Working Stiff:Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1)(67)

       
           



       

Casimir's stride lengthened. At six-four, he was easily tall enough to  see over the cubicle dividers, but he leapt up onto a desk in the center  of the room. It swayed under his legs for a moment and he looked down  at it, but he kept his balance.

Casimir announced, "May I have everyone's attention, please?"

Rox almost giggled. Sometimes that British accent of his was jarring.

He snapped his fingers in the air. "Everyone? For just a moment?"

Who snapped their fingers to get people's attention? Only a Brit. Or a  guy who was Dutch but whom everyone thought was a Brit because he didn't  tell anyone anything about himself that he didn't have to.

Rox clutched her purse more closely to her stomach, suddenly fearful for him.

Casimir said, "I need to talk to you all. The car accident that injured  me a few months ago was a murder attempt. After I was fired yesterday,  there were two more attempts to kill Rox and myself: a sniper shot at us  as we drove home on the freeway-"

A collective gasp withdrew the air from the room, and the muttering  amplified as the admins and paralegals remembered seeing the sniper  shootings on the news the previous night and discussed it among  themselves.

One woman asked, "They were shooting at you guys?"

He said, "We were in the SUV that was initially attacked. Rox was driving."

The field of faces, hundreds of them, all turned toward Rox,  scrutinizing her and her total lack of make-up and too-tight gym clothes  that she had borrowed from Brandy.

She waved, swiveling her hand like the Queen. She could feel that her  face had scrunched up into an uncomfortable grin that looked more like  she was baring her teeth at them. Damn, of all the times that she should  have been ready with her resting bitch face plus prim smile.

"Rox was almost killed, too?" Wren shrieked.

Casimir said, "Both by the sniper and when they firebombed the house."

This time, the mutter swelled into chatter and talking.

Someone yelled, "A bomb?"

"Yes. Bombs were thrown at my house last night. It burned. The house was entirely destroyed."

Gasps.

More talking.

Grumbling.

Angry mutters.

"That was your house on the news last night?"

"Unfortunately," Casimir said.

"You should sue the hell out of them!"

Rox almost laughed, and she bowed her head to swing her hair forward around her face.

Wren called out to her, "Rox, are you okay?"

Rox nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Casimir glanced at his phone. "We believe that the reason why these  attempts on our lives have been occurring is that there have been some  gross irregularities in the contracts that we have been approving for  clients. I have found clauses in the contracts that Valerie Arbeitman  and Josie Silverman worked on that are egregiously unethical. I have  confirmed that these contracts were actually signed by all parties. I  believe that Val and Josie were approving these contracts and allowing  agents and studios to swindle our clients."

A mutter cascaded through the room. People looked at each other, squinting and frowning.

A woman's voice said, "But that's illegal."

Someone else yelled, "So is shooting people and burning down houses."

A nervous giggle rose from the crowd.

Casimir glanced at his phone again. He looked back up at all of their  friends and coworkers. "Murder and swindling clients are both illegal.  That's why I have informed all of our current and previous clients that  they may have problematic clauses in their contracts and that they may  have recourse in the civil and criminal courts. All of them."

This time, no one said anything.

Silence spread over the room as everyone realized that all of the law firm's clients were going to call the office that morning.

Every single one of them.

Except for a few who would go straight to their own lawyers.

"I'm sorry to leave you with this," Casimir continued, "but I suggest  that you all look for new employment. If you need a reference, I will be  happy to provide one. I believe that Val and Josie will be too busy  with their own legal and civil defenses to write references." Casimir  looked at his phone one more time and thumbed something on the screen.  He held out his hand to Rox, and she moved closer to where he stood on  the desk. Holding his phone near his mouth, he looked right in her eyes  and said into the phone, "Go."

"What did you do?" Rox asked him.

"One minute." He looked out over the room, surveying everyone assembled  there. He spoke loudly and said, "I regret that this law firm is ending  in this manner. Swindling our clients was a criminal and unethical act. I  tried to handle the problem in-house. My plan had been to close down  the office in stages so that we could find positions for everyone at  other firms, but they fired me yesterday, and the problems are too  extensive."                       
       
           



       

Another woman called out, "Are we going to be arrested?"

"I can't imagine that would be the case. Val and Josie seem to have  inserted these clauses after the paralegals had signed off on them. It  appeared to be their actions alone."

A sigh of relief lifted into the air above the assembled admins and paralegals.

A voice called out of the crowd, "Where will you be, Cash?"

Cash? Oh, yeah. Cash. Rox shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around all the names.

He said, "I'll be overseas for few days. I will email Wren and Melanie with my phone number, and they will disseminate it."

The glass doors at the front of the office slammed open.

Rox spun, her fists up and ready to commit mayhem on whomever was coming  to attack her and Casimir. Time to fight fire with fire and salt the  Earth.

Two columns of men in black fatigues marched in and drove a wedge  through the crowd toward Casimir and Rox. Bulky belts circled their  waists, providing them with multiple deadly options. They didn't have  their guns drawn, but they all wore snapped holsters on their hips.

So many of them. Better to run.

She shrank closer to Casimir's legs, ready to push him toward the fire exits.

Casimir hopped down from the table and stood beside her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "The cavalry has arrived."

Rox recognized one of the dark-clad guys leading the twenty or so men as  Hugo Faure, Maxence's head of security who had been in charge when they  had flown to The Devilhouse, and she blew out a pent-up breath.

For a second there, that battalion of men had looked like the  government's men in black had shown up to kidnap them for knowing too  much about certain unidentified aircraft.

Hugo Faure stood next to Casimir, his back toward him, facing out at the crowd. "How bad is this situation?"

"Just a group of friends." Casimir shoved his phone into his pocket.

"I've seen friendlier people behind a rifle," Hugo said, watching the crowd.

"They've had some bad news," Casimir told him, his voice low, "and they're about to have a very bad day."

Rox stood close to him, and one of the men in black gave her a quick  side-eye from behind his dark sunglasses and then continued to examine  the law firm's staff around him.

Hugo touched his ear. "Let's go."

The security men condensed their formation around Rox and Casimir, and  the phalanx moved as a single group toward the doors. The crowd of  admins and paralegals parted as the security men stiff-armed them aside,  and Rox hurried to keep up with the long-legged men.

She walked out the glass doors of the law office just as Hugo muttered  to Casimir, "Mr. Grimaldi said that you had extensive security at your  compound."

Casimir smirked. "Maxence might have been mistaken."

"Damn it. He does that all the time. It drives his uncle and myself mad."

Casimir laughed out loud at that.

Hugo grumbled, "So His Highness has not had proper security the whole time that he was in California."

Rox stopped in the hallway leading to the elevator and whirled around. "What did you call Maxence?"

Surely Hugo was being sarcastic.

Surely he was calling Maxence an entitled little prince-jerk because he was a spoiled rich kid.

Yeah, that made sense.

Of course, the security guy would disparage the man who had built a  school with his own hands in an African war-ravaged village and was too  skinny when he came back because he gave his food to little girls. There  was lots of privileged, entitled attitude to mock there.

Yeah, that made no sense at all.

"Mr. Faure!" Rox called out because she was a proper little Southern girl. "What did you call Maxence?"

But Hugo had stepped back, one of his arms spread wide and the other  resting on the butt of his gun, as the security men bustled her and  Casimir into the elevator and out of the building, to where black SUVs  idled at the curb, waiting.