Khalil Lyonne sat at his desk looking dejected. It was a hell of a day for the CEO of Lyonne Consolidated starting from the report that the company’s stock price is still falling sharply like it has been for almost a month, to the emergency meeting he had with the Board of Directors during which he was given an ultimatum of two weeks to stop the free-fall.
He was still deep in thoughts when his secretary informed him that he has a package from one Tolu Adeshina. Khalil opened the package to see documents containing different reports from different branches of his company, when he got to the conclusion page what he saw confirmed his fears and worse since he started reading the reports. A few moments later he put a call through to his secretary and asked him to send the car around.
***********************************
It was the end of school for the day and Daniel was having a discussion with some of his classmates when he saw his father’s Range Rover SUV pull up, he thought it was someone else at first but when the driver wound down the window and he saw that he was his father he said goodbyes to his classmates hurriedly and nearly broke into a run before he climbed in to the car.
Before he even greet his father, Khalil said “I assume you are not walking that fast just because you missed me?”
“Heck no, I did that because I finally have the opportunity to talk to the CEO of the company I invested in and ask him what is happening to them right now.” Daniel replied his father jokingly.
“You bought Lyonne Consolidated stock? And you didn’t tell me?” Khalil asked obviously very surprised at the information.
“I just told you now and Dad, good afternoon.”
“How was your day?” Khalil asked as he started driving away from the school.
“Awesome.”
“That’s good to know.”
After a brief silence, Khalil asked Daniel where Jimmy was.
“Oh, he wasn’t in school today. Rufus was acting weird so he took him to the doctor’s.”
Confusedly Khalil asked “Who is Rufus?”
“His dog.”
Khalil just nodded absentmindedly.
Daniel turned to his father and started, “Dad on a serious note, what is going on in the company. The stock price has dropped by almost 30%, which has never happened before.”
“There is nothing going on it is just a bad phase that we are going through and we will sail through it.” Khalil answered assuredly.
“I don’t think so, this has been going on for almost a month and you guys have been getting a lot of bad press lately.”
“Are you concerned as the heir or as an investor?”
Daniel felt uncomfortable when he heard the word “heir”, but he hid it successfully and replied “A little bit of both.”
“Then I guess you will have to the complaints department then.”
“Fine, I am asking as the heir.”
Khalil was already pulling up to their 12-car garage by this time.
“ When you’re done with your homework, you should come up to my study.”
*************************************************
Same day,
8:47pm,
Khalil’s Study.
Khalil was reading some financial reports when Daniel entered the study, he signaled to Daniel that he should sit but he didn’t bother to raise his head up for almost ten minutes.
“Daniel,” he started ominously,” the company is fucked up.”
Dan was surprised to hear his father use the word ‘fucked up’, because he has always known him to be a very polite man who never use a swear word.
“Dad, did you just use a swear word?”
“I know, I just don’t care.”
“It must be pretty bad uh.”
“It is, worst than we thought. Here,” giving Daniel the reports he was reading when he came in “read this.”
Daniel looked up from the report and asked his father, “This isn’t what the company is telling the public.”
“The company isn’t lying to the public. For the past three months, I also believed that it is the truth.”
Waving the bunch of papers in the air, Daniel asked “If that is, sorry, was the truth, then where did you get this?”
Khalil hesitated a bit before he speaks, “If I tell you that, promise me you won’t tell anyone.”
“I promise. Why would I want to ruin your legacy? Or my own inheritance?”
“You make a good point. Four months ago, I noticed some discrepancies in the financial reports I was getting every two weeks. The amount of funds just doesn’t add up everytime I go through the reports but I attributed it to my difficulties with numbers. But two months ago, I saw a large movement and disappearance of funds that couldn’t be explained even by my best accountants.”
Daniel raised his hand up to signify that he has a question, “ How large?”
“$55 million large. Large enough for me to play it close to my chest. So I called Tolu Adeshina, he is the investigator who is also part of the Executive Team.” Khalil said.
Khalil was surprised when Daniel replied him saying he know who Tolu is.
“You know I should probably ask you how you know about the only secret member of my team, but that is a question for another day. So, he has been full on investigative mode and I just got this reports today.”
After giving himself few minutes to digest the information, Daniel finally asked, “So is it money-laundering?”
Khalil closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he said,” You know I can probably stop talking right now if you want.”
“As asked earlier, you are talking to your successor not a shareholder.”
“I just think as a father it is my duty to protect you.”
Daniel was getting impatient by then and he said, “Oh, like you protected me from Tobias?”
Immediately he realized what he just said, Daniel covered his mouth more like taking his words back than to stop himself from saying more.
The single word that came from Khalil as a response was with an authoritative tone, “Explain.”
Daniel spilled the beans on how he was abused by Tobias when they were young, but he didn’t tell his father everything because he believes he is still protecting his brother.
“And you told no one about it?” His father queried.
“Well I have dealt with it and moreover Tobias isn’t staying here anymore and I am fine, so can we move pass that and continue talking about the $55 million missing in your company.” Daniel respond defiantly.
Feigning anger, Khalil said, “Listen to me young man, I am your father and it is my responsibility to protect you from danger and I apologize for failing to do that concerning your brother and the company but I will always protect you whenever I get to. Seeing what you have gone through, I figured you need to help, professional one or else you can just forget about knowing what is happening with the company.”
Realising he is between a rock and hard place, Daniel agreed to see a therapist.
Khalil heaved a sigh of relieve and dropped the bomb shell, “It is not money laundering, Lyonne Consolidated is financing terrorism!”
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