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“No one… None of you… Not a single person here is going to tell me what’s going on?”
Silence. Stubborn, stupid silence.
“Fine.” I release O'Cronin and straighten my sleeves. “You do what you must, gentlemen. I’ll do the same.”
Sofi remains blessedly silent the entire parade out of the club, until we get back into the cars. “What now?” she asks once we’re heading for the office.
I’m too pissed to talk. All I want to do is throttle Brennan until his pudgy head pops, but I have to settle for white-knuckling the steering wheel instead.
“That fucking weasel.” I rub a frustrated hand over my jaw, then slam that same hand on the steering wheel. “He was right there! We had him. Right. Fucking. There.”
“Want me to add surveillance to O'Cronin and the others? Clearly, someone is whispering in their ears.”
It’s tempting. Too tempting. “No. Keep as much manpower as possible close to home. If shit’s going down, I don’t want our forces too spread to withstand an ambush.”
“You think it’s that bad?”
Again, I don’t know. I hate not knowing. It’s my job to know everything. I am not one to be kept in the dark; I am the one who rules it.
Even so… I sigh and slump back in my seat. “We need to act as if it is. Until we know who has that much pull over that many senators, everyone is an enemy. Everything is a threat.”
43
DAPHNE
“Daphne, yes. Please come in.” Keith gestures for me to enter his office, where Todd is also waiting. “We’ll make this quick.”
My baby flutters and kicks inside my womb, but it’s nothing compared to the knot forming inside my stomach. “What’s up?”
Todd clears his throat and glances at his brother. “It’s not that we want?—”
“What we want,” Keith cuts in with a sharp glance back, “is for you to maintain some semblance of propriety while you are under our employ.”
I swallow. It feels like I’m about to be fired.
“We cater to exclusive, dare I say elite, clientele who expect us to conduct ourselves discreetly and appropriately.” Keith leans against the desk and fixes his disapproving stare just below my eyes. “What you do on your own time is none of our business. But it also is not our clients’ business, either. Flaunting your… dalliances, shall we say, is unacceptable. And highly unprofessional.”
My fingertips graze the necklace at the base of my throat. Seriously? “This? This is what’s bothering you?”
“You have a giant hickey on your neck.” Todd sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “There’s another one on the other side, just not as big.”
Fire bursts in my cheeks.
Oh my God.
“I didn’t—I am so sorry!” I pat my dress and glance around. Obviously, I don’t have a compact mirror with me. “I didn’t realize!”
Now, Todd is the one to shoot his brother a glare. “I told you,” he mutters. To me, he offers a tight smile and nods at the door. “I believe what Keith means to say is, we are happy for you, especially after everything you’ve been through. But please, keep it covered? We want the paintings to be on display, not your sex life.”
“Of course.” I self-consciously try to cover the marks on my neck. “I’ll go take care of this right now.”
I can’t run out of that office fast enough. I told him! I knew this was going to happen! But no, Pasha and his stupid alpha-male, chest-beating ego just have to insist I walk around looking like some vampire’s mistress.
It takes effort not to slam my own office door shut. Once it’s closed, I march over to my desk and grab my phone.
ME: I’m sorry, but I have to cover these up.
I send him a selfie of the biggest hickey, making sure he can see how glaringly obvious it is.
