Page 176 of The Monster and the Masochist

“Sure. I’ll see if she has some availability.”

Vivian smiled brightly. “Excellent! Once we have the details ironed out, I’d like you both to attend if you can. Cassandra, you should bring that lovely wife of yours. I’d love a chance to finally meet her.”

Despite the insane emotional roller coaster that this day had become, my stomach warmed at Vivian’s decision to include partners at the fundraiser.

Both my monster and I preened at the thought of parading Theo around on my arm and making sure the entire fucking world saw that she belonged to us.

Plus, it meant I was going to get to dress her up.

I’d only ever seen her in gym clothes and that one off-the-rack suit she’d worn to our wedding.

Oh my god. I couldn’t wait to put her in Dior… Or maybe Tom Ford!?

The possibilities were endless.

Fuck. She was going to look so damn good.

My mouth was watering just thinking about it.

I smiled at Vivian and nodded.

“We’d love to attend,” I replied politely as I prepared to leave as well.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be there, too,” Nolan muttered, though he was clearly still feeling a little salty.

He barely looked at Edmund on his way out, and the older man sighed, mumbling something to himself about early retirement.

“I’ll talk to him,” I said, giving Edmund and Vivian a meaningful look. “He’s just a little shaken up. Give him time.”

Edmund nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“I don’t understand why people can’t just leave the fucking kids alone. Jesus Christ. It feels like every day there’s another story about some rich asshole out there touching kids. That video is going to haunt me until the day I die.”

Fucking same, Ed. Fucking same.

Obviously, I didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I just nodded in agreement and turned to leave.

What a long fucking day.

“Cassandra?” Vivian called, and I glanced back at her, doing my best to keep my face devoid of any emotion.

Vivian smiled at me. “Good work. I knew he was hiding something from us. The initiative you showed here may have saved us from a PR nightmare we might have never recovered from.”

I lifted a shoulder, both unimpressed yet unsurprised by her parting words.

“Anything for the firm,” I replied dryly before following Nolan out to help him with the termination letter I was sure he was already drafting up.

Once that was done, I had my work cut out for me.

I needed to ask Vox to figure out how involved the attorney general really was with the reverend’s church. I needed to understand just how deep this went.

Knowing how many cops, judges, and public officials Cal’s old boss from Apex had on his payroll, I wasn’t naive enough to believe it was impossible that the reverend was involved in some sort of human trafficking operation that just hadn’t surfaced yet.

I needed more information before I made a move. So, unfortunately, I would need to wait before I got to kill anybody.

But I would get him.

Something about all this just felt so brutally personal, and I was so tired of fighting the bloodlust I’d been burying deep inside me for the majority of my life.