The smell of alcohol has followed Reid around ever since he woke up in bed next to Chloe. He has been unable to escape the stench, not that he really wanted to anyways in the first place, and has kept a spare bottle of alcohol tucked away in the drawer of his desk. Whenever somebody is not looking, the man pulls it out and takes a swig, hoping that the alcohol will numb the emotional pain and turmoil that forms in the back of his mind.
And to think that this all happened because he made one stupid mistake, a careless one, that ended up with him as Chloe’s pawn in a game, where he thought he was a powerful piece and not somebody to be ordered around.
Their partnership was made on uneven ground. Chloe has had the upper hand since the beginning, dangling the blackmail of their wild night together over his head, as if it is an ax ready to chop his head off. Their partnership was never something that Reid wanted in the first place.
If anything, he desperately wanted to avoid anybody that Emilie is related to just so he does not have to deal with the collateral damage that comes along with her family.
And yet here he is, wasting away behind a desk as he plays the role of a spy for a woman who is cruel and does not seem to care about anybody but herself. She is clearly working for selfish reasons, reasons that he does not want to know, and is working towards a goal that will lead to a great demise of his own family, his brother that he does not even like.
Reid picks himself up and heads towards one of the conference rooms on a higher level floor than he is. It is some meeting about security and how it needs to be strengthened from within their company since there’s clearly a mole who is leaking information as well as stealing in embezzling funds from the pack.
It kills the man that he can’t say a single word about it. It absolutely rips his soul apart, knowing that he is allowing a woman as vile in cruel as Chloe to inject herself into the company and take what she thinks is hers, something that belongs to Reid, Logan, and their family.
One could say that Reid’s pride is definitely hurt. His ego is bruised beyond belief. He can’t even bring himself to verbalize what has happened to him, the way he is now in a small role in another person story.
He sits down at the table, taking his place at his half–brother’s side. The two men do not look at each other, simply ignoring one another as they stare at the papers in front of them or the phone in their hands.
Usually, on a day like this, Logan would ensure that Emily has a place at the table. But from what Reid can see: his fiancée is nowhere to be found, her presence lacking inside of the conference room.
It causes the man to raise his eyebrow, suspicion flooding in the back of his brain as the meeting starts. He remains silent, like he usually does, simply listening, and nodding his head along as information is thrown at him from whoever is in charge of the meeting. In this moment, though, all that Reid can think about is how Emily is nowhere to be seen.
Logan’s mood is more irritable than usual. He is snappy and demands perfection in the meeting, always asking questions and expecting them to be answered almost immediately. If Reid did not know any better, he would think that his brother is slowly losing his mind right now, his attention elsewhere as the meaning drowns on.
Reid slips his phone free from his pocket. He keeps it in his lap below the surface of the table, not wanting to draw attention to himself as his eyes drop down to the screen in front of him. He pulls up his messages with Chloe, staring at her name with a slight snarl before beginning to slowly type in a message.
