Stefan walked down to the main desk where Elena was waiting patiently.
"Morning, Mr Salvatore." She smiled.
"Good morning, Miss Gilbert." He nodded.
"Thank you for taking the time to show me around the establishment." Elena said as they walked towards the elevators. "Will your business partners be joining us today?"
"Unfortunately, no. Mr Saltzman is in London signing off on a contract deal." Stefan explained, pressing the up button. "My brother is no doubt somewhere around today. We might run into him."
"I'm sure." She agreed, though she highly doubted it. And a part of her hoped that they wouldn't. She wished it was merely for the fact that it would be easier to judge his character for work if he was alone, but she knew it was also so she could get to know him for her own personal wants.
The lift arrived and they stepped in.
"So, where would you like to start the tour?" Stefan asked Elena.
"Anywhere at all." Elena replied. "How about we start at the top and work out way down?" Her eyes widened at the slightly dirty connotations of her sentence, and she turned her focus from Stefan's amused expression to the closing lift doors.
"Sure thing." Stefan said, the barest hint of a chuckle in his voice. "We'll start with my colleagues offices." He pressed the button for the twenty-third floor.
…
Bonnie straightened her skirt self consciously. Pencil skirts were not her first choice of garment. Or second or seventh or twentieth.
"Everything all right?" The senior assistant, Mrs Stevens asked her.
Bonnie nodded, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
"Very well then. Follow me, Miss Graham, and we'll get you started on those copies. You've got a big trial day ahead of you."
Bonnie was spending her day undercover as an intern at Daywalker International – the company run by the Salvatores and Alaric Saltzman – to see if she could find anything of interest, even if it was merely idle office gossip.
…
Caroline hitched up her overalls and tightened her ponytail. She hadn't been afraid of heights for years, it was a requirement if you wanted to be cheer captain and tossed around in the air like a kite. But there was a bit of a difference between that and hoisting oneself up twenty stories to wash windows.
And she had drawn the short straw for today.
Personal offices on the top 23rd floor. Got Stefan distracted, Alaric overseas on business. Keep an eye out for Damon. – E
I'll start with Stefan's office once you're gone and move onto Alaric's later. As for Damon – noted. I'll see if Bonnie can assist. – C
B, need you to weave that dark magic. Where is Damon? – C
I'll keep an eye out. If its helpful, today is intern day. The boss might be doing some personal mingling. – B
Caroline rolled her eyes. At least it kept him away from the office. Caroline triple checked the ropes on the rig before pressing the necessary buttons to lift her to the top of the building. The whipping wind stung her eyes and she made sure her knees didn't lock up in reaction to the sudden vertigo. This was going to be a long day.
…
"Wow," Elena commented, walking into the large office. "I'm guessing you were able to pick the one with the best view?"
The floor to ceiling windows took up the entire opposite wall, looking out onto an unblocked view of Manhattan. Elena dared to walk closer to the window, peeking down at the street below.
"Lucky accident, actually." Stefan answered. He watched her get closer and closer to the window before he gently grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back. She looked at him questioningly, and he laughed at himself under his breath.
"Sorry. I'm just a little cautious."
Elena smiled. "Then maybe we'll have to get you to walk on the wild side."
His eyes caught hers, and she forgot whether or not she had planned to say anything witty after that remark. Then Stefan's eyes travelled down to where his fingers curled around Elena's wrist still. He let her go, and the moment vanished.
Elena walked past him to study the relatively empty desk and sleek leather seats. Client, client, clinet. A voice that sounded remarkably like Caroline chanted in her mind, and she tried her best to listen even though she wanted to ignore it. She looked at the paintings on the walls to distract herself, and noticed a large bookshelf. She went to peruse the titles he had stored there.
"Wuthering heights?" Elena asked, turning around and catching Stefan's smile.
"Judge me how you will. It's a good book. And its one of the original copies."
"By Ellis Belle." Elena read out from the leather-bound spine, carefully taking it off the shelf. "You know, I can't believe she didn't use her real name."
"All the Bronte sisters used pseudo names." Stefan explained, drawing closer. "It was the time. Female writers weren't very accepted then."
