Chapter 16: What about Leila Williams?

Meanwhile, at Grey House, Christian had just begun the meeting he'd rescheduled with his security heads after missing the 9 a.m. meeting.

"What do you have on Leila Williams?" Christian asked the men seated in front of him. To his right was Jason Taylor, head of personal security. To his left was Alex Welch, head of corporate security at both GEH and Miles Down Under. Directly in front of him sat Barney Sullivan, the head of cybersecurity at GEH and pretty much anything else Christian needed him to do, including Miles Down Under. The three of them were the best in the country when it came to matters of security, and at the moment, Leila Williams was probably Christian's biggest security threat.

The moment he'd gotten off the phone with BB on Thursday morning at around 4 a.m., Christian had briefed Taylor. He'd spoken to Welch on the phone from the car on the way to his breakfast meeting with BB and Anastasia. He'd been texting with Barney as well. Taylor was taking the lead, since this was primarily an issue of personal security, but the three of them were working as a team on "Operation Manuscript."

Taylor replied, "Ms. Williams still lives at the condo you purchased her in Capitol Hill. She still drives the Audi A6. She finished art school, which you paid for, and she's employed at the Sticks and Stones Gallery in Ballard. She is not in a current... umm... relationship. Her last one ended three months ago. The manuscript was submitted by Ms. Williams via FedEx to managing editor Lydia Montoya at Bennington Steele Publishing House. Mrs. Sally Jacobson, the assistant to Ms. Montoya, signed for the manuscript on Monday of this week."

"Where is Ms. Williams right now?" Christian asked.

"She's at a coffee shop on Leary Avenue, about a two minute walk from her workplace. She's scheduled to work at 12:30 p.m. to cover an event at the gallery this afternoon," Taylor answered.

"Did she drive her car to work?" Christian asked.

"Affirmative, sir," Taylor replied.

"I want it repossessed. It's in your name, right?" Christian asked Taylor.

"Yes, they all were, sir," Taylor answered. "We never put any of their names on the titles of the cars or condos. I'll send Ryan to get it from the parking garage where Ms. Williams parked it."

"Good. I want you to pay her a visit at her workplace this afternoon, just after she gets there. Give her a message for me. Number one, I'm repossessing the car and the condo. She has one week to move out of the condo. Exactly one week from today, I will have the locks on her condo changed, and she will not have access after that. Number two, as she is in violation of the non-disclosure agreement that she signed with me, she is now expected to pay back every cent of the tuition that I paid for her, due immediately. Give her a copy of the agreement to refresh her memory. Number three, if she shares that fucking manuscript with anyone else, I'll bury her."

"Mr. Grey, I strongly advise you against making any death threats," Welch said. "I'm sure you aren't serious, but she doesn't know that. What are you going to do if she fucking reports you to the police?"

"Oh, but I am serious," Christian insisted. "OK, I don't mean literally bury her. I don't mean I'm going to kill her, so make sure it doesn't sound like a death threat, Taylor. You're right, Welch, I don't want to deal with the fucking police. But Taylor, make sure she knows that I'm serious about making sure she can't find a job in the state of Washington, not even at fucking Wal-mart, and especially not in her chosen field. I have the connections to insure that nobody in the artist community ever gives her a second glance, and she can say goodbye to any dreams she ever had of having a successful career as an artist. All it will take is a few phone calls... unless she turns over all copies she has of that fucking manuscript and gives every assurance that she has not nor will not share it with anyone else other than the staff of Bennington Steele Publishing House. Ms. Williams has to learn that if she chooses to take me on, she is going to pay the consequences."

"Yes, sir," Taylor responded.

Christian asked, "Barney, what do you have on her?" Barney had been tasked with monitoring Ms. Williams' online activity.

Barney answered, "Only $22,500 in credit card debt. Well, that and ongoing correspondence with 'Mistress' Elena Lincoln and another one of your former submissives, Susanna Knight."

Welch groaned inwardly, not at all surprised at what he was hearing. As head of security not only of GEH but also of Down Under, he'd been required to deal with Mistress Elena on more than one occasion. In fact, he'd been certain that Mrs. Lincoln had been involved in the child porn scandal, when Vincent Wolfe had been arrested. Welch thought it was funny, but not the ha ha kind, that Wolfe had been known at Down Under as "the Big Bad Wolf" and had even worn a hideous wolf mask as part of his costume, which Welch considered extremely poor taste, as apparently did the boss. However, Wolfe hadn't violated any rules with his tacky costume. His rule violations had come with being arrested for producing and sharing child porn. And Welch had been certain that if he or Barney had dug just a little, they would have found a direct link between Mrs. Lincoln and Mr. Wolfe.

