Page 7 of Ruthless Billionaire Daddy

“Yes, sir.”

As soon as Ida hung up, I received four similar calls with reports of the same type of incident. Not only from my clubs, but my bars and lounges as well. Close to a million dollars was stolen in the space of one hour.

The last call was from Freda.

“Sir, the man in the mask told me to tell you something.”

“What did he say, Freda?”

I held my breath as Freda’s voice shook. “He said…y-you should’ve paid the protection fee.”

After Freda’s call, I instructed Caite to call each person in charge of handing over the money to the trucks. No cash was to be released to anyone. I would personally retrieve it, accompanied by my security team. I also told her to warn them that the incident must not be leaked.

While Caite was doing that, I called Tony and ordered him to meet me at head office with ten of his best men,heavily armed, and to increase the security at every branch that currently had weekend cash on them.

Today was going to be a long ass day.

After six grueling hours of running from venue to venue and then to the bank, Vega had called about an update with Eso’s boys, the ones who came to my club demanding the protection fee.

Every single one of them was dead.

Slaughtered like animals.

Their bodies were found in an old warehouse piled inside a room. Vegas sent me a picture of the symbol found on the wall over the bodies, a seven-petal black lotus flower with an eye in the middle. One which I recognized, thanks to Dominic.

It belonged to the Black Lotus Syndicate.

This wasn’t random. This was a message. One I had to keep to myself. For now.

After getting off the phone with Vega, I called Mr. Jaxson. He confirmed that three of his trucks had been stolen. He assured me that any money stolen would be reimbursed through insurance. I informed him that I needed this to be discreet and he promised to settle everything quietly and off the books. He knew that if word got out that three of his trucks weren’t only stolen but were used to rob businesses, his own business would take a drastic hit. Keeping the incident between the two of us was the best way to move forward.

The last thing I needed was for Nathaniel, my brother, to get wind of this and report it to the others. He was two years older than me and three years younger than Dominic. He ran his own financial company and was the head accountant for all the family businesses.

By the time Tony finally dropped me back at head office it was just after three p.m.

Frustrated and exhausted, I walked through the lobby, and saw Delilah, clipboard in hand, laughing at something Daniel, one of my IT staff, had said.

I paused as my fists clenched involuntarily. I breathed deeply, straightened my posture, forced my hands to relax, and headed straight for them. The smile on Daniel’s face vanished and he stiffened when he saw me.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Quantum,” Daniel said, his voice strained, but I ignored him and focused on Delilah.

“Ms. Malone.” My voice was sharp. “I didn’t hire you to come into my company and flirt with my staff.” I watched as her face turned red. “Is this the efficiency you promised me yesterday? If the themes for the event are not on my desk in five minutes, youwillbefired.”

I strode to the elevators.

Bro, what the fuck was that about?I admonished myself as I stepped into the elevator, Delilah still frozen in place. As the elevator moved, my words echoed in my mind. Why the hell did I feel like this? Why the hell did I care if she was laughing at some dumb thing that Daniel said?

I stepped out of the elevator and went straight for my office. Two minutes later, there was a knock on my door.

“Come in.”

Delilah walked into the room with her clipboard pressed close to her chest.

“Mr. Quantum,” she said stiffly as she removed a few sheets of paper from the clipboard and handed them to me. Theysmelled like peaches…like her. “These are the décor themes I came up with.”

My eyes scanned the designs as she continued to speak. “I also went to the site and took a few pictures to get an idea of the layout. As you can see, some of the concepts have pictures with the backdrop of the club itself.”

Admittedly, her ideas were quite impressive. But her flirting with Daniel was unacceptable to me.

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