"Where did you get it?"
"It was passed down through the family." He noticed the loving look in Elena's deep brown eyes, and the way she gently ran her hand across the cover. "I have lots of books," He noted before smiling. "Go ahead. Keep it."
Elena looked up with wide eyes, astonished and unbelieving. "Oh, no…" She bit her lip. "Though I would like to read it again. I promise I'll give it back." She compromised.
"Okay." Stefan agreed with a heart stopping smile. Elena beamed back warmly at him, and felt like they were falling back into another moment…
And then out of the corner of her eye Elena noticed the top of Caroline's head as she rose in the window washing hoist. Right. She had a job to do.
"Um, so would you be able to show me around the rest of the building?" Elena asked, and Stefan nodded.
"Of course." He opened the door for her and she kept her eyes on his to make sure he didn't glance back and see Caroline.
…
Caroline watched Elena charm Stefan out of the room and rolled her eyes. That boy would be in big trouble if he fell for her, but Elena would be in even bigger trouble if she fell for him. And that definitely looked like a possibility. Caroline shook her head, easily popping one of the windows from its frame and laying it carefully on the carpet before entering the office. She was probably just jealous that her friends could like guys that were actually nice…or vaguely nice in the case of Damon. Bonnie was tough enough to take him on anyway.
Caroline poked her tongue out at the security camera on the wall, knowing that Jenna was back at the office watching the live feed while their own system hacked into the cameras and played a five second loop of the empty office. Honestly, amateurs. She wasn't surprised that Bonnie's family had been involved in some shady business before Tatia came along. Sometimes the wrong side was just too tempting when 'bad guys' did the job so poorly.
She ran her hands across the top of the spotless desk before delving into its almost equally empty drawers. Of course, why would Stefan keep anything in plain sight, even for himself? Caroline glanced around the room before checking behind the paintings. Nope, clearly too cliché for the businessman. She recalled the moment she had seen between Stefan and Elena before by the bookshelf. Was the businessman a writing romantic? Could that be the key?
Caroline surveyed the titles on the shelf before grinning and grabbing a copy of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. So the man clearly had a sense of humor. Sure enough, the book did not contain any musical theatre references, but documents and records from the milling company. She flipped through till she found some contracts signed by Elijah Mikaelson.
Interesting.
Caroline took snapshots of documents concerning their missing businessman using her iPhone, and placed the book back where she had found it. She skimmed through the other shelves. If he was hiding something, there could be more.
And there was. Caroline came across a very interesting book titled Scènes de la vie de bohème with something hidden in between the pages. She dared not touch it, putting the book back immediately with a frown. Poor Elena. There was more to this man than they had thought.
…
Bonnie had dabbled in psych for a while, and always found social interactions intriguing, especially in regards to environment. And clearly the office environment for Daywalker International had created a hotbed of gossip. Just from circulating around the building on her intern jobs for the day, Bonnie was able to casually discover plenty of idle tales about their mysterious clients.
"That Stefan Salvatore? So brooding and sexy. But there must be something more there. He keeps to himself too much."
"I overheard an argument between him and that Mr Mikaelson that came in – nasty stuff. Never heard the man talk so loud."
"I'd expect that more from his brother Damon Salvatore…he's certainly got the passion for it. Its just bubbling away underneath the surface at all times, you can see it in his eyes."
"You've been gazing into his eyes too long, honey. You'll just get hypnotized like every other girl between floors two to twenty one."
"And everyone hopes that he'll settle down…"
"But he's a playboy. He'll never settle down."
"You may be right. But I heard that there was one woman who changed his mind. Or broke his non-existent, cold, dead heart."
"Well clearly he broke yours."
"And at least I didn't make a fuss about it. The last girl that did ended up moving to the London base of the company."
"I thought that was because she knew Alaric Saltzman, not Damon Salvatore."
"Regardless, it was still a bit of a scandal. But at least she still has her job."
"It's a small wonder that she was able to get a job there. The London base is filling up fast. And no wonder, with all those trips Mr Saltzman makes there for business."
"Perhaps he has a mistress over there and is just using company funds to get there and back?"
