcrumbs I had been too naive, or too intimidated, to see.

Did top-tier liquor even qualify for standard corporate reimbursement?

Looking back at the months of random receipts, the pattern was glaringly obvious. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was expensing items that blatantly violated company policy, using me as a buffer, an untraceable middleman.

When it was twenty bucks here, fifty bucks there, I had swallowed it. Even when it hit a few hundred, and he held my upcoming performance review over my head, I wrote it off as the unspoken cost of surviving in a cutthroat firm.

But this was nearly ten thousand dollars. My lifeline.

I stared at the red exclamation point next to my final, undelivered text message.

The panic was gone, replaced by something much colder. Much sharper.