But there are other files, too. Older ones. I find the original business plan for Hale Hospitality, written in what must be Bastian’s hand from fifteen years ago. The margins are filled with notes, calculations, scribblings, doodles of what appears to be a bank robbery. Desperate math from a stubborn man trying to make impossible numbers work.
??? = Figure it the f**k out
I’m so absorbed in the files that I don’t hear the elevator or the footsteps in the hallway. Don’t notice anything until the door opens and Bastian Hale walks in, looking like he just stepped out of a completely different life.
His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing forearms marked with old burn scars and what might be the edge of a tattoo. His usually perfect hair is mussed, falling across his forehead in a