"He's not even married anymore, he can't have a mistress. And you just want there to be more drama."
"It might be the wrong type of drama. I heard that it was more that Mr Saltzman wanted to break away from the company. Seems like he's been making some deals of his own without his business partners."
…
Caroline replaced the window in Stefan's office before making her way down the hall to Damon's. She picked the lock as easily as writing her name, and shut the door softly behind her.
"Well…just a little flashy, are we?" She scoffed, taking in the expensive gothic décor. Clearly the older brother had a thing for vintage furnishings. She tugged her cotton gloves back on – somehow she knew that he would be able to tell if she left one fingerprint around the place. If the younger Salvatore had his demons, then she suspected that the older Salvatore had a few OCD tendencies. Well, that, along with the partying and the women. But that was already obvious to the general public.
Caroline glanced around the room, mentally checking off the signs: furniture perfectly parallel, spotless rugs, even the pens lined up next to each other meticulously.
She took a glance around in the polished mahogany desk, finding few papers. She recalled that Damon had kept a close eye on his phone, and concluded that whatever documents he kept himself, they were in his iPhone.
Caroline also found the usual things – aftershave, mouthwash and a small bottle of scotch – that made her roll her eyes. Really? These things were necessary to keep in an office? But then she came across a tube of hand cream at the back of one of the drawers that made her think it hadn't been seen by Damon in a while, possibly forgotten. Particularly since it was a womans brand of lotion. She frowned, uncapping it and sniffing. Jasmine and sandalwood…she was certain that she had smelt that somewhere else before…Caroline tucked that away for the moment, knowing it would come back to her eventually.
…
"Is that a trophy case?" Elena asked as they walked down a corridor on the twenty second floor.
"It's nothing, really." Stefan shrugged it off, attempting to redirect her focus elsewhere, but she had already walked over to see the awards.
"Daywalkers Football Team." She read out, before seeing his name. "I wouldn't have guessed that you played football."
"I used to." He said. "It was a long time ago."
"So how come you don't play now?" She asked.
"I just don't."
"So you don't like football?"
Stefan made a face. "No, I love football. I think it's a great sport. But…well, football started to not like me." He glanced at her questioning look and a furrow appeared in his brow. "Its complicated."
Elena realized that it was a difficult subject for him, and backed off a little. "I'm sure you'd be able to do it again now. Or are you just too comfortable being the mysterious businessman who keeps to himself?" She teased.
Luckily it brought a smile back to his face. "Says the girl who spends her time masquerading as different people."
"Hey, come on." Elena reasoned. "There's more to me than just a detective girl. You make me sound like I'm running around in a trenchcoat with a fake Mario mustache stuck on my face."
Stefan properly laughed then, making her feel a funny sense of accomplishment and happiness at seeing an expression of joy from the otherwise stoic man.
"And besides, there's a whole other Elena that you have yet to meet. One with an actual normal life." She added.
He smiled at her. "Well, I look forward to meeting her."
Elena let herself be drawn in by his stunning green eyes for a moment before he cleared his throat and gestured down the hall.
"Shall we?"
…
"Mr Mikaelson clearly needs to come into the office more often."
"Agreed. He was barely here and then he left. But he was so handsome."
"Too much of a distraction."
"Too little of a distraction. Yeah, he was good to look at, but he didn't talk much."
"There's always something fishy about a man who keeps to himself."
"And there is always something dangerous about women who talk." A deeper male voice interrupted the gossip Bonnie had prompted, and the office ladies all looked up with a gasp.
"Mr Salvatore!"
Damon grinned at them. "Morning, ladies. Hope I'm not interrupting."
"Not at all," Molly, one of the regular workers, flashed a lovely smile.
"You know we always appreciate your interruptions, Mr Salvatore." A girl called Shelley piped up, and Damon sent her a wink that put her in giggles.
"I just wanted to see how our interns were doing." He said, walking towards the ladies who were all crowded in the same office cubicle. They split up and went back to their respective desks. Bonnie made sure to walk fast, keeping her head down and hoping that somehow no one would recall that she was an intern…
"We have Tallulah and Kat working today, Mr Salvatore." Molly said helpfully.
