Wolf was her boyfriend. God. She had a boyfriend. She hadn’t had a boyfriend in ten years. She’d had a piece-of-crap husband but no relationship she would even vaguely call affectionate.
Except her friendship with Leo. She looked across the room, and he still stood watching. She gave him a little smile. He would always have a place in her heart. He’d given her the strength to break free. He’d been the thing she was striving for as she’d fought her way back to life. And he’d given her the keys to find what she needed.
His face changed, going from stony to sad in an instant as though he recognized that what they had was now irrevocably changed.
“Hey, babe,” Wolf said, getting her attention. “Great scene. Let’s go get cleaned up and grab a beer.” He held his hand up.
And her boyfriend proved he was a very silly man. She gave him what he wanted. A damn high five. He’d high-fived her in appreciation of her sexual services.
She caught sight of Leo, smacking his forehead with his hand and shaking his head.
She couldn’t help but smile. At least Wolf Meyer wasn’t perfect. He grabbed her hand and with a wink led her out of the dungeon.
“I want the bitch dead,” a feminine voice said, pulling him away from his thoughts.
Mitchell Cross sighed as his wife walked in the room. He leaned back over and finished the line he’d started, the cocaine just beginning to work in his system. “I’m handling it, Brenda.”
Brenda had started losing her looks years before, but she’d fought it with every dime Cross had. God, her fucking plastic surgeon was one of the reasons he’d been forced to make deals with men like Steve Holder.
Brenda huffed a little. “You’re not doing anything, Mitchell. You’re pathetic. It’s just like everything else. I end up having to do it all myself. Did you use it all? Or do you have a stash for that whore you call an intern?”
He sighed. He actually was keeping a little for Stephanie. She was so much more willing to go down on him when she’d had a little snort. But between his dick getting some happy action and being forced to listen to his wife harp on him, his dick always lost. “It’s in my desk.”
Brenda’s expression never changed. That wasn’t surprising. She had enough Botox running through her system that Cross was pretty sure he could stab her and she would still have that blank, wide-eyed look on her face as she went down, her trout lips still in a slight smile because they didn’t move anymore, either. She pulled out the small plastic bag quick enough.
“What are you waiting for? If you kill that bitch decorator, everything will be over. We won’t have to worry about that damn tape coming out.”
He wasn’t even sure there was a fucking tape. But the timing was right. If there was even the possibility that the tape could get leaked, he had to take the chance and eliminate the threat. “I told you I’ll handle it. It’s been fourteen months. If she was going to come after us, she probably would have already.”
Brenda snorted the cocaine, the nasal sound turning Cross’s stomach. When she came back up, she sniffled and massaged her nose. The nose had work done on it, too. One of these damn days it was going to fall off, and he’d be charged with buying her another one. “I wouldn’t have come after you.”
“Why do you say that, dear?” God, he wanted to be alone. Her voice had started to haunt his dreams, and he couldn’t get rid of her. She still played well to his constituency.
“I would have waited. Look, Mitchell, if you think about it for two seconds, it makes sense. She had a lot of heat on her after that drug lord took her husband out. She was lucky someone was willing to pay for a lawyer because the way I understand it, the feds came in and froze all of her assets. She still hasn’t gotten most of it back.”
“Yes, so the bitch needs money.” And it would make sense to come after his since he’d paid her husband so quickly to stop the release of his little sex tape. “She would have come after us.”
Brenda shook her perfectly coiffed head. “With all those agents still looking at her? I don’t think so. I would have waited until some of the heat died down. That woman had the press all over her. When was she supposed to set up a new blackmailing circle? Not if she has a brain in her head. She got off. She was probably nervous, but I doubt she’ll stay that way for long. When everything calms down, we’ll get one of those nasty e-mails.”
God, he hoped she was wrong, but she made sense. “We don’t even know the tape exists.”
“And we don’t know it doesn’t. Obviously the feds don’t have it or you would be in jail, dear. They might not give a damn about your two-inch cock, but they would care about the fact that you accepted a half a million dollars to push a contract for security through the committee. They would damn straight care that those men are using their role in security to run drugs and blood diamonds out of Africa.”
Nausea rolled in his stomach. He could see the tabloid headlines. He could see the arrest warrants. How was he going to pay the blackmail on this? He was rapidly running out of money and there wasn’t an upcoming election where he could milk his constituents for funds. That was a year away. He was fucked.
He was fucked. God. He was going to go to prison.
“You’re going to prison.” Brenda sounded almost excited at the prospect. There was still a little line of white powder on the desk. She scraped it up with her manicured finger and indelicately spread it on her gums.
“Well, maybe you should switch to the cheap stuff, darling,” he said, venom dripping from his tongue. “Because if I end up in jail, you won’t have a dime to your name.”
“Daddy’s company still pays me well,” she said with a sigh. “Still, I wouldn’t like to think about what this little scandal would do to the family name. We have children, you know.”
They had two piece-of-shit boys who could barely spell their own names, much less keep out of trouble. They were utterly worthless, but they were somewhat attractive and looked good on the yearly Christmas photo. He had his family-friendly photo op with them once a year and then he was able to happily send their asses back to boarding school.
Which he also wouldn’t be able to pay for if this decorator bitch decided to milk him for cash he didn’t have.
“I’m taking care of it.” Brenda’s words dropped like a ticking bomb.
“What have you done?” Cross asked, considering for the first time if he wouldn’t be better off without her. Sometimes accidents happened, after all. Sometimes a poor woman with a hidden addiction got some bad coke and overdosed. A grieving husband made for good news.
“I handled it,” she repeated.
Fuck a god damn duck. He stood and took her by both shoulders, shaking her. Even through the Botox, he was able to see some small amount of fear in her eyes. “You tell me what you did.”
She pulled away, trying to straighten her designer dress. “I hired someone to take care of it. That bitch is going to meet a few nice men tonight. I’ve had them tracking her for a couple of days. The minute she leaves that building she works in, she’s not going to be a problem anymore.”
She was going to fuck everything up. “I already put someone on this.”
“And he’s taking too long. You talked to that asshole days ago and she’s still out there. My guys are going to move fast. They are being paid to go through her apartment and find what we need, then they’re going to kill her and the problem will be solved and we don’t have to worry about it ever again.” She reached for a cigarette, lighting it with some designer lighter that had probably cost him more than a fucking car. “Now run along, Mitchell. I’ve handled it. I think if you hurry, you can catch Stephanie before she finishes for the day.”