At the time, Christian had instructed both Barney and Welch to leave it alone. But now, his attitude seemed to be changing. Welch hoped so, anyway. Maybe it wasn't too late for them to find an electronic trail that would prove Welch's suspicions at the time to be true.

Christian's frown deepened. "What kind of correspondence?"

"I've compiled the email exchanges in question and sent them to your email in an encrypted message, sir," Barney told him. "You'll find that Mrs. Lincoln has been... well, how do I put it? It looks like she's been coaching Ms. Williams on how to get your attention, to get you back, in their words."

"That's insane," Christian responded. "I never take submissives back after I terminate their contracts. They both know that. I've made it very clear in my contracts."

Barney snorted. "Yeah, well, I'm not so sure they understand that, or maybe you're right about the insane part. Anyway, the correspondence between Ms. Williams and Ms. Knight is extensive. They appear to be friends. It appears that Ms. Knight wrote part of the manuscript and gave it to Ms. Williams. The emails provide evidence. It doesn't appear that Ms. Knight had any intentions of publishing it or letting Ms. Williams take credit for it. It's unlikely she knows about the complete manuscript at all."

"That confirms Anastasia's suspicions," Christian said more to himself than to them. He wondered what else she was right about. To that end, he asked Welch, "What about Elena Lincoln? Have you finished the audit?" On Monday of this week, after Elena had pissed him off when she'd insisted that he was forgetting what it meant to be a Dominant and suggested that she herself could sub for him to remind him how to do it, Christian had ordered Welch to oversee an audit that he'd tasked his Finance team with performing on her beauty salon, which Christian had been backing financially since she'd opened it a little over three years ago.

Welch replied, "Mr. Zhang says they'll be finished by the end of today. They've already uncovered two things that are... well, pretty fucking alarming, to say the least. Zhang has enough evidence for both already, but he believes there's more that he'll find in his ongoing investigation today."

"What two things?" Christian asked impatiently.

"Well, first of all, Mrs. Lincoln has been embezzling from you." Welch stopped there, certain that Christian was going to hit the roof before he had a chance to continue. Christian Grey was well known for keeping his calm in business meetings, but when he was alone with his three most trusted security heads, whom he regarded almost like friends, but not quite, he often "let his hair down" so to speak. As expected, Welch was not disappointed with Christian's response.

"What the hell do you mean, she's been embezzling from me?" Christian asked angrily.

Welch explained, "Every month, an electronic transfer of $10,000 is made from GEH to Esclava salons."

"I agreed to that for a five year time period," Christian explained, more calmly but still visibly angry. "She knew the salons wouldn't bring in enough revenue in the first few years to cover all their expenses. It goes mostly to pay the rent in three of her salons. We're in the third year of that agreement now. After five years, she'll begin to repay it. She has two more years."

Welch responded dryly, "I'm sure you didn't agree for Mrs. Lincoln to transfer that money to an offshore account."

"What!?" Christian shouted. "All of it?"

"Yes, sir," Welch affirmed. "Every month, a wire transfer of exactly $10,000 is sent from Esclava Salons to an account in the Cayman Islands. This has been the pattern for the past 38 months."

"How the hell has she been paying her rent!?" Christian spat out the question.

"Well, that brings us to number two," Welch replied calmly. He didn't feel calm though, because he knew Christian was going to lose his shit when he found out what he was about to tell him.

"Well, what is it?" Christian asked. His tone was the most irritated that Welch had ever heard him, and he'd known Christian for a few years now, so that was saying a lot.

"Money laundering, sir," Welch stated as impassively as possible. "According to her books at Esclava, there doesn't appear to be any reason for her to need money from GEH to cover her rent. They're making a boatload. But on closer inspection, things are not as they appear. Several accounts have clearly been padded... adjusted to reflect more income than can possibly be accurate. She clearly has other sources of revenue that she's channeling into the salons."

"Do you have evidence to prove that?" Christian asked angrily.

"A fucking lot of evidence," Welch snapped right back at him. "But none that we obtained... the usual way. Not just by looking at Esclava's books. We had to dig a little deeper. Surely you've noticed that you aren't the only Dominant to use her... umm... services. Her bank account shows monthly transfers from three gentlemen of your acquaintance who are members of Down Under, and several others whose names I don't recognize. There are also a few... rather large payments from these same gentlemen."

"What are you getting at?" Christian asked impatiently.