Bonnie cursed Molly in her head, wishing that she had the power to give her one hell of a migraine.
"Thank you, Molly." Damon replied smoothly, before walking over to Kat – Bonnie – 's desk.
"Damon Salvatore." He introduced himself when he reached her cubicle.
Bonnie kept her head down, staring intently at her hands folded in her lap. "Kat Graham." She said quietly.
"And how are you enjoying Daywalker International, Kat?" Damon asked sociably.
"Its perfectly fine." Bonnie replied, hoping that he would move on quickly without recognizing her.
"Perfectly fine?" He repeated.
Clearly she hadn't said the right thing.
"You can be honest, Miss Graham." Damon said with a slight chuckle. "After all, I have a hand in running the place. If there's anything that can be improved, I want to hear about it first."
She couldn't help herself. "The printers blah blabh." His lack of response prompted her to continue since she didn't dare raise her face to see his reaction. "Whats more, the work ethic is slightly low…most of the people here seem to know that they work for you, your brother, and Mr Saltzman, but since they know so little about you, it prompts gossip."
"All anyone needs to do is check the latest trash magazine for a read up on me." Damon scoffed. "I'm usually in some sort of eligible bachelor article, though I do know of one column dedicated to the tally of girls I take home each week. I think we're up to four this week, and its only Wednesday."
Bonnie clenched her jaw and looked up at him, green eyes blazing like a supernatural fire. "I wouldn't be so proud of that."
Damon met her glare with a smirk. "Doesn't matter if you are or you aren't – you don't have any say about my life."
"And thank god for that." She returned.
They stared each other down for a moment, and just as Bonnie thought that perhaps he still hadn't recognised her, something seemed to click in his brain.
"Don't I know you?"
Her stomach dropped, but she kept her composure. "I'm sure after the number of women you've been with, they all start to look the same." She snapped.
Damon was used to receiving such judging remarks, but something about this girl got under his skin. He opened his mouth to retort, to say something, anything, but she beat him to the punch.
"No need to fire me, sir." Bonnie said icily, standing up and grabbing her coat and purse. "I quit." She stormed past him and out the door, ignoring the stares of other workers.
She had gotten enough information anyway.
…
I'm done. – B
Fast work, B! – C
Might have something to do with me firing myself – B
Still, I'm proud. I'll be done in a bit, just got one more to search – C
Where's E at? – B
Flirting ;) – C
Figures :P – C
…
Caroline shut her phone, carefully letting herself into the last office – Alaric Saltzman's. It was quite stark and bare in comparison to his business partners, which set off alarms in her head. Clearly he wasn't as attached to the company as the Salvatore brothers.
Caroline searched through the bare desk and looked around everywhere available but found nothing.
That is, until she walked over a patch of flooring that echoed slightly under her feet, indicating something hollow, and she realized that she had been looking around when she should have been looking under.
Caroline carefully lifted the hidden panel, and frowned when she found…nothing.
But clearly something had been stored there, and taken out recently. There were hooks and bolts to keep whatever it had been in place. She took a photo, knowing that she could study it later at the agency.
…
"I didn't know you had a history major." Elena exclaimed.
"Its true." Stefan verified. "I had a knack for remembering events. Dates and years and so on."
"You're making me want to test you." She said, waiting for his nod in acceptance to start her questions. "I'll keep it to the year then. Pearl Harbor?"
"December 7, 1941." He answered seemingly instantly.
"Fall of the Berlin wall."
"1989"
"Civil Rights Act."
"1964"
"John F. Kennedy assassination."
"1963"
"Martin Luther King."
" '68"
"Lincoln."
"1865"
"Roe vs. Wade."
"1973"
"Brown vs. Board."
"1954"
"The battle of Gettysburg."
"1863"
"Korean war."
"1950 to 1953."
Elena paused. "I thought that ended in '52."
"Nope, '53." Stefan nodded. "I had a great uncle in that war."
"Impressive." She complimented. "My family never moved out of their little town."
"Wherabouts?" He asked.
"Mystic Falls. Its in Virginia."
