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“Well, not exactly. I didn’t see the cash until I was kicking and thrashing, trying to get away from the kidnapper.”
His expression darkens. “Tell me, princess. Why were you snooping in Marco’s office?”
“I…” The answer is simple, really. Simple and stupid. “I wanted answers.”
He shakes his head. “You always do.”
“It was fucking weird! All of your relatives and friends secretly working there, the police report with Brad… What role did he play in any of this?”
A pained look crosses his features as he runs a hand through his hair. “Brad was a fluke. An accident. The night we met, right before we got to the bar, we were on a drug run. We had a delivery to handle.” A somber look crosses him. “Santi was driving my car, and he was a bit excited for the evening. We were seeing some school friends we hadn’t seen in a bit.
“Santi is not the skilled driver I am. We’re driving down the main road and he decides to get testy with the speed limit. It was reckless—”
I let out a haughty laugh. “Are you serious?You’recalling him reckless?”
“He didn’t always drive like that. Say what you will, but I’ve yet to cause an accident. Anyway, he moves to get into the right lane and I start shouting because he’s about to hit a car. Santi corrects himself, but too late. I watched Brad’s car run off the road and hit that tree. I saw it all.
“Santi didn’t stop, and I knew we couldn’t. We had pounds of fent in the trunk. Do you know the risk we would take by taking fault? They could search the car if they wanted! If we got caught with that, we’d be arrested. We’d lose all the work we’d put into this investigation. Not to mention, our dad’s would have beenpissedif they found out. We called Ted the next day and he wasn’t happy, but he agreed it would have caused more paperwork and headache than any of us needed. Santi and I felt so guilty, we dropped off an envelope with cash at Brad's house.”
“Seriously? He didn’t mention that to me.”
“Yeah, well, Brad Atkins isn’t an innocent man. He’s not running drugs or anything, but he was doing some insider trading with a previous firm he worked for. I’m not sure how he was able to secure a new job with that record.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“Ted pulled the police report and ran his info in case we needed to protect ourselves. In case any witnesses reported us… I begged him for a copy of the report.”
“That’swhy you didn’t want me to date him,” I say confidently.
“Pieced that together, too, huh?”
I nod.
“That night, on New Year’s, when I saw his name, I thought ‘there’s no way it’s the same Brad.’ What were the damn chances I’d end up falling”—he clears his throat as my heart skips a beat—“hooking up with the one girl that could be connected to him?”
I shake my head in disbelief. “This world is too small. Imagine if I had mentioned Brad on the night we met? You wouldn’t have tried to hook up with me at all.”
A strange look crosses his face. “About that…”
My stomach plummets. “What?”
“Kate, I want to come clean about everything. No secrets.”
“Okay,” I say apprehensively.
“Hooking up with you that night at Rowan’s… it wasn’t an accident. I mean, I didn’t know you’d be working for Valeri Financials when we met the night before. But when I saw you, I saw you as an opportunity. I already had a mission that night. I needed to—”
“The pen,” I gasp.
His eyebrows shoot up. “How do you know about the mic?”
“That man who took me, he was waving it at me, demanding to know how I got it in the room.”
“Yeah, that’s Ron. He was actually in the room with Rowan that night. Remember when we had to hide in the closet?”
“That’s why I recognized his voice,” I realize.
“Rowan had recently moved into that house. Valeri Financials was finally doing well enough that he could prove a legal income for a new mortgage. That’s why Santi and I moved into his old house. I think Rowan got a few drinks in him and decided it was a good time to show Ron around. I didn’t know he’d be doing weekly scans of the place,” Lorenzo says bitterly.