Welch sighed. Here goes nothing. "Everything I've told you so far, I can prove, although I'm not sure you can use it all... legally, if you choose to sue her ass. What I'm about to suggest I can't prove. At least not yet. Not without further investigation."

"OK, what do you suspect?" Christian asked more calmly.

"Child porn. All three of these bastards were friendly with the asshole that you kicked out of the club a few months ago for child porn charges. I think they're all doing the same damn thing but just haven't gotten caught yet. And I think she's providing the kids. And I think the large sums appear in her bank account each time she's provided them with an underage submissive. Otherwise, at least with the three assholes I mentioned, they pay her a monthly fee to keep them supplied with the women you see them with, who she helps gain membership to Down Under through her... err... friendship with you. When a grown-ass woman doesn't do it for them, they pay her extra to get them a kid, which you, of course, never see, because they can't exactly bring them into the club."

Christian didn't say anything for a few moments. He stood up from where he'd been seated behind his desk and strode to the window, rubbing his face as he went. This was exactly what Anastasia had told him she also suspected. Did everybody know shit about Elena Lincoln that he'd refused to believe?

He couldn't get Anastasia's voice out of his head. "She's evil, Sir."

Was Elena really that evil? Was she exposing more children to BDSM, and not only bad boys like himself who'd been mature for his age and needed the discipline, but innocent little girls? He thought he'd been the only child she'd exposed to this shit, and only because she considered him special. Had that all been a lie? BB had always suggested that she was manipulating him, and BB was usually right about people. Christian had just chosen to ignore his friend all these years because he thought BB was jealous of Elena because he'd always had a thing for him.

Christian ran his fingers through his hair before he asked Welch, "What do you need to do to find out if your suspicions are true?"

"Well, we already have a tail on her," Welch answered. "That started Monday. What I'd like to do is put a few bugs in her house, especially in that dungeon of hers. Both audio and video."

Christian cringed at the thought of that dungeon, the same one where he'd lost his own innocence, and where he'd experienced some of the most excruciating moments of torture of his life, and not much pleasure now that he stopped to think about it. Why had he continued with it for so long? It had been years since he'd stepped foot in there, but the memories were vivid.

"Do it," Christian ordered. "As for the fraud... I expect the full report by Monday morning. It sounds like we already have grounds to pull all our funding from her. Within the week, I want to cut all ties with her. Stop the wire transfers, effective immediately. The next one isn't due for another couple of weeks. Before that time, I want to make sure GEH isn't tied in any way to any of her illegal activities. We're going to blow the whistle on Mrs. Lincoln, but not until we're sure that we're clean of her. If all this shit is true... then I wouldn't put it past her to attempt to entrap me somehow. Make sure she can't. I haven't broken any laws or been complicit with this shit she's been doing. Make sure that's how it appears.

"Yes, sir," Welch and Barney responded together.

"You know what, Welch?" Christian asked as he recalled a conversation from a few months ago. "I remember you mentioning something back when shit hit the fan with Vincent Wolfe. You suspected her then. Did you investigate her?"

Welch's face turned red as he answered, "No, because you told me not to."

Christian nodded. "Yeah, I remember. I think I was..." He paused and shook his head. Turning to Barney, he asked, "Do you think you could go back and see if they were connected, if they left an electronic trail?"

"Of course," Barney agreed.

Welch could hardly believe his ears. Had Christian Grey just almost admitted to being wrong? And was he now ordering Barney to do the very thing that Welch had considered suggesting?

"Good idea, Sir," he answered impassively. Inside, he was jumping for joy. The boss was finally coming to his senses about that fucking bitch.

"Good," Christian said. "And Barney, see what you can find online on those other assholes as well. If you find any evidence to confirm your suspicions of child porn, you know the number to call, just as you did with Wolfe. But again, make sure we're not implicated for anything if either of you end up breaking any laws to look into them."

"Of course," Welch replied.

"Sure thing, Boss," Barney agreed.

Christian continued. "And Welch, when you have a chance, I want you to take a closer look at our bylaws for Down Under. I need to get rid of some submissives, but I want to do it without violating any of our rules."

"Is it safe to assume that it's... your previous submissives... that you want to retract membership privileges from?" Welch asked. He was hoping that the boss was serious about wanting to get rid of all those fake women.

"Yes," Christian answered. "I want them out. The only submissive I'm interested in going forward is Princess Rose. Make sure she gets all the top privileges."

"Yes, sir," Welch replied. He couldn't hide the smile on his face. He would take delight in finding a way to get rid of those bitches.