"No, I know." He said. "My family had a boarding house there."
Elena paused. "You're the Salvatore family? One of the Founding Families?"
"So I'm told." Stefan said lightly. "Once my family moved from there after those fires, we didn't speak much about that town."
"Still." She said as they continued to walk. "Its interesting to see how everything connects." How we connect, she added silently in her head, but Stefan looked at her almost like he knew what she was thinking…because he was thinking the same thing too
…
Elena, ask him out! – C
Have you been spying on me again? – E
Come on, Elena. Its obvious. – B
I'll see you two trouble makers back at the agency – E
…
The girls gathered around with Chinese take-out boxes, ready for a debrief. Jenna had gone home for the evening, and Tatia would be calling at 9am the next morning as usual to keep up to date with the case, but the Angels figured it would be best to know everything straight away.
"Find out anything interesting about the younger Mr Salvatore?" Caroline fished innocently, hiding her mischievous grin with a chopstick-full of chow mein.
Elena brandished a won ton at her threateningly. "One: I know where you are heading with that, and Stefan and I are strictly professional. Two: I didn't find out anything interesting, but its clear he's hiding something."
"That might have something to do with what I found in his office." Caroline said, the smile dropping off her face.
"What did you find?" Elena asked quietly. The look on her face prompted Caroline to not tell her friend about what she had found stashed in the second book. She was sure it was nothing, anyway. And Elena looked so happy, Caroline didn't want to change that.
"Look." Caroline said to Bonnie and Elena, opening the photos she had taken on her iPhone. Bonnie, the resident tech wizard, instantly used some sort of app to transfer them onto an iPad so the images were clearer.
"Contracts between Mr Mikaelson and the company." Bonnie frowned.
"But they said they were about to do their first deal with him." Elena added.
"That's what I thought. But then I realized that the contract was a bit different…" Caroline pointed to Damon and Stefan's signatures down the bottom. "Alaric Saltzman didn't sign. And there's no mention of Daywalker International."
"So it wasn't through the company." Elena pondered. "What's the contract about?"
"Its unclear." Caroline said slowly, watching her teammembers to wait for their reaction.
Bonnie got there first. "It's a front. Whatever deal they must have been doing might not have been legal, so they used this as a front to state that there was a contract between them, but notwhat it entailed."
"In case it fell into the wrong hands." Elena added. "Interesting."
"That's not all." Bonnie interjected. "There's quite a bit of office gossip. Obviously not all true, but its got to stem from somewhere, right?"
"What have you heard?" Elena asked.
Bonnie put her chopsticks down to list the statements on her fingers. "What it boiled down to was that Stefan kept to himself, but he had a fight with Mr Mikaelson…Damon is a player that had a mix up with a woman…and Alaric is away on international business a fair bit and might be leaving the company. And there may or may not have been a woman between the two of them as well."
"Sounds like the plot for a teen soap opera." Caroline joked.
"Isn't everything nowadays?" Elena smiled.
"I can confirm the woman thing though." Caroline said. "I found a tube of womans hand cream in his desk drawers."
"I knew that man had soft baby hands." Bonnie smirked, and the other two laughed.
"It looked like it hadn't been used in a while, or like he had forgotten about it…but it still might be something. How many relationships do you know of where a woman keeps hand cream at her partners workplace office?" Caroline stated.
"Find anything else from office sleuthing?" Elena asked before turning away to grab her takeout box of noodles.
"Here." Caroline brought up the photo. "I cant for the life of me figure out what was there. Weapons? Drugs? Or just alcohol? Or maybe just documents." She sighed, resting her head against the table.
Elena glanced at the picture and frowned.
"Who has a crossbow?"
Caroline's head shot up out of her hands. "What?"
"How can you tell that?" Bonnie asked.
Elena shrugged. "My cousin Jeremy went through a phase when he was a teenager…he was convinced he was going to be a hunter, so he persuaded his dad to buy him a crossbow." She paused as Bonnie squirmed uncomfortably – clearly she wasn't quite ready to talk about Jeremy.
