Page 65 of One Eye Open (The BlackWater)

“I mean just you because you have clearance. My team will give you any info you need but you can see if you can track down those girls you were taking about…”

“I literally just hand delivered the whole file to your team.” She stated.

“I know but I did some thinking.” He replied.

“I see.” She said. “So how come Cole’s not convinced?”

“You know Cole.” He said smirking and Maddie rolled her eyes.

“Sure. But I’m not working it in your office. If I need info I’ll come to you but the rest of the time I work it from my site.” She said and he nodded.

“Nothing gets written down, nothing from our side in anyway feeds down into your office.”

“Agreed.” She said.

“Perfect.” He replied before picking up his phone and making a call. “Thomas, make a copy of the Marcus file. No, everything. Copy it all and then get the box back to Major Crime.” He said before hanging up.

“Thanks Brandon.” Maddie said and he nodded.

“Turns out having a shouting match every so often does work.” He said and she laughed.

“Can I ask you something, not related to any of this.” She said.

“Go for it.”

“Black Industries is a listed company right, hypothetically speaking, if something were to happen, something big what would happen to BlackWater, Black Tech, all the subsidiaries underneath?”

“Big as in…?”

“I don’t know. Stock market crash. Major recession.” She said trying to sound as vague as possible.

“Well for a normal company anything that makes a volatile market could have serious repercussions on its ability to operate. Most have a relatively low threshold in terms of reserves. But Black Industries…” He shook his head. “It’s a different ball game. The way we operate, the sector we’re in, we already hedge ourselves against something like that as standard.”

“So it’s unlikely that something could bring it down?” She asked.

“Unlikely, but not impossible. Nothing is too big to fail. We’re still vulnerable. If we were doing something untoward, if our investors pulled their money out for some reason then that could be catastrophic. We’re a relatively safe bet in terms of investing but if we weren’t, if our investors suddenly decided we weren’t then Black Industries could go under and it would almost certainly bring down the subsidiaries with it.”

“Oh.” She said thinking right back to that email. To the threat of it. Because Brandon all but confirmed it that it was real. That her dad could do it. He could pull the whole of Cole’s companies down.

“Why are you asking Maddie?” He said and she shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.

“No reason, just curious I guess.” She said not sure if he was convinced or not but it didn’t really matter. He wouldn’t know, he wouldn’t guess why she was asking.

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