Five: Alexander

My assistant trailed behind me as I stormed into my office, pulling off my suit jacket and rolling up my shirt sleeves. 

“Sir, we couldn’t have seen this coming.” My assistant, Nathan, said. 

“I did.” I spat through clenched teeth as I moved to the glass wall of my office that looked out over the city.  

“Sir?” 

I knew something like this would happen eventually.

Caleb Johnson had been doing everything within his power to compete against my company. He had been planting moles amongst my employees, releasing fabricated stories to the tabloids, and had even hired a private investigator to trail me. 

He had been quiet for the past few months, and I had hoped he was going away, but I should have known better. Pests never left on their own. 

Now, he was poaching my clients.

I knew for a fact that Justin was already stressing about his upcoming contract with the Rangers. Yet, he was about to pay us millions to break his contract to join a newer competitor, one who wouldn’t be able to negotiate him a penny more than the offered terms.

“Get Caleb Johnson on the phone!” I snapped as I thought about all the work that needed to be done to clean up this mess. 

“But, Sir,” Nathan stuttered, but I turned my glare to him as I took a deep breath. 

“Now!”

“Yes. Sir.” 

I watched as my assistant rushed out of my office to make the calls from his desk. He would patch me in when he had Caleb on the line. 

My phone buzzed, and I pulled it from my pocket to see one of my best friends’ names on the screen.  

Mason: It’s all over the news that Justin McCabe just dropped your company. What the hell happened?

My teeth ground together as I slammed my phone down on the table. I was too angry to respond right now because I wasn’t sure myself. 

It didn’t make sense that just before one of the biggest years in Justin’s career, his first year as a starting goalie for the New York Rangers, he would break his contract with my company, Elite, and join that untrustworthy asshole, Caleb Johnson’s company, First Round. 

My company provided every service someone in Justin’s position could ever need, from management to the world’s top sports medicine surgical team. 

Only the best of the best, or those with the potential to become the best with our help, were accepted as clients. We gave them twenty-four hours service for all their needs: lawyers, drivers, private chefs, physical therapists, a PR team, an agent and so much more. 

Yet, he chose to break our contact early, forcing him to pay us millions just to join Caleb Johnson’s one-trick pony. 

I had heard he was attempting to expand from being a sports agency to include a team of lawyers, copying my business model. Still, he was so far from our level that all of his attempts to take me down up until this point had been embarrassing.

A knock on my door had me looking up, and I groaned when I saw the look on Nathan’s face. 

“What is it?” I asked, knowing his answer already but still glancing at my office phone to confirm the lights were off, showing that Caleb Johnson wasn’t waiting on hold for me.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Nathan said, shaking his head. “I just spoke with his assistant, Lorna. Apparently, he is in court all day for his divorce hearing. She said he wouldn’t be available until tomorrow.” 

My head snapped back, and my eyebrows flew up to my hairline. “Divorce?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

My finger tapped against my desk as I considered this. I hadn’t even known Caleb was married. He had a different woman on his arm at every event I had seen him at, so I had assumed he was single. 

“To whom?” I wondered as I began typing away, trying to find anything on his wife.

All the articles had the same few pictures, dated back a few years, and none showed her face. 

The only information they gave was that her name was Bailee Johnson. 

I had only ever known one Bailee in my life, and just the thought of her made my chest hurt. She was the biggest mistake of my life… or rather, losing her was. 

It couldn’t be her, though. Surely, her brother would have told me if she had gotten married. Then again, the last time he had spoken about her, I had threatened him and told him never to mention her around me again. 

It had been too painful to be reminded of her constantly. 

Still, it couldn’t be her. There were probably thousands of Bailee’s in a city this large. Plus, the woman in the photos had significantly lighter hair, almost blonde. My Bailee’s was brown.

My Bailee. 

The thought made me want to scoff because she hadn’t been my anything for almost ten years. Not since I ripped her heart out. 

My phone buzzed again, and I glanced at it, seeing Mason demanding I meet him for a drink. After the day I had, I could use one. 

Turning to Nathan. “I want a full report on Bailee Johnson. Everything you can find needs to be on my desk first thing in the morning.”