Elena bit her lip, and awkwardly continued on a different path. "You can tell that this is its storage box though. See, there's the hooks for it to rest on, and the safety to make sure it doesn't go off." She pointed towards a scratch. "That's where it scrapes every time he gets it out of the box, and there are a few scratches like it, so he clearly uses it often."
Caroline used the stylus to circle the scratch, a grin lighting up her face. "Elena Gilbert, you genius!"
Elena smiled in thanks. "Who does it belong to?"
"Alaric Saltzman, I believe." Caroline said, studying the photograph more intently now.
Elena faltered. "We can't tell Jenna."
Bonnie frowned. "Why?"
"She'll be heartbroken." Elena explained. "She has a business dinner with Alaric in a few days time, and she kinda likes him." She shook her head, her straight brown locks swaying. "We can't tell her unless its obvious that he's dangerous."
"But he might be a killer, Elena!" Caroline protested.
"We don't know that." Elena defended the man. "We cant just jump to conclusions."
Bonnie sighed. "She's right, Care. Even if it is a crossbow, its legal to keep modified ones. And its hunting season at the moment, which could explain why its not in the box."
"But why is it in a hidden panel in his office?" Caroline queried.
"Daywalker International openly supports and donates to PETA." Elena said, with a small smile. "It was Stefan's idea."
"Alaric might not want everyone to know he's out shooting bunnies when the company he co-founded is actively against hunting." Bonnie pointed out.
Caroline sighed. "You have a point."
"Anyway, our best lead is the half-brother." Elena said. "And he'll be attending the Dance."
Bonnie's phone started ringing, and she frowned at the unknown number that flashed up on screen.
"Hello?"
"Bonnie Bennett?"
She could feel her insides jolt just at the way he said her name, and knew that Damon was calling her. Damon Salvatore was calling her. Why was Damon Salvatore calling her?
"Everything alright, Mr Salvatore?" She asked, and Caroline and Elena straightened up in their seats and glanced at each other with raised eyebrows, knowing it must be the older brother rather than the younger.
"I think you know why I'm calling." Came the cryptic reply, and Bonnie frowned at her friends who were winking at her and pouting their lips in mock-kisses. She put down her kung pow chicken on the table and waved her hand irritably at them before ducking out of the room to take the call in the hall.
"What do you want from me?" Bonnie asked, trying to keep her tone calm and sass-free.
"I don't know, Kat. What do I want from you?" Damon said slowly.
She knew the gig was up. "It took you a while to figure out that was me today."
"I didn't expect that Tatia's Agency would need to infiltrate my workforce." He said with a mocking edge to his voice. "Clearly I underestimated the service we would be getting."
"Well then that's a mistake you wont repeat again." She snapped back. She might have a good salary, but they didn't pay her enough to put up with smug businessmen like him. And her own way of dealing with that was to snark right back at them.
She swore that she heard Damon chuckle on the other end of the line. "I think we need a fresh start, Bonnie."
"That's Miss Bennett to you, Mr Salvatore. I told you before." She said coldly.
"But I'm ignoring it. If I wanted to call you that, I would have." He sounded like he was smirking. "I asked to start over, does that not count for anything?"
Bonnie sighed. "Perhaps."
"Good." Damon paused for a moment, clearly at a loss for what to say next. She let him suffer through it. "Though you know, you could have just come to me for information, judgy, rather than go around gossiping."
She scowled. "I'll remember that next time, thank you."
Another pause. She was starting to like derailing his usual suave ways.
"Well then, I'll see you tomorrow for the meeting."
"Yes."
"Goodnight, Bonnie Bennett." Damon's voice was almost fond. It unnerved her for a change, prompting her to reply in kind.
"Goodnight," She said softly, unable to bring herself to call him by his first or last name.
Heyo!
Hope you've enjoyed this chapter :) I do apologise for the wait, but seeing as I have my most hectic schedule yet this year, I'll be giving myself an update time of every fortnight.
As for you Klaroliners, I know, where is he, why isn't he here yet, gimme gimme. Patience. He'll be here soon ;)
Hope you're enjoying the Stelena and Bamon feels in the meantime! Feel free to read and review and recommend if inclined